THE BEAUTIES OF FRANCE 



475 



the Bold and John the Fearless, with 

 their "world of weepers, who clamor 

 under the intricacies of the delicate ar- 

 cades." 



Dijon's most remarkable church is not 

 its cathedral, but phenomenal Notre 

 Dame, the most brilliant work of the 

 thirteenth century Burgundian school. 

 Above the fine porch each of the two 

 stories is turned into an astounding 

 churchly nightmare by great gargoyles 

 that run the gamut of emotional expres- 

 sion, glaring, sneering, grinning at the 

 pedestrian on whom in wet weather they 

 spout — seventeen to each row — craning 

 their lean necks to catch the unwary. 



THE CHAMPAGNE CITY 



Whether your point of view is that of 

 the art critic or of the wine connoisseur, 

 Rheims is the city of champagne. To the 

 latter the city's show-places are the great 

 and beautiful wine parks, and 75 feet 

 below them, hewn from the solid rock, 

 the miles of white caves or galleries 

 where the sunshine — all in bottles — is 

 aged and "dosed" and stored, millions 

 upon untold millions of bottles of it. 



Never in all the history of mankind 

 since the high tide of Greek glory has 

 there been so marvelous and deeply per- 

 sonal an architectural expression of the 

 aspirations and character of a people as 

 the Gothic, and of all its stupendous erec- 

 tions, none was so magnificent, so kingly, 

 so perfect in beauty, as the Cathedral of 

 Rheims. So, too, was its sculpture, fig- 

 ures that represented a mastery which 

 equaled that of the Golden Age of Peri- 

 cles in classical purity, and, besides that, 

 glowed with an individuality the older 

 masterpieces almost entirely lacked, while 

 the vines and leaves that clambered over 

 pillars and capitals were so instinct with 

 naturalness and life they seemed to rustle 

 as one watched. 



What the twentieth century may bring 

 forth, no man can say ; but thirteenth 

 century genius cannot be made to live 

 again. 



Rheims was a city of wide-open spaces. 

 There are wider open spaces now. 



AtONG THE COAST 



When John Ruskin pleaded with peo- 

 ple to see Amiens and its cathedral, even 



if they only stopped over between trains, 

 he might also have included the whole of 

 Picardy, for it is as distinguished and 

 varied in its appeal as it is beautiful. 

 "The Golden Sands of Picardy" are a 

 guide-book byword; broad, majestic 

 reaches of firm, clean sand and shining 

 pebbles, perfectly safe for the smallest 

 child (see page 486). 



At Wimereux the beach is a huge Eng- 

 lish family sitting-room, with gay little 

 striped tents and shelters and bathing 

 machines. At Le Portel, a fishing town, 

 where the cliffs open an inverted V to 

 the sea, the French bourgeois disport 

 themselves at reasonable prices, and the 

 native women in picturesque shawls and 

 embroidered caps are the beasts of bur- 

 den. It is fabled that they carried in 

 baskets on their mighty backs all the 

 great stones and the sand with which 

 their handsome church was built. 



Between Wimereux and Portel is the 

 great seaport of Boulogne, with its cos- 

 mopolitan forest of masts, its bustling 

 water streets full of Picard costumes and 

 foreign clothes. To one side are the big' 

 white Casino, fine hotels, and a trig little 

 park, while high on the hill nestles the 

 original Boulogne within massive walls,, 

 now so useless that a good part of them, 

 has been planted with shade trees and 

 transformed into an elevated promenade. 

 Away to one side on the cliff towers Na- 

 poleon's column, commemorating his "in- 

 vasion" of England that died aborning. 



"PARTHENON OF FRENCH ARCHITECTURE" 



Picardy's great monument, however, is 

 the glorious thirteenth century Cathedral 

 of Amiens, the "Parthenon of French 

 architecture," according to Monsieur 

 Viollet-le-Duc, because of its absolute 

 purity of style. Wonderfully beautiful 

 it is, with its fretted towers, its great 

 blazing rose window, its three vast re- 

 cessed portals, its carven prophets and 

 priests and kings, and the "Beautiful God 

 of Amiens," on the central pillar of the 

 central door, the foundation and central 

 theme of all. One of the rare things 

 about the facade is the series of delicate 

 and spirited quatrefoil medallions. On 

 one of the porches they represent the 

 "pleasant order of the year, the zodiacal 

 signs above," the labors of the months 



