ARRAS. 201 



Atrebates. Ptolemy designates the town under the name 

 of Origiacum ; and Caesar, who subdued the whole 

 vicinity in the year 50 B. C, mentions it in his com- 

 mentaries under the appellation of Nemetocenna. Pliny 

 speaks of the Atrebates without naming their principal 

 city; but St. Jerome, in one of his epistles mentions the 

 Atrebates, and the city of Arras as being famous, even 

 in his day, for its woollen stuffs. The Franks, under 

 Clodion, occupied the country of the Atrebates, and were 

 surprised and beaten by the Romans. Arras was after- 

 wards, on the declension of the empire, devastated by 

 the Vandals in 407 ; and subsequently by the Nor- 

 mans, in 880. It was long occupied by the Spaniards ; 

 and the peculiar construction of the houses in the Grande 

 Place, etc., still reminds the modern traveller of those 

 arabesque forms which the Moors introduced into the 

 architecture of Spain. In 1640, Arras with all the neigh- 

 bouring country was conquered by Louis XIII. and, in 

 16.59, was definitively ceded to France by the treaty of the 

 Pyrenees. 



The cathedral at Arras, although a striking and 

 impressive edifice, will disappoint the admirers of pure 

 Christian architecture. The external appearance is 

 sufficiently imposing; and the great western front, with 

 its magnificent flight of steps, reminds one of the gor- 

 geous buildings with which the fancy of the painter 

 crowds some of the old pictures on oriental subjects; but 

 the interior, grand and splendid, adorned with pictures 

 and gigantic statues, and decorated with the florid orna- 

 ments of the Corinthian and composite orders, kindles 

 the idea of a beautiful Grecian temple, rather than that 

 of a solemn Christian church. This feeling increases 

 upon one every minute, and becomes at length painfully 



