The invader says contemptuously that no cathedral is worth the life of one German soldier. So Rheims has been destroyed; so St. Peter's of Louvain; so--but why enumerate here?--The list is recorded in letters of fire. CAMBRAI, and the SMALL TOWNS |THE "Cameracum" of ancient days of Roman occupation, holding this name up to the twelfth century, Cambrai, at the outbreak of the war in 1914, was entirely satisfying to the seeker of the charms of picturesqueness, as well as the historian. After what is known as the period of the Antonine Itinerary, it became the capital of a petty episcopal arrondisement, under the protection of the Dukes of Burgundy who, unable to hold it, gave it over "for privileges" to the German emperors, who thereafter retained it under the title of "Châtelains," as it was a fortified stronghold. Situated on a hillside on the right bank of the river Scheldt, it was a busy and prosperous commercial town, with a semi-Flemish population of about twenty-five thousand. Its history in thumbnail form is as follows: In 1508 the Emperor Maximilian, Pope Julius II, Ferdinand of Aragon, and Louis XII of France formed here the celebrated League of Cambrai, which was directed against Venice. In 1529 the so-called Paix de Dames was signed by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, who negotiated its provisions in the castle on the hill, for Francis I and Charles V. However, by the treaty of Nimwegen, Louis XV recovered it, and it was thus held by France until captured by the Duke of Wellington in 1815. Many celebrated men were born at Cambrai, or became identified with the town, such as the chronicler, Enguer-rand de Monstrelet, who died in 1453. The great Fénelon was Archbishop of Cambrai, as was also Cardinal Dubois, who served as minister for Louis XV, and then follows an array of names that lent glory to the annals of Flanders. Perhaps few know that the town gave name to that fine linen which was produced here in the fifteenth century, the invention of a native named Baptiste. The English named the cloth "Cambric," but to the Flemish and French it was known, and is still for that matter, as "Ba'tiste" after the inventor. At the outbreak of the war this linen cloth was the chief product of the town.