The Somme, Volume 2. The Second Battle of the Somme (1918): (Amiens, Montdidier, Compiègne)
History
The Somme, Volume 2. The Second Battle of the Somme (1918): (Amiens, Montdidier, Compiègne)
Somme, 2nd Battle of the, France, 1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Battlefields -- Guidebooks
The side-aisles were very picturesque with their live gables and five
separate roofs at right-angles to that of the great nave.
The vaulting is said to have been designed by Jean Vaast, one of
the architects of Beauvais Cathedral. The pretty 16th century font
was ornamented with angels' heads and fantastic figures arranged
alternately and linked together by festoons of leaves. The remarkable
churchwardens' bench of carved wood in Renaissance style was one of the
finest in the _Département_ of the Somme. The wood-work of the pulpit
dated from the same period and was in the same style.
The church was almost entirely destroyed in 1918, but a portion of the
doorway and a buttress with a niche still remain. The gables of the
side-aisles, three of which have retained their roofing, are still
standing. The font near the entrance, on the left, is partly hidden
under the débris. The pulpit was destroyed by the falling tower and
vaulting.
_Leave Piennes and pass through the hamlet of_ =Le Lundi=. Trenches may
be seen alongside the railway. _Take the Montdidier-Compiègne road on
the left to_ =Rollot=, where Antoine Gallant, the Oriental writer and
translator of the French version of "The Arabian Nights", was born in
1646. Of the monument erected to his memory in the village, only the
pedestal remains.
[Illustration: ROLLOT.--RUE DE L'ÉGLISE.]
[Illustration: THE ROAD FROM ROLLOT TO BOULOGNE-LA-GRASSE.]
_On leaving Rollot, take_ G.C. 27 _on the left_; the CHATEAU OF BAINS,
in the woods skirting the road on the left, was greatly damaged during
the fighting. _Keep straight on to_ the church of =Boulogne-la-Grasse=.
[Illustration: CHATEAU OF BAINS.]
Boulogne-la-Grasse.
Boulogne-la-Grasse is situated on the top and along the middle
slopes of a kind of small broken _massif_. Before the War, the
village consisted of a number of independant quarters intersected by
picturesque, winding streets, the whole hidden from view by gardens and
orchards.
[Illustration: BOULOGNE-LA-GRASSE.--THE RUINED CHURCH.]
[Illustration: THE CHOIR OF THE ABOVE CHURCH.]
The church, access to which is gained by a flight of 34 steps,
overlooks the main street. The choir alone is ancient.
_Take the street on the left of the church, then the first on the left
which leads to the top of the massif overlooking the village._
The moats surrounding the site of the old fortified Château are still
visible. The latter was replaced by a modern Château, now in ruins.
The telegraph-station, which used to stand on the top of the hill, to
the west of the village, was destroyed by the Prussians in 1814.
[Illustration: BOULOGNE-LA-GRASSE CHATEAU (1914).]
[Illustration: THE COURTYARD OF THE CHATEAU (1918).]
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