Chapter 5

IN THE SOMME

Amiens--Picardy Old and New--Arthur Young and Charles James Fox in Amiens--'The look of a capital'--The floating gardens of Amiens--A stronghold of Boulangism--Protest of Amiens against the Terror of 1792--The French nation and the Commune of Paris--Vergniaud denounces the Parisians as the 'slaves of the vilest scoundrels alive'--Gambetta and his balloon--Amiens and the Revolution of September 1870--The rise of M. Goblet--The 'great blank credit opened to the Republic in 1870'--What has become of it--The Prussians in Amiens--Warlike spirit of the Picards--A political portrait of M. Goblet by a fellow citizen--A Roman son and his father's funeral--A typical Republican senator and mayor--How M. Petit demolished the crosses in the cemetery--M. Spuller as Prefect of the Somme--The Christian Brothers and their schools--M. Jules Ferry withholds the salaries earned by teachers--The Emperor Julian of Amiens--How the Sisters were turned out of their schools--The mayor, the locksmith, and the curate--Mdlle. de Colombel--A senatorial epistle--Ulysses deserted by Calypso--Why Boulangism flourishes at Amiens--The First Republic invoked to justify the destruction of crosses on graves--The Cathedral of Amiens and Mr. Ruskin. 73-94