An ancient capital of the Merovings, a great city in the fifteenth century, four times the size of such struggling communities as London, besieged from time to time by pretty much every state or faction of North Europe, Tournai is full of pregnant records of every age for fifteen centuries. Toward the end of the seventeenth century the grave of King Childebert himself was discovered, containing innumerable remains of royal vestments and regalia--three hundred golden bees from his dalmatic, medals, coins, portions of a sceptre, sword, axe, javelin, together with the great seal-ring of the King himself and, as well, vestiges of the skeleton and trappings of his warhorse, killed and buried with him. Unfortunately these precious relics were seized and taken to Paris, where most of them were later stolen and never recovered. It was from the gold bees, however, that Napoleon derived his idea of substituting this emblem for the traditional lilies of France. Now the lilies are faded and the bees are dust, but a resurrection is possible for either, and out of the war one or the other may come to a new day--or will both yield to the Rampant Lion from a blood-stained and forever-glorious flag, blowing now, though in exile, amongst the banners of Europe, equal in dignity and first in honour? The Cathedral of Our Lady of Tournai is far less known than its peculiar importance and its peculiar beauty demand. It is a curious accretion and plexus of styles, from the middle of the eleventh to the end of the fourteenth century, with an incongruous but beautiful rood-screen of the Renaissance. Cruciform, and of great size (425 feet in length), it has the apsidal transepts of the Rhenish style, each with its columned ambulatory; a central tower with high pointed roof, also Rhenish (and English) and, as well, four slim surrounding towers, two to each transept, as at Laon, where they are not all complete, and at Reims, where they never rose above the nave cornice. All this is in a fine, strong, simple, round-arched transition style, far superior to anything on the Rhine, and at least equal to Noyon and Paris. The four tall towers are equal in size and general design, but run from a consistent Romanesque to a straightforward Gothic in detail, the effect being particularly vital and interesting. The enormous choir of late and very delicate mediæval design, having been begun in the last quarter of the thirteenth and finished in the middle of the fourteenth century, is one of the few Gothic things one regrets, for while it is very beautiful in itself, it has eliminated what was probably a strikingly effective Romanesque choir, while its towering mass crushes all the rest of the church and makes it a rather shapeless composition.