Cathedral Cities of France

As a Cathedral city, Paris hardly comes within the scheme of this book. It has been written about so much and so often, and occupies, both architecturally and historically, such...

Rouen is a town with two faces, ancient and modern, and the face which it apparently considers the most becoming is the modern one. The ancient, historic face, which the town wo...

We read of Bayeux--before going there--as a place where many went but few stayed, because of the towns behind and before; memories of Caen and Lisieux, expectations of Coutances...

Meaux is a beautifully situated little town on the banks of the Marne some thirty miles from Paris, on the way to the Champagne country. Its general appearance can best be gathe...

“We passed Lâon in the dark,” is a confession frequently made by travellers. The Geneva express used to stop here for dinner, and during the brief interval allowed for coffee an...

The Senones, who settled on the banks of the river Yonne and founded the city of Agenticum, which we know to-day as Sens, were one of the most influential people in Gaul--even t...

“The thought that the name of the city itself is most likely to call up is that of the Maid who, born far away from Orléans, has taken its name as a kind of surname.... We have...

In very early days there was in Northern Gaul a little city on a hill-top, with a river running below, and this city was called Briovira, after the name of the river Vire. But i...

From Nevers an expedition to Moulins is quite practicable, and the traveller _en route_ to Limoges may think it worth his while to pay a visit to this town, which stands as a mo...

Boulogne is perhaps too near the starting point to arrest the outward-bound traveller; he ranks it with Calais, Dieppe, and Havre, as a place to be passed through as quickly as...

So much has been said and written of the Loire country during the past fifty years that the modern writer has very little ground left to him, unless it be to avoid calling it th...

“Each land and city,” says Freeman, “has its special characteristics which distinguish it from others. One is famous for its church and its bishops, another for its commonwealth...

La Rochelle calls to mind two things principally: first, the great resistance of the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, and then the siege and the expeditions under Buckingham...

“Chartres,” says Mr. Henry James, “gives us an impression of extreme antiquity, but it is an antiquity that has gone down in the world.” It may be this very decadence that has k...

If Le Mans marks the first stage from Normandy upon the southward road, Angers may certainly be counted as another stepping-stone to the lands of the Loire--another landmark in...

We left Rouen by a “quick” train, that is, one which occupied itself in stopping at every wayside station that caught its fancy. However, this mattered little, as the road to Ev...

Angoulême has at a distance more the appearance of an Italian than of a French town. The heavy red pantiles, the campanile and dome of the Cathedral, the little terraces sloping...

There are in France to-day three distinct classes of cities--one might even add, of cathedral cities--and as the bishopric is a dignity far more usual in France than in England,...