Then there is that unbroken line by which St. Martin came, I think, when
he rode into Amiens, and at the gate of the town cut his cloak in two to
cover the beggar. It drives across country for Roye and on to Noyon, the
old centre of the Kings. It is a great modern road all the way, and it
stretches before you mile after mile after mile, until suddenly, without
explanation and for no reason, it ends sharply, like the life of a man.
It ends on the slopes of the hill called Choisy, at the edge of the wood
which is there. And seek as you will, you will never find it again.

From that road also, near Amiens, branches out another, whose object was
St. Quentin, first as a great high road, lost in the valley of the
Somme, a lesser road again, still in one strict alignment, it reaches on
to within a mile of Vermand, and there it stops dead. I do not think
that between Vermand and St. Quentin you will find it. Go out
north-westward from Vermand and walk perhaps five miles, or seven: there
is no trace of a road, only the rare country lanes winding in and out,
and the open plough of the rolling land. But continue by your compass so
and you will come (suddenly again and with no apparent reason for its
abrupt origin) upon the dead straight line that ran from the capital of
the Nervii, three days' march and more, and pointing all the time
straight at Vermand.

And so it is throughout the province and its neighbourhood. Here and
there, as at Bavai, a great capital has decayed. Here and there (but
more rarely), a town wholly new has sprung up since the Romans, but the
plan of the country is the same as that which they laid down, and the
roads as you discover them, mark it out and establish it. The armies
that you see marching to-day in their manoeuvres follow for half a
morning the line which was taken by the Legions.