Ancient stronghold in past centuries, it had become a little old sleepy town given over to churches and the priesthood. Of the ancient Gallo-Roman fortifications there were still to be seen, up to the outbreak of the war in 1914, sixteen of the Roman towers in a fair state of preservation. A small river, the Nonette, passes through it, winding most exquisitely. Situated some thirty-five miles from Paris, and on the edge of the Champagne district, its character could be best appraised from the charming public promenade along the river's bank, lined with fine trees and offering vistas of great picturesqueness. The old cathedral dates back to the early days of the thirteenth century; its lace-like gray tower, covered with exquisite Gothic ornamentation, was a source of delight to artists and antiquarians. Usually covered with scaffolding, the tower was in a constant state of repair, but the spidery scaffolding seemed not at all to detract from the charm of its lines. One of the architects in charge explained that the vaulting and the first stage of the choir, the "triform ambulatory" had been removed because of cracks developing in the masonry, but this alteration did not seem to have resulted in any loss to the interior artistically. Indeed, as it stood in 1910, the choir elevation was a most exquisite example of thirteenth century construction and design. Ancient Ramparts: Senlis [Illustration: 0271] Lying in the midst of the great forest lands of Chantilly and Hallette, Senlis, until the dissolution of the Carlo-vingian Empire, was the place of royal residence, and even thereafter, to the time of Henry of Navarre, the kings of France preferred it to all others. The Castle was built upon the site of the Roman Prætorium, the ruins of which were pointed out to tourists. The ancient Roman ramparts which still in part surrounded the town were also shown, and the walls were said to be thirteen feet thick. "They enclosed an area, oval in form, one thousand and twenty feet long from east to west and seven hundred and ninety-four feet wide from north to south. At each of the angles formed by the broken lines of which the circuit of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-six feet is composed, stands or stood a tower; numbering twenty-eight and now only sixteen, they are semicircular in plan, and up to the height of the wall are unpierced. The Roman city had only two gates; the present number is five." The old cathedral was both curious and fascinating, as well as of great beauty. Begun in 1154 on really enormous lines, its original plan was never carried out for want of funds. Century after century it had been rebuilt, altered, extended and replanned, until it had become, as an American architect of renown styled it, "an epitome of French architecture from the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the fifteenth century."