_From the Paris Gate, return by the Rue de Vesle to the Rue St. Jacques, on the right of which stands the_ Church of St. Jacques. The =Church of St. Jacques=, whose fine tower contributed to the charm of the general appearance of the city, was destroyed by the bombardments of 1918. Begun in the 12th century, it was finished in the 16th. Before the war, it was the only parish church in Rheims which had been preserved intact. [Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES (_Cliché LL._)] [Illustration: THE PLACE DROUET D'ERLON, BEFORE THE WAR _On the right: Belfry of the Church of St. Jacques._] _The Rue St. Jacques leads to the long_ Place Drouet d'Erlon, which was much damaged by the bombardments of 1918 (_photo opposite_). Formerly known as _Place de la Couture_, this square, like the old streets with picturesque names: _Rue des Telliers_, _Rue du Clou-dans-le-Fer_, _Rue de la Belle Image_, _Rue de la Grosse-Ecritoire_, _Rue du Cadran St. Pierre_, formed part of the _Quartier des Loges_, built in the 12th century by Cardinal Guillaume-aux-blanches-mains for the wood and iron workers. The house-fronts above the first storey rested mostly on wooden pillars, leaving recesses or covered galleries on the ground floor. In the centre of the square stood a statue of Marshal Drouet d'Erlon, afterwards removed to the crossing of the Boulevards Gerbert and Victor Hugo, and replaced by a =monumental fountain=, the gift of M. Subé. _Follow the Place Drouet d'Erlon to the Boulevard de la République, which skirts_ =The Promenades=. [Illustration: THE PLACE DROUET D'ERLON, AFTER THE WAR _The Belfry of the Church of St. Jacques no longer exists._] [Illustration: THE SUBÉ FOUNTAIN, IN THE PLACE DROUET D'ERLON _Seen from the Rue Buirette (in ruins)._] The Promenades, greatly damaged by the war, have sometimes been wrongly attributed to Le Nôtre. Their designer was a Rheims gardener, Jean le Roux. Commenced in 1731, they were finished and extended in 1787. They were formerly reached by the Gates of Mars and Vesles, but preferably by the Promenade Gate specially opened in the ramparts in 1740 and inaugurated by Louis XV. in 1744, on his return from Flanders. The Promenades were first called _Cours Le Pelletier_ (the name of the _Intendant of Champagne_, who approved the plans), then _Cours Royal_, after the passage of Louis XV. They were encroached upon by the railway station, built in 1860. In the centre of the Promenades, opposite the station, in the _Square Colbert_, laid out by the landscape gardener Varé in 1860, is a statue of Colbert. _Take the Rue Thiers, which begins at the Square Colbert and leads to the_ =Hôtel-de-Ville=. [Illustration: THE "SQUARE COLBERT" IN THE MIDDLE OF THE "PROMENADES" _The Entrance to the Station is just opposite this "Square."_] [Illustration: THE TOWN HALL IN 1918] =The Hôtel-de-Ville=