Valenciennes--The shabbiest historic town in North-eastern France--Perfect cultivation of French Flanders--Cock-fighting and flowers--Prosperity of the cabarets--One to every forty-four inhabitants around Valenciennes--Growth of the mining and manufacturing towns--Interesting buildings in Valenciennes--Carelessness of the citizens about their city--A graceful edifice of the 15th century falling into ruins--Valenciennes in the days of the Hanse of London--Mediaeval burghers and their sovereigns--A citizen of Valenciennes, in 1357, the richest man in Europe--Festivals in the olden times--Religious wars--Vauban at Valenciennes--How the clothworkers fled from the Spanish persecution--Dumouriez at Valenciennes--The Hotel de Ville--Interesting local artists from Simon Marmion down to Watteau and Pater--The triptych of Rubens--Some historic portraits--The Musee Carpeaux--The coal mines of Anzin--14,035 workmen there employed and 200,210,702 tons of coal extracted--Competition with Belgium, the Pas-de-Calais, England, and Germany--The coal mines of Anzin organised a century and a half ago--The discovery of coal in North-eastern France--Energy shown by the local _noblesse_--Pierre Mathieu, an engineer, strikes the vein in 1734--The lords of the soil claim their rights over the coal--A long lawsuit ending in a compromise--A business arrangement under the _ancien regime_--The hereditary principle recognised in the organisation and undisturbed by the Revolution--An orderly, quiet, and prosperous town--A region of factories intermingled with farms--Charming home of the director--The company encourages workmen's homes, with gardens and allotments--An improvement on the Cite Ouvriere--2,628 model homes now occupied by workmen--For three francs a month a workman secures a well-built cottage, with drainage and cellarage, six good rooms and closets, and a plot of ground--2,500 families hold garden sites for cultivation--Fuel allowed, and a general 'participation in profits' of a practical sort--The right of the workmen to be consulted recognised at Anzin a century and a half ago--Beneficial and educational institutions--An industrial republic--How the National Assembly meddled with the mines--Mining laws in France, ancient and modern--Influence of politics on the output of the mines--Every Republican development at Paris diminishes, and every check to Republicanism at Paris develops, the great coal industry--The great strike of 1884--During that year the company expended for the benefit of the workmen a sum equivalent to the profits divided amongst the shareholders--What caused the collision therefore between capital and labour?--A syndicate of miners under a former Anzin workman, Basly, puts a pressure from Paris upon the workmen at Anzin to develop the strike--The pretext found in contracts granted to good workmen--The object of the strike