INTRODUCTION. 11 



This part of the continent the north of France is 

 rich, too, in historical recollections, which must be ever 

 fresh and verdant in the breast of an Englishman. Here 

 lies the scene of those exploits which the pen of Froissart 

 has bequeathed to all time; where the noblest chivalry 

 the world has ever witnessed, displayed its unrivalled 

 courage and its indomitable valour. Amidst these 

 swelling hills, fertilised by the best blood of France and 

 England, lie the glorious battle-fields, which, after the 

 lapse of four centuries, still ring out their imperishable 

 renown; and when the wanderer gazes on the field of 

 Cressy or the green mounds of Azincour, his eye must 

 indeed be dim, and his English heart indifferent to the 

 throb of patriotism, if the one does not kindle, and the 

 other glow, beneath the inspiring recollections. Amongst 

 these forest hills, imagination may still call into existence 

 the long decayed banner of Pucelle, and the wondrous and 

 inspired maiden may again walk forth in her beauty and 

 her pride, to snatch from reluctant hands the laurels they 

 had so hardly won. In fact, the roaming enthusiast can 

 scarcely set his foot on a single spot in these fruitful 

 plains which is not enriched by human blood ; on which 

 some noble heart has not broken ; which has not been the 

 scene of some dreadful carnage or some stirring incident ; 

 and the celebrated " Field of the Cloth of Gold" re- 

 mains a lasting record of the arrival of a new order of 

 things, the last public display on the theatre of Europe, 

 of the noble and high-minded chivalry of former days, 

 before it passed away for ever. 



The plunderers of the sword have ceded place to the 

 plunderers of the pen, and the other crafts which torture 

 modern civilisation ; but the throbs and throes of the 

 nations of Europe those unmistakable * hints which 



