"During ten years, from 1305 to 1314, there was between France and Flanders a continual alternation of reciprocal concessions and retractions, of treaties concluded and of renewed insurrections without decisive and ascertained results. It was neither peace nor war; and after the death of Philip the Handsome, his successors were destined for a long time to come to find again and again amongst the Flemish communes deadly enmities and grievous perils." * * Guizot's "History of France." What wonder then that Lille retains so few remarkable public monuments. Perhaps of all the Flemish towns she suffered most from pillage and fire. Farther on in the Rue Royale, beyond the statue of General Négrier, was the eighteenth century church of St. André, once belonging to the "Carmes déchaussés," where there were some good paintings by a native artist, Arnould de Vuez, who enjoyed considerable celebrity. Following the attractive quays along the river front, which was teeming with life and movement, one reached the small square of St. Martin, where was the church of "Notre Dame de la Trielle," which is said to have occupied the site of the ancient moated Chateau du Buc, which formed the origin of the city of Lille, and which the Flemish to this day call Ryssel. A fortress of the first class, Lille's citadel is said to have been Vauban's masterpiece, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why the invaders of 1914 surrounded it with the network of concrete trenches and galleries which formed the angle of the famous Hinden-burg line after the disastrous retreat from Arras in April, 1917. So far Lille has not suffered very much from the bombardment of this present year, but it is safe to say now that the invader will not spare it in retreat. AMIENS |THERE was no better way of realizing the great bulk and height of the Cathedral than by proceeding to the banks of the river Somme northward, and from this point appraising its architectural wonder rising above the large and small old gray houses, tier above tier, misted in the soft clouds of gray smoke from their myriad chimneys, capped with red dots of chimney pots, "a giant in repose." In approaching Amiens the traveler was offered no "coup d'oeil" like that of other cathedral towns; here "this largest church in the world except St. Peter's, at Rome," was hidden from view as one entered the town, and followed the Rue des Trois Cailloux, along what was formerly the boundaries of the ancient walls. It was difficult to obtain a good view of the façade, that of the west point was seen from a parvis, which qualified the difference in level between the east and west ends, and here was the central porch which took its name, "Porche de le Beau Dieu d'Amiens," from the figure of the Savior on its central pillar, and of which Ruskin wrote, "at the time of its erection, it was beyond all that had then been reached of sculptured tenderness."