Upon the market place, the delicate and florid façade of the old Hôtel de Ville of the Renaissance calls up the images of communal life, peculiar to the little cities of the north; we look for the belfry tower, we expect to hear the chimes; but the disputatious commune of the Middle Ages is now a wise, sad and pensive little town. In the staircase, sculptures in high relief portray the heavy gayeties of northern climes; but Noyon is now a wise, sad and decent little town. On the same square stands a curious fountain provided by the liberality of an eighteenth-century prelate. Statues of the cardinal virtues decorate its pedestal from which rises an obelisk, surrounded by emblems and allegories; we see there a Cupid caressing a lamb, quivers, arrows, a hound,--symbols of innocent love and of fidelity. An inscription placed upon the monument recalls to the people of Noyon that among them Chilpéric II was buried, Charlemagne consecrated and Hugh Capet elected king. I do not know whether this inscription is as old as the fountain: it has a certain grandeur in its conciseness; let us praise the towns which thus array themselves in their past glories, and recall the part which they have played in the destinies of France.... With its houses of brick and its gardens surrounded by high walls, its silence and its memories, Noyon would merit the tenderness of its people, even if Noyon did not possess its admirable cathedral.... What a charming picture is made by the apse, with its radiating chapels! Torch holders ornament the flying buttresses, which were restored in the eighteenth century: they drive to despair the pure archaeologists and fill with joy men without taste who, insensitive to unity of style, love to hear monuments tell their history, their whole history. To this harmonious apse is joined the treasury, and then a fine structure with wooden panels of the sixteenth century, the library of the canons: its street floor was formerly arcaded and sheltered a market; alas! it has been walled up,... Behind, the buildings of the chapter house, hovels, turrets, an arcade thrown across the street, a high crenellated wall, surround the cloister and the flanks of the cathedral; and the picturesqueness of these disordered lines is delightful. On the other side of the apse appears a lamentable breach. Here formerly stood the chapel of the bishopry; it was attached to the crossing of the church and thus the little portal of the transept was exquisitely framed. This thirteenth-century chapel was long since abandoned; it had lost its ancient roof; but these ancient walls should have been respected. To free the cathedral, they have been leveled to the ground.... Not quite, however, for the owner of a cellar excavated beneath this chapel resisted the efforts of the architect.