perhaps the majority is in the sacristy of the parish church, and in
that at Gapennes care was taken not to undermine the tower of the
church. M. de Carpentin, who explored and reported on the excavation at
Gapennes, remarks on the care taken to so distribute the chalk brought
up from these passages and vaults that no heaps were anywhere visible.

"The motive that can have induced the undertaking of such an extensive
work can only have been that necessity drove the inhabitants to create
for themselves a refuge in time of war." In it he found two pieces of
common pottery, a lock and a hinge of iron, some straw and leather
soles of women's shoes. He adds: "At the entrance of several of the
chambers the stone is worked to receive doors, and here portions of
decayed wood were found. And many of the chambers had their walls
blackened by smoke as of lamps."

At Naours in Somme, the underground galleries have been explored
thoroughly; there are several circular chambers for stores, and corn
has been found in them, also fourteen gold coins of Charles VI or Louis
XIV. In all there are 201 galleries and 300 chambers and the labyrinth
extends to the distance of 6000 feet. At Santerre, which possesses
three of these refuges, that portion of its territory was called
_Territorium Sanctae Libertatis_.

The north-east of France, Picardy and Artois, were always exposed to
attack from pirates by sea, Northmen and Saxon, and from invaders over
the border. But none of these can have exceeded in barbarity that of
1635 to 1641, when Spanish armies--the first under John de Werth and
Piccolomini, 40,000 in number, and made up of Germans, Hungarians,
Croats as well as Spaniards--poured over the provinces committing the
most frightful atrocities. And precisely to this period some of the