In the early days of the Frank kings this quiet little town upon the Somme had acquired enough importance for fortification, and its city walls were built by Hugh Capet. Later on, after Peter the Hermit had lifted up his voice in Europe, and every man who called himself a true warrior turned his face eastward to Palestine, Abbeville was destined to play her part in the affairs of the great world outside her walls, and to share in the fortunes of that company of men whose watchword was “Jerusalem.” In the first two Crusades, when the crusading spirit was as yet ardent and pure and had not degenerated into a desire for plunder and rapine, the leaders met within the gates of Abbeville before setting out to the Holy Land. One can well imagine the stir their presence made within the quiet precincts of the little town, the excitement of the townfolk, the eager crowding of the youth of the place around the standards of these great chiefs, Godfrey de Bouillon, destined to become king of Jerusalem; dark, passionate Robert of Normandy, son of the Conqueror; Hugh of Vermandois, brother to the King of France; Stephen of Blois; Raymond of Toulouse; Robert of Flanders, he who was called the “Sword and Lance of the Christians”; and, lastly, Tancred the chivalrous, the very embodiment of the spirit of the crusaders--and a “very perfect, gentle knight.” For nearly two hundred years the English ruled Abbeville. When, in 1272, Eleanor of Castile was married to Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., the town was included in the estates which she brought to England as her dowry; and being near the sea coast, and consequently within easy reach of England, its new lords were able to retain their hold upon the city even after the disastrous close of the Hundred Years’ War had given almost every English conquest back to France. Towards the end of the fifteenth century it fell into the hands of the Burgundian party, but the French crown finally reclaimed it in 1477. Since that time it has twice seen an international alliance concluded within its gates. In 1514, Anne of Brittany, the wife of Louis XII.--“Pater Patria”--died without having an heir in the direct line, and her husband, unwilling that the crown should go to François d’Angoulême, determined to take another wife, and made advances to Henry VIII. for the hand of his beautiful sister, Mary Tudor; and after the negotiations were completed, they were married at Abbeville. As far as Louis’s purpose went, however, the marriage was a failure, as the King died a few months later, and the Duc d’Angoulême, his son-in-law, ascended his throne as François Ier. To his reign belongs the second alliance in the history of Abbeville, the pact signed between the King of France and Cardinal Wolsey, on behalf of Henry VIII., against the common enemy, Charles V.--a figure so commanding, so infinitely greater than his contemporaries, that beside him the brilliancy of François, the gallantry of Henry, and the pomp and