THE BIBLE OF AMIENS

CHAPTER I

BY THE RIVERS OF WATERS1

1. THE intelligent English traveller, in this fortunate age for him, is aware that, half-way between Boulogne and Paris, there is a complex railway-station, into which his train, in its relaxing speed, rolls him with many more than the average number of bangs and bumps prepared, in the access of every important French gare, to startle the drowsy or distrait passenger into a sense of his situation.

He probably also remembers that at this halting-place in mid-journey there is a well-served buffet, at which he has the privilege of "Dix minutes d'arrêt."

He is not, however, always so distinctly conscious that these ten minutes of arrest are granted to him within not so many minutes' walk of the central square of a city which was once the Venice of France.

2. Putting the lagoon islands out of question, the French River-Queen was nearly as large in compass as Venice herself; and divided, not by slow currents of ebbing and returning tide, but by eleven beautiful trout streams, of which some four or five are as large, each separately, as our Surrey Wandle, or as Isaac Walton's Dove; and which, branching out of one strong current above the city, and uniting again after they have eddied through its streets, are bordered, as they flow down, (fordless except where the

2

[Song of Solomon, v. 12.]

[For other references to the Wandle, see Vol. XVIII. p. 385, and the first chapter of Præterita.]

2

two Edwards rode them, the day before Crécy,1) to the sands of St. Valery, by groves of aspen, and glades of poplar, whose grace and gladness seem to spring in every stately avenue instinct with the image of the just man's life," Erit tanquam lignum quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum." 3

But the Venice of Picardy owed her name, not to the beauty of her streams merely, but to their burden. She was a worker, like the Adriatic princess, in gold and glass, in stone, wood, and ivory; she was skilled like an Egyptian in the weaving of fine linen; dainty as the maids of Judah in divers colours of needlework. And of these, the fruits of her hands, praising her in her own gates, she sent also portions to stranger nations, and her fame went out into all lands.*

"Un réglement de l'échevinage, du 12me avril 1566, fait voir qu'on fabriquait à cette époque [à Amiens, des satins changeants damassés,]5 des velours de toutes couleurs pour meubles, des colombettes à grands et petits carreaux; des burailles croisées, qu'on expédiait en Allemagne, en Espagne, en Turquie et en Barbarie !"*

All-coloured velvets, pearl-iridescent colombettes! (I wonder what they may be?) and sent to vie with the variegated carpet of the Turk, and glow upon the arabesque towers of Barbary! Was not this a phase of provincial Picard life which an intelligent English traveller might do well to inquire into? Why should this fountain

* M. H. Dusevel, Histoire de la Ville d'Amiens. Amiens, Caron et Lambert, 1848; p. 305. [Vol. i. p. 533, ed. 1832.]

† Carpaccio trusts for the chief splendour of any festa in cities to the patterns of the draperies hung out of windows."

1 [See Vol. XIX. p. 244 n.]

[Compare, on the grace of the poplars of Amiens, Vol. V. p. 237, and Vol. VI. p. 423.]

3 [Psalms i. 3; quoted also in Lectures on Art, § 118 (Vol. XX. p. 109).] [See Judges v. 30; Proverbs xxxi. 31; 1 Chronicles xiv. 17.]

[The words now inserted in brackets in the above quotation were omitted by Ruskin. He takes "colombettes" to mean little doves (hence "pearl-iridescent"). "Colombelles" is, however, the word which bears that meaning. Littré throws no light on the use of "colombettes" (ordinarily meaning a kind of mushroom) or colombelles" in the present connexion.]

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[Compare Vol. XXIV. pp. 342-343.]

of rainbows leap up suddenly here by Somme; and a little Frankish maid write herself the sister of Venice, and the servant of Carthage and of Tyre?

3. And if she, why not others also of our northern villages? Has the intelligent traveller discerned anything, in the country, or in its shores, on his way from the gate of Calais to the gare of Amiens, of special advantage for artistic design, or for commercial enterprise? He has seen league after league of sandy dunes. dunes. We also, we, have our sands by Severn, by Lune, by Solway. He has seen extensive plains of useful and not unfragrant peat,—an article sufficiently accessible also to our Scotch and Irish industries. He has seen many a broad down and jutting cliff of purest chalk; but, opposite, the perfide Albion gleams no whit less blanche beyond the blue. Pure waters he has seen, issuing out of the snowy rock; but are ours less bright at Croydon, at Guildford, or at Winchester? And yet one never heard of treasures sent from Solway sands to African; nor that the builders at Romsey could give lessons in colour to the builders at Granada? What can it be, in the air or the earth-in her stars or in her sunlight that fires the heart and quickens the eyes of the little white-capped Amienoise soubrette, till she can match herself against Penelope?1

4. The intelligent English traveller has of course no time to waste on any of these questions. But if he has bought his ham-sandwich, and is ready for the "En voiture, messieurs," he may perhaps condescend for an instant to hear what a lounger about the place, neither wasteful of his time, nor sparing of it, can suggest as worth looking at, when his train glides out of the station.

He will see first, and doubtless with the respectful admiration which an Englishman is bound to bestow upon such objects, the coal-sheds and carriage-sheds of the station itself, extending in their ashy and oily splendours for about a quarter of a mile out of the town; and then, just as the 1 [Compare "The Story of Arachue," § 18 (Vol. XX. p. 375).]

train gets into speed, under a large chimney tower, which he cannot see to nearly the top of, but will feel overcast by the shadow of its smoke, he may see, if he will trust his intelligent head out of the window, and look back, fifty or fifty-one (I am not sure of my count to a unit) similar chimneys, all similarly smoking, all with similar works attached, oblongs of brown brick wall, with portholes numberless of black square window. But in the midst of these fifty tall things that smoke, he will see one, a little taller than any, and more delicate, that does not smoke;1 and in the midst of these fifty masses of blank wall, enclosing "works"-and doubtless producing works profitable and honourable to France and the world-he will see one mass of wall-not blank, but strangely wrought by the hands of foolish men of long ago, for the purpose of enclosing or producing no manner of profitable work whatsoever, but one

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This is the work of God; that ye should believe on Him whom He hath sent!" 2

5. Leaving the intelligent traveller now to fulfil his vow of pilgrimage to Paris, or wherever else God may be sending him, I will suppose that an intelligent Eton boy or two, or thoughtful English girl, may care quietly to walk with me as far as this same spot of commanding view, and to consider what the workless-shall we say also worthless?-building, and its unshadowed minaret, may perhaps farther mean.

Minaret I have called it, for want of better English word. Flèche-arrow-is its proper name; vanishing into the air you know not where, by the mere fineness of it. Flameless-motionless-hurtless-the fine arrow; unplumed, unpoisoned, and unbarbed; aimless-shall we say also, readers young and old, travelling or abiding? It, and the

[Compare Crown of Wild Olive, § 73 (Vol. XVIII. p. 448).]

John vi. 29.]

[Some part of The Bible of Amiens had originally been given as a lecture at Eton College: see the Bibliographical Note, above, p. 5.]