12 
Land & Water 
June 6, 19 I 8 
In an Old French City : By An Officer 
This description of Arras, -written earlier in the year, 
has a new and special interest just now, -when at any 
moment a neit' battle may again rage round this ancient city. 
UNTIL past spring the city was within a mile and 
a half pf the German Hnes ; but since then there 
has been an advance, and now it is a good six 
miles distant. Considering its vicissitudes, the 
two great battles fought so close to its walls, 
the desultory and sometimes violent bombardments, the 
place has suffered surprisingly little. 
Entering the city by one of those great national roads 
which, tree-bordered, stretches as straight as a ruler across the 
rolling plain, von come to a couple of railway-tracks followed 
by a brickyard and factory and a row of rather dingy-looking 
semi-urban houses. The outskirts of the place, hke those of 
most European towns, give no promise of the character to be 
found within. The road speedily becomes a "faubourg," 
and houses border the pavement on either hand. Steeply up 
to the left is the way to the prison. Despite the echo of 
n>any footsteps, the ceaseless activity of men going and com- 
ing, the prison retains its character at once austere, gloomy 
and pitiless. One would not linger here, though in it happens 
to be an officers' mess. The passages are all of stone, echoing 
and cold, with bell-ropes hanging at inten'als along them. 
Rooms of varying size open off on either hand, whose massive 
doors have each a peep-hole. When night comes all the 
echoing rooms and passages are plunged into absolute dark- 
ness. War blunts the imagination or one might see, fear- 
fully passing in procession before one, the faces of generations 
of French criminals who must have lingered and possibly 
died here. Was a guillotine ever raised in either of the two 
dingy central courtyards now abandoned to the twittering 
sparrows ? Possibly. 
The main street that leads into the city is remarkably 
free from damage. This is the quarter furthest from the 
enemy and almost every house is whole. On the right stands 
a magnificent example of (I believe) Franco-Spanish archi- 
tecture. Ordy can one conjecture the history of these places, 
for guide-books are not obtainable. And this grey-stone 
delicate ornate-looking building must surely have been a 
monastery or convent ; near by, intricate with splendid 
architecture, is a chapel as fine as anything to be found in 
the city. The former seems to be occupied by soldiers, to 
judge by its cheerful sounds after nightfall. 
It was a place of military importance. There are three 
barracks, two for the infantry and one for the artillery and 
engineers. The largest of the former is a great red-brick 
modern structure ; the last-named is the more interesting. 
It is older and close to the citadel ; and looking at its broad 
open barrack-square, one, can even now picture tlie splendid 
parades of the brilliantly uniformed engineers and artillery- 
men in days gone by. 
In one corner of the parade-ground is a dreary little chapel 
—the engineers' military chapel. It is barred and wind- 
blown, having been stripped of its glass and all furniture. 
Only there remain the gallery at the western end, one or 
two tawdy effigies of the Virgin and Child, the peeling faded 
plaster on the walls, and the steps that once led up to the 
altar. There are three or four tablets on the waUs. 
"Jacques," "Anthony," "Marcel," " Renee "—these com- 
memorate the heroes of 1870-1 of Sedan and Spicheren, 
of Gravelotte and Mars la Tours. 
A girdle of earthworks encircles the town. How obsolete 
and picturesque they look ! The wars of the past must have 
come very near. Here drank, quarrelled, and loved Dumas' 
heroes. The Three Musketeers. Penetrating the interior of the 
city, one is struck more and more by its essentially foreign 
and distinctive aspect ; like so many towns, it has a personality 
of its own, and that an attractive one which gives play to the 
imagination. There are long broad streets of almost stately 
houses, tree-bordered and with a kind of garden down the 
centre. There are narrow, crooked, and winding streets 
consisting of blank walls and high white houses with Venetian 
shutters that remind you of nothing so much as Southern 
Italy. There is a broad amiable-looking fish-market and 
wide round open places or squares in one of which is a band- 
stand, in another a statue of the contemplative Victor Hugo. 
There are several gardens, public and otherwise. 
There are also many churches and more than one fine 
modern public building, such as the Prefecture and the 
Mus^e. Despite ruined and empty houses, of which there 
are a number, and the warlike unnatural atmosphere of the 
place, there is about this city none of that depressing squalor 
and flimsy pretentiousness which characterise many towns 
near the front. One feels that it would be a place to visit 
in summer, when the noonday sun is blazing down upon the 
broad squares, when the trees of the boulevards and public 
gardens are green and shady, when the streets are alive 
with hurrying French people and gay with shop-awnings, 
when from" the byways and the fish-market and the churches 
there arises that curious combination of sounds — a mixture 
of busy murmurs, quaintly intoned cries, and the incessant 
ringing of church-bells— which is the distinguishing and 
attractive feature of so many foreign cities. 
The Cathedral 
The cathedral is a sight to see. Not standing well, because 
too closely pressed in by houses, but rising by flights of broad 
stone steps to a majestic height, it is the mere shell of what 
once must have been an impressive building. The mere 
shell ! The gigantic pillars lead gracefully and solemnly up 
to the altar which save for a bare slab of marble is no more. 
The pulpit remains---a piece of ornate driftwood, so do the 
several chapels which lead off the side-aisles. Here and 
there hangs an image or a crucifix, while at the head of the 
cathedral still depends the great figure of the Saviour. For 
the rest, bareness and ruin. A long colonnade leads away to 
grass-grown cloisters and courtyards, and an atmosphere of 
those who in vestment and cassock must often have lingered 
here, reading, meditating, and praying. A huge forecourt, 
with entrance archway, a many-windowed majestic building, 
such as one sees in Paris, tall, old-fashioned, iron-wrought 
lamp-posts, and a wall surmounted by railings — it is the 
Bishop's I'alace. Nothing is lacking to impress one with 
His Eminence's importance. 
The main street that leads down to the railway-station 
has no particular character, but it must obviously have been 
a busy shopping centre. Half-way down is a fine gloomy 
Gothic building ; further on a central square — doubtless the 
resort once of many fiacres. and idlers — with a large white- 
fronted hotel standing in its own courtyard just opposite. 
Many of the shops are still doing business and display in 
their windows most of those shoddy cheap-looking goods 
that appear to appeal to the British soldier in default of 
anything better. As you approach the station, things become 
very bad. Not a house is left standing, not a house left 
whole, not one that has escaped a breach in its walls, and is 
not fritted with shrapnel. Extermination ! It is the most 
shelled portion of the city, that nearest the enemy, and 
to-day the most dangerous. 
The once-impressive glass-roofed railway station is a 
skeleton of iron girders and the home of empty echoes. Way- 
bills still cling to the walls, denoting the hour of the Paris 
and other expresses ; large sign-boards proudly announce 
the name of the station. But the steel railway lines are 
twisted and grass-grown. 
Of the general appearance and atmosphere of the old French 
town, little need be said. It is all the same in this part of 
France. Everjrwhere the- British soldiery interspersed with 
a few French troops and a certain number of civilians. The 
latter seem to increase, and prosperously dressed men and 
women of the bourgeois class are often seen ; also those whose 
living is earned by supplying the troops. One afternoon 
there was c6nsiderable excitement. A big touring motor car 
containing four civihans, two men and two ladies, drove down 
the main street. Everybody turned to look — it was so un- 
usual. The miUtary Hfe of the place centres round the various 
shows, excellent of their kind, and the officers' club, which 
consists of two large huts, warm and well supplied with food, 
filled to overflowing, morning, noon, and night. French 
parties are often to be seen tramping down the stately streets ; 
there is a constant coming and going of troops;' military 
bands play vigorously at times. Aeroplanes are always 
circling overhead. 
One other feature should not be forgotten. At all hours 
of the day you are apt to meet walking in the streets a 
picturesque and distinguished figure. Here he comes, an 
old man with white hair and a white moustache, much be- 
ribboned and wearing the uniform of a General of France ; 
on either side of him walks an adjutant. One presumes he is 
the French Commandant. With his smart figure, his fine 
handsome face, his dignified bearing, and proud manner of 
acknowledging a salute, he seems. to typify the chivalrous 
army to which he belongs. 
