Chapter III: Part 3

This is not on the Loire, but on a tributary a little south of it, the Vienne, with the castle crowning the long hill, or ridge, above the town. Some time during the afternoon we came to the outskirts of the ancient place, and looked up to the ruined battlements and towers where occurred that meeting which meant the liberation of France.

The château to-day is the ruin of what originally was three châteaux, built at different times, but closely strung together, so that in ruin they are scarcely divided.

The oldest, Coudray, was built in the tenth century, and still shows three towers standing, in one of which Joan of Arc lived during her stay at Chinon. The middle château was built a hundred years later, on the site of a Roman fort, and it was in one of its rooms, a fragment of which still remains, that Charles VII received the shepherd-girl from Domremy. The Château of St. George was built in the twelfth century, by Henry II of England, who died there in 1189. Though built two hundred years later than Coudray, nothing remains of it to-day but some foundations.

Chinon is a much more extensive ruin than we had expected. Even what remains must be nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and its vast crumbling walls and crenelated towers make it strikingly picturesque. But its ruin is complete, none the less. Once through the entrance tower, and you are under nothing but the sky, with your feet on the grass; there is no longer a shelter there, even for a fugitive king. You wander about viewing it scarcely more than as a ruin, at first, a place for painting, for seclusion, for dreaming in the sun. Then all at once you are facing a wall in which, half-way up, where once was the second story, there is a restored fireplace and a tablet which tells you that in this room Charles VII received Joan of Arc. It is not a room now; it is just a wall, a fragment, with vines matting its ruined edges.

You cross a stone foot-bridge to the tower where Joan lived, and that also is open to the sky and bare and desolate. While, beyond it, there was a little chapel where she prayed, but that is gone. There are other fragments and other towers, but they merely serve as a setting for those which the intimate presence of Joan made sacred.

The Maid did not go immediately to the castle on her arrival in Chinon. She put up at an inn down in the town and waited the king's pleasure. His paltering advisers kept him dallying, and postponing his consent to see her, but through the favor of his mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, Joan and her suite were presently housed in Coudray.

The king was still unready to see Joan. She was only a stone's throw away now, but the whisperings of his advisers kept her there. When there were no further excuses for delay they contrived a trick--a deception. They persuaded the king to put another on the throne, one like him and in his royal dress, so that Joan might pay homage to this make-believe king, thus proving that she had no divine power or protection which would assist her in identifying the real one.

In the space where now is only green grass and sky and a broken wall, Charles VII and his court gathered to receive the shepherd-girl who had come to restore his kingdom. It was evening, and the great hall was lighted, and at one end of it was the throne with its imitation king, and, I suppose, at the other this fireplace with its blazing logs. Down the center of the room were the courtiers, formed in two ranks, facing so that Joan might pass between them to the throne. The occasion was one of great ceremony--Joan and her suite were welcomed with fine honors. Banners waved, torches flared, trumpets blown at intervals marked the stages of her progress down the great hall; every show was made of paying her great honor--everything that would distract her and blind her to their trick.

Charles VII, dressed as a simple courtier, stood a little distance from the throne. Joan, advancing to within a few steps of the pretended king, raised her eyes. Then for a moment she stood silent, puzzled. They expected her to kneel and make obeisance; but a moment later she turned, and, hurrying to the rightful Charles, dropped on her knee and gave him heartfelt salutation. She had never seen him, and was without knowledge of his features. The protectors she had known in her visions had not failed her. It was, perhaps, the greatest moment in French history.

In the quest for outlying châteaux, one is likely to forget that Tours itself is very much worth while. Tours has been a city ever since France had a history, and it fought against Cæsar as far far back as 52 B.C. It took its name from the Gallic tribe of that section, the Turoni, dwellers in the cliffs, I dare say, along the Loire.

Tours was beloved by French royalty. It was the capital of a province as rich as it was beautiful. Among French provinces, Touraine was always the aristocrat. Its language has been kept pure. To this day, the purest French in the world is spoken at Tours. The mechanic who made some repairs for me at the garage leaned on the mud-guard, during a brief intermission of that hottest of days, and told me about the purity of the French language at Tours; and if there was anything wrong with his own locution, my ear was not fine enough to detect it. To me it seemed as limpid as something distilled. Imagine such a thing happening in--say Bridgeport. Tours is still proud, still the aristocrat, still royal.

The Germans held Tours during the early months of 1871, but there is now no trace of their occupation. It was a bad dream which Tours does not care even to remember.

Tours contains a fine cathedral, and the remains of what must have been a still finer one--two noble towers, so widely separated by streets and buildings that it is hard to imagine them ever having belonged to one structure. They are a part of the business of Tours now. Shops are under them, lodgings in them. One of these old relics is called the clock-tower, the other, the tower of Charlemagne, because Luitgard, his third queen, was buried beneath it.

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MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE--PART II

BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

It was a July morning when we got away from Tours--one of those sweltering mornings--and I had spent an hour or two at the garage putting on all our repaired tires and one new one. It was not a good morning for exercise; and by the time we were ready to start, I was a rag. Narcissa photographed me, because she said she had never seen me look so interesting before. She made me stand in the sun bareheaded and hold a tube in my hand, as if I had not enough to bear, already.

But I was repaid the moment we were off. Oh, but it was cool and delicious gliding along the smooth, shaded road! One can almost afford to get as hot and sweltering and cross and gasping as I was for the sake of sitting back and looking across the wheel down a leafy avenue facing the breeze of your own making, a delicious nectar that bathes you through and cools and rests and soothes--an anodyne of peace.

By and by, being really cool in mind and body, we drew up abreast of a meadow which lay a little below the road, a place with a brook and over-spreading shade, and with some men and women harvesting not far away. We thought they would not mind if we lunched there, and I think they must have been as kind-hearted as they were picturesque, for they did not offer to disturb us. It was a lovely spot, and did not seem to belong to the present-day world at all. How could it, with the homes of the old French kings all about, and with these haymakers, whose fashions have not minded the centuries, here in plain view to make us seem a part of an ancient tale?

Chenonceaux, the real heart of the royal district, is not on the Loire itself, but on a small tributary, the Cher. I do not remember that I noticed the river when we entered the grounds, but it is a very important part of the château, which, indeed, is really a bridge over it--a supremely beautiful bridge, to be sure, but a bridge none the less, entirely crossing the pretty river by means of a series of high foundation arches. Upon these arches rises the rare edifice which Thomas Bohier, a receiver-general of taxes, began back in 1515. Bohier did not extend Chenonceaux entirely across the river. The river to him, merely served as a moat. The son who followed him did not have time to make additions. Francis I came along, noticed that it was different from the other châteaux he had confiscated, and added it to his collection. Our present-day collectors cut a poor figure by the side of Francis I. Think of getting together assortments of coins and postage-stamps and ginger-jars when one could go out and pick up châteaux! It was the famous Catherine de Medici, daughter-in-law of Francis I, who finished the palace, extending it across the Cher, making it one of the most beautiful places in the world.

We stopped a little to look at the beautiful façade of Chenonceaux, then crossed the draw-bridge, or what is now the substitute for it, and were welcomed at the door by just the proper person--a fine, dignified woman, of gentle voice and perfect knowledge. She showed us through the beautiful home, for it is still a home, having been bought by Mr. Meunier, of chocolate fame and fortune. I cannot say how glad I am that Mr. Meunier purchased Chenonceaux. He did nothing to the place to spoil it, and it is not a museum. The lower rooms which we saw have many of the original furnishings. The ornaments, the tapestries, the pictures, are the same. There is hardly another place, I think, where one may come so nearly stepping back through the centuries.

We went out into the long wing that is built on the arches above the river, and looked down on the water flowing below. Our conductor told us that the supporting arches had been built on the foundations of an ancient mill. The beautiful gallery which the bridge supports must have known much gaiety; much dancing and promenading up and down; many gallant speeches and some heartache. The Joy wanted to see the dungeons, but perhaps there never were any real dungeons at Chenonceaux. Let us try to think so.

Orleans is on the Loire, and we drove to it in the early morning from Meung, where we had spent the night. I do not know what could be more lovely than that leisurely hour--the distance was fifteen miles--under cool, outspreading branches, with glimpses of the bright river and vistas of happy fields.

We did not even try to imagine, as we approached the outskirts, that the Orleans of Joan's time presented anything of its appearance to-day. Orleans is a modern, or modernized city, and, except the river, there could hardly be anything in the prospect that Joan saw. But it was the scene of her first military conquest, and added its name to the title by which she belongs to history. That is enough to make it one of the holy places of France.

It has been always a military city, a place of battles. Cæsar burned it, Attila attacked it, Clovis captured it--there was often war of one sort or another going on there. The English and Burgundians would have had it in 1429 but for the arrival of Joan's army.

Joan was misled by her generals, whose faith in her was not complete. Orleans lies on the north bank of the Loire; they brought her down on the south bank, fearing the prowess of the enemy's forces. Discovering the deception, the Maid promptly sent the main body of her troops back some thirty-five miles to a safe crossing, and, taking a thousand men, passed over the Loire and entered the city by a gate which was still held by the French. That the city was not completely surrounded made it possible to attack the enemy from within and without, while her presence among the Orleanese would inspire them with new hope and valor. Mark Twain, in his "Recollections," pictures the great moment of her entry.

It was eight in the evening when she and the troops rode in at
the Burgundy gate.... She was riding a white horse, and she
carried in her hand the sacred sword of Fierbois. You should
have seen Orleans then. What a picture it was! Such black seas
of people, such a starry firmament of torches, such roaring
whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells and thundering of
cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end. Everywhere
in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of upturned,
white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked
tears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid
masses, her mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads
like a silver statue. The people about her struggled along,
gazing up at her through their tears with the rapt look of men
and women who believed they are seeing one who is divine; and
always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as
failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed
their fingers.

This was the twenty-ninth of April. Nine days later, May 8, 1429, after some fierce fighting, during which Joan was severely wounded, the besiegers were scattered. Orleans was free. Mark Twain writes:

No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of
glory as Joan of Arc reached that day.... Orleans will never
forget the eighth of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it. It is
Joan of Arc's day--and holy.

Two days, May seventh and eighth, are given each year to the celebration, and Orleans in other ways has honored the memory of her deliverer. A wide street bears her name, and there are noble statues, and a museum, and church offerings. The Boucher home, which sheltered Joan during her sojourn in Orleans, has been preserved--at least, a house is still shown as the Boucher house, though how much of the original structure remains no one of this day seems willing to decide.

We drove there first, for it is the only spot in Orleans that can claim even a possibility of having known Joan's actual presence. It is a house of the old half-timbered architecture, and if these are not the veritable walls that Joan saw, they must, at least, bear a close resemblance to those of the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, where Joan was made welcome. A few doors away is a fine old mansion, now a museum, and fairly overflowing with objects of every conceivable sort relating to Joan of Arc. Books, statuary, paintings, armor, banners, offerings, coins, medals, ornaments, engravings, letters--thousands upon thousands of articles gathered here in the Maid's memory. I think there is not one of them that her hand ever touched, or that she ever saw, but in their entirety they convey, as nothing else could, the reverence that Joan's memory inspired during the centuries that have gone since her presence made this ground sacred. Until the revolution, Orleans preserved Joan's banner, some of her clothing, and other genuine relics; but then the mob burned them, probably because Joan delivered France to royalty. We were shown an ancient copy of the banner, still borne, I believe, in the annual festivities. Baedeker speaks of arms and armor worn at the siege of Orleans, but the guardian of the place was not willing to guarantee their genuineness. I think Narcissa, who worships the memory of Joan, was almost sorry that he thought it necessary to be so honest. He did show us a photograph of Joan's signature. She wrote it "Jehanne," and her pen must have been guided by her secretary, for Joan could neither read nor write.

We drove to the Place Martroi to see the large equestrian statue of Joan by Foyatier, with reliefs by Vital Dubray. It is very imposing, and the reliefs, showing the great moments in Joan's career, are really fine. We did not care to hunt for other memorials. It was enough to drive about the city, trying to pick out a house here and there that looked as if it might have been standing five hundred years, but if there were any of that age--any that had looked upon the wild joy of Joan's entrance and upon her triumphal departure, they were very few indeed.

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It is a grand, straight road from Orleans to Fontainebleau, and it passes through Pithiviers, which did not look especially interesting, though we discovered, when it was too late, that it is noted for its almond-cakes and lark-pies. I wanted to go back, then, but the majority decided against me, and in the late afternoon we entered the majestic royal forest, and by and by came to the palace and the little town and to a pretty hotel on a side street, that was really a village inn for comfort and welcome. There was still plenty of daylight, mellow, waning daylight, and the palace was not far away. We would not wait for it until morning.

I think we most enjoyed seeing palaces about the closing-hour. There are seldom any other visitors then, and the fading afternoon sunlight in the vacant rooms softens their garish emptiness and seems, somehow, to bring nearer the rich pageant of life and love and death that flowed through them so long, and then one day came to an end, and now it is not passing any more. It was really closing-time when we arrived at the palace, but the custodian was lenient, and for an hour we wandered through gorgeous galleries, and salons, and suites of private apartments, where kings and queens lived gladly, loved madly, died sadly for about three hundred years. Francis I built Fontainebleau, on the site of a mediæval castle. He was a hunter, and the forests of Fontainebleau were always famous hunting-grounds. Louis XIII, who was born in Fontainebleau, built the grand entrance staircase, from which, a hundred years later, Napoleon Bonaparte bade good-by to his generals before starting for Elba. Other kings have added to the place and embellished it; the last being Napoleon III, who built for Eugénie the bijou theater across the court.

It may have been our mood, it may have been the tranquil evening light, it may have been reality that Fontainebleau was more friendly, more alive, more a place for living men and women to inhabit than any other palace we have seen. It was hard to imagine Versailles as having ever been a home for anybody. At Fontainebleau I felt that we were intruding--that Marie Antoinette, Marie Louise, or Eugénie might enter at any moment and find us there.

The apartments of the first Napoleon and Marie Louise tell something, too, but the story seems less intimate. Yet the table is there on which Napoleon signed his abdication, while an escort waited to take him to Elba, and in his study is his writing-table; and there is a bust by Canova; but that is marble, and does not encourage the thought of life.

For size and magnificence the library is the most impressive room in Fontainebleau. It is very lofty, very splendid, and it is two hundred and sixty-four feet long. Napoleon III gave great hunting-banquets there. Since then it has always been empty, except for visitors.

The light was getting dim by the time we reached the pretty theater which Louis Napoleon built for Eugénie. It is a very choice place, and we were allowed to go on the stage and behind the scenes and up in the galleries, and there was something in the dusky vacancy of that little play-house, built to amuse the last empress of France, that affected us almost more than any of the rest of the palace, though it was built not so long ago and its owner is still alive. It is not used, the custodian told us--has never been used since Eugénie went away. I believe nothing at Fontainebleau gave more delight to Narcissa and the Joy than this dainty theater.

From a terrace back of the palace we looked out on a pretty lake where Eugénie's son used to sail a miniature, full-rigged ship, large enough, if one could judge from a picture we saw, to have held the little prince himself. There was still sunlight on the tree-tops, and these and the prince's pretty pavilion reflecting in the placid water made the place beautiful. But the little vessel was not there. I wished, as we watched, that it might come sailing by. I wished that the prince had never been exiled, and that he had not grown up and gone to his death in a South African jungle. I wished that he might be back to sail his ship again, and that Eugénie might be young and have her theater once more, and that Louis Napoleon's hunting-parties might still gather in the painted ball-room and fill the vacant palace with something besides mere curiosity and vain imaginings.

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We had meant to go to Barbizon, home of the artist Millet, but we got lost in the forest next morning, and when we found ourselves, we were a good way in the direction of Melun and concluded to keep on, consoling ourselves with the thought that Barbizon is not Barbizon any more, and would probably be a disappointment, anyway. We kept on from Melun, also, after buying some luncheon things, and all day traversed that beautiful rolling district which lies east of Paris and below Rheims, arriving toward evening at Epernay, center of the champagne district. We had no need to linger there. We were anxious to get to Rheims.

We were still in the hills when we looked on the valley of the Vesle and saw a city outspread there, and in its center, mellowed and glorified by seven kindly centuries, the architectural and ecclesiastical pride of the world, the Cathedral of Rheims. Large as the city was, that great central ornament dwarfed and dominated its surroundings. Thus Joan of Arc had seen it when, at the head of her victorious army, she conducted the king to Rheims for his coronation. She approached the fulfilment of her mission, the completion of the great labor laid upon her by the voices of her saints. Mark Twain tells of Joan's approach to Rheims, of the tide of cheers that swept her ranks at the vision of the distant towers.

It was the sixteenth of July that Joan looked down upon Rheims, and now four hundred and eighty-five years later it was again July, with the same summer glory on the wood, the same green and scarlet in the poppied fields, the same fair valley, the same stately towers rising to the sky. But no one can ever feel what Joan felt, can ever put into words, ever so faintly, what that moment and that vision meant to the Domremy shepherd-girl.

Descending the plain, we entered the city, crossed a bridge, and made our way to the cathedral square. Then presently we were at the doorway where Joan and her king had entered--the portal which has been called the most beautiful this side of paradise. How little we dreamed that destruction and disfigurement lay only a few weeks ahead!

It is not required any more that one should write descriptively of the now vanished glories of the church of Rheims, it has been done so thoroughly and so numerously by those so highly qualified for the undertaking. Fergusson, who must have been an authority, for the guide-book quotes him, calls it, "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the Middle Ages."

The cathedral was already two hundred years old when Joan arrived in 1429. But it must have looked quite fresh and new, then, for nearly five centuries later it seemed to have suffered little. Some of the five hundred and thirty statues of its wonderful portal were weatherworn and scarred, to be sure, but the general effect of beauty and completeness was not disturbed.

Many kings had preceded Joan and her sovereign through the sacred entrance. Long before the cathedral was built, French sovereigns had come to Rheims for their coronation. Here Clovis had been baptized nearly a thousand years before.

It was a mighty assemblage that gathered for the crowning of Joan's king. France, overrun by an invader, had known no real king for years--had, indeed, well nigh surrendered her nationality. Now victory, in the person of a young girl from an obscure village, had crowned their arms and brought redemption to their throne. No wonder the vast church was packed, and that crowds were massed outside. From all directions had come pilgrims to the great event--persons of every rank, among them two shepherds, Joan's aged father and uncle, who had walked from Domremy, one hundred and twenty miles, to verify with their own eyes what their ears could not credit.

We are told that the abbot, attended by the archbishop, his canons, and a deputation of nobles, entered the crowded church, followed by the five mounted knights who rode down the great central aisle, clear to the choir, and then at a signal backed their prancing steeds all the distance to the great doors.

Very likely the cathedral at Rheims had never known such a throng until that day, nor heard such a mighty shout as went up when Joan and the king, side by side and followed by a splendid train, appeared at the great side entrance and moved slowly to the altar.

I think there must have fallen a deep hush then--a petrified stillness that lasted through the long ceremonial, while every eye feasted itself upon the young girl standing there at the king's side, holding her victorious standard above him--the banner that "had borne the burden and had earned the victory," as she would one day testify at her trial. I am sure that vast throng would keep silence, scarcely breathing, until the final word was spoken and the dauphin had accepted the crown and placed it upon his head. But then we may hear, borne faintly down the centuries, the roar of renewed shouting that told to those waiting without that the great ceremony was ended, that Charles VII of France had been annointed king. As in a picture we seemed to see the shepherd-girl on her knees saying to the crowned king: "My work which was given me to do is finished: give me your peace, and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old, and has need of me."

But the king raises her up and praises her and confers upon her nobility and titles, and asks her to name a reward for her service, and we hear her ask that Domremy, "poor and hard-pressed by reason of the war," may have its taxes remitted.

Nothing for herself--no more than that; and in the presence of all the great assemblage Charles VII decreed that by grace of Joan of Arc, Domremy should be free from taxes forever.

There within those walls it was all reality five hundred years ago. One did not study the interior to discover special art values or to distinguish in what manner it differed from others we had seen. For us the light from its great rose-window and upper arches was glorified because once it fell upon Joan of Arc in that supreme moment when she saw her labor finished and asked only that she might return to Domremy and her flocks. The statues in the niches were sacred because they looked upon that scene, the altar paving was sanctified because it felt the pressure of her feet.

Back of the altar stood a statue of Joan unlike any we had seen elsewhere, and to us more beautiful. It was not Joan with her banner aloft, her eyes upward. It was Joan with her eyes lowered, looking at no outward thing, her face passive--the saddest face and the saddest eyes in the world--Joan the sacrifice of her people and her king.

It may have been two miles out of Rheims that we met the flood. There had been one heavy shower as we entered the city, but presently the sun broke out, bright and hot, too bright and too hot for permanence. Now suddenly all was black again, there was a roar of thunder, and then such an opening of the water-gates of the sky as would have disturbed Noah. I turned the car over to the side of the road, but the tall, high-trimmed trees afforded no protection. Our top was a shelter, but not a complete one--the wind drove the water in, and in a moment our umbrellas were sticking out in every direction and we had huddled together like chickens. The world was blotted out. I had the feeling at moments that we were being swept down some great submarine current.

I don't know how long the inundation lasted. It may have been five minutes or thirty. Then suddenly it stopped--it was over--the sun was out.

There was then no mud in France,--not in the highroads,--and a moment or two later we had revived, our engine was going, and we were gliding between fair fields--fresh, shining fields where scarlet poppy-patches were as pools of blood. How peaceful it all was then, for there is no lovelier land than the Marne district from Rheims to Châlons and to Vitry-le-Francois. Yet it has been often a war district--a battle-ground; it has been fought over time and again since the ancient allies defeated Attila and his Huns there, checking the purpose of the "Scourge of God," as he called himself. It could never be a battle-ground again, we thought--the great nations were too advanced for war. Ah me! within two months from that day men were lying dead across that very road, shells were tearing at the lovely fields, and another stain had mingled with the trampled poppies.

Châlons-sur-Marne, like Rheims and Epernay, is a champagne center and seemed prosperous. There are some churches there, but they did not seem of great importance.

It was in July when we were on the Marne. In an earlier chapter I have told how, only three weeks later, when we had reached Vevey, Switzerland, the "great upheaval" came, and with what disturbing consequences. We did not leave Europe with the early rush. For a time we hesitated about leaving at all. But then uncertainties increased. With Italy planning war, the possibility of not being able to leave when we were ready was not comforting. So in October at last we got a military pass to take the car out of Switzerland, and on one of the last days of the month set off up the Rhone Valley, down which Cæsar's armies once had marched, and drove to Brigue, and the next day crossed the Simplon Pass--up and up more than six thousand feet, where the snow was flying, and where there are no villages any more, but only a hospice, and here and there a wayside shelter. Then through a wild, savage-looking land--down and down, into Italy, arriving in the rain at Domodossola, glad, oh so glad, for safe shelter and food and beds!

I will not tell here of our month's wanderings in Italy. But one day our reliable car was loaded on a vessel for home, and a little later we were aboard the same ship, breasting such storms as made it seem impossible that only a little while before we had been in a sunny land, gliding smoothly over a solid surface that did not heave, and toss, and roar, day and night, without end; then by and by a day came when we were gliding once more over smooth, solid ground--this time in our own land, far from the quaint villages, the bright rivers, the ancient castles, the sunny slopes, and perfect roads of France.

Yet America is not without its glories. And though it has fewer quaint villages and no ancient castles, it has at least as fair scenery, as fertile lands, and its roads are growing better and more numerous every day. Our wayside inns will improve, too, I am sure of it, until America, like France, may become another paradise. Narcissa and the Joy were patriotic enough to be gladdened at the sight of New England shores and hillsides, and, as Narcissa says:

"Well, if we didn't see America first, we'll probably have plenty of time to see it now."

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LETTER-BOXES IN FOREIGN LANDS

BY A. R. ROY

The first letter-box ever used was established in Paris in 1560. It is true that a kind of letter-box was in use in Italy before that time; it was not used, however, by the postal service, but as a place for denunciations directed to the police.

The first letter-box in Germany was established in 1766, in Berlin. At first the boxes were simple; both for depositing letters and for removing them the cover was lifted. During the last century a great many different styles of boxes have been introduced, but the so-called Swedish system is now in universal use.

In Germany the letter-boxes are highly ornamental, and in many cases made especially to be in harmony with the architecture of the building to which they are fastened. They are painted blue, and show the coat of arms of the empire and that of the postal department, a post-horn with tassels. The mail is removed by fastening a bag to the bottom of the box; the bag is slipped in and opens and closes automatically. The postman does not handle or even see the letters, and cannot get at them.

In London large letter-boxes are placed on the sidewalk, at nearly every street corner. They have different compartments for city and country mail, and this, as well as the height of the apertures, makes them rather inconvenient for any but grown people. While they are painted a brilliant red and therefore very conspicuous, they are by no means an embellishment to the city. The letters are taken out by opening a large door and literally shoveling the mail-matter into a bag.

The letter-box in the general post-office in England is a magnificent construction. The sign-board is made of brass, on which the directions are engraved in ink. Large slits provide for the country and colonial mails, and there is also a different compartment for newspapers and parcels.

The modern French letter-box has the shape of a pillar, profusely ornamented with the conventional lily. The whole box or stand is fashioned after a plant, and the top resembles a bud. The body is surrounded by floral wreaths or festoons, and the base is formed by large leaves. The boxes are placed against buildings and have a very pretty effect.

In Brussels the government keeps pace with the needs of the people, and has attached postal boxes to the rear ends of cars in the city. This aids and hastens the delivery of letters and telegrams, as most of these cars pass the post-offices, where the boxes are emptied. This street-car letter-box, in fact, virtually takes the place of the "pneumatic tube" postal system, for which London and Berlin have become famous.

The Russian post-box is an old-fashioned, awkward-looking box. It looks something like a peasant hut. The roof is lifted up, and the letters are taken out from the top. The postman handles the letters as freely as the sorters themselves. In times past the governmental power in Russia was so strict that it is believed the post-office officials frequently opened letters suspected of being connected with plots against the State, and read them.

The Italian post-boxes are prettily constructed and grouped together in threes and fours. One box is used for the city, another for the country, and by the side is a big automatic machine for stamps. A "penny in the slot" supplies the various kinds of stamps required.

The Amsterdam letter-pillar is of very artistic construction, which is both pleasing to the eye and practical. The royal arms are conspicuously and prettily embossed on the face of the box, and below them are two rosettes of conventional style. There are two letter-slits, one for the country and one for the city. The top is crowned with ornamental bowers. Right above the pillar is a board on which the times of delivery and collection are clearly written.

The Rumanian letter-boxes are all numbered in large letters so as to help the public to keep track of where they post their mail, and also the postman in his collection. It is a simple square box which is placed generally on the walls of large buildings in the main streets.

Throughout the Orient, where the national influences are many and various, each country has its own post-office. For instance, the British have their own, and the French and the Germans theirs. The stamps used by each of these post-offices are, of course, their own, there not being a universal system for all countries.

Right on the city gate in Tangier we find, in this town of an old civilization, the convenience of most modern time--a letter-box. Before the natives were used to them they were considered as wonderful machines into which a missive once being put was mysteriously conveyed to its destination, and they were generally feared. To-day the smallest boy uses them. The style of course varies with the power that puts it up.

Here we can notice with what expression of wonderment the native posts a letter. He is only certain the letter will go, but how, he does not know.

The German post-box is painted blue, and has only German directions written on it. The directions giving time of delivery and collection are written in many languages.

The final photograph shows a letter-box on a Moorish gateway in Tangier, Morocco. And here this convenience of modern days looks strange in its surroundings of Arabic fresco and characters. No attempt has been made to harmonize with the Moorish architecture. The letters are collected from an opening on the other side of the wall.

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LOST RHEIMS

BY LOUISE EUGÉNIE PRICKITT

"Rheims, which has been on fire for a week, is now nothing but a great pile of smoking ruins," I read in the paper of the man who sat next to me in the subway. With a sick heart I read on: "There are no traces of streets and thoroughfares, which have disappeared from view under the accumulation of debris. Ancient buildings in the Place Royal and the market-place and the Musicians' House, which dates from the sixteenth century, have been reduced to dust and ashes." With a doubly sad heart I read it, for to me it is more than an old French city that lies in ruins, since with it goes the picturesque and historic background of my early youth. It is the tragic passing of my city of dreams, for there I dreamed away eight happy years of girlhood.

It is an enviable thing to live in an ancient city like Rheims till its history becomes a part of the texture of one's mind, till the background of that history, hangs like a series of distinct pictures in one's thought, not to be effaced by anything that shall come afterward. The streets of Rheims as they then stood are photographed clearly on the retina of my mind's eye, and, dominating all, as it did at my first sight of it, is the majestic shape of the cathedral. I enter again, in imagination, those beautiful portals, and feel myself a tiny figure, and young in the midst of hoary antiquity. The organ music surges through the building, the choir-boys' voices soar above it. I see again the slanting fall of colored light across the wide gray floors, the soft blue smoke of the rising incense, the towering pillars, the vaulted roof, the dim vistas ending in the splendor of painted windows. Years and years of patient labor it took to rear this marvel. It represented the ideality of an age; it was, in fact, that ideality incarnate, left standing for all posterity to see and take inspiration from.

It was at sunset one December day that I first entered Rheims. It was to be my home for the next eight years, for my father had been appointed by the American Government to be consul there. How eagerly, I remember, we looked out of the train window as we approached the city. Long before the town itself became distinct to our eyes, we could plainly see the cathedral, a superb silhouette, imposing and not to be forgotten. It was like one's first view of the ocean or the mountains or the desert.

That night we slept opposite the cathedral in the eighteenth-century Hôtel Lion d'Or. I recollect the thrill of excitement my sister and I felt as the big bus rattled into the courtyard of that quaint hostelry and agile valets in yellow-and-black striped waistcoats ran to open the door for us. We felt that we were at last to live a storybook life of adventure and romance.

The deep-toned bells of the cathedral awakened us at dawn, and in the pale light we rushed to the windows to look out on the sculptured façade of the wonderful building in order that we might feel again the strange charm that had so wrought upon us at our first sight of it. In the open square before us a valiant figure caught our attention, a figure of bronze that sat upon a spirited charger and held aloft a spear--Jeanne d'Arc, before the cathedral that had witnessed her brief hour of glory. The story we knew well, but shape and color it had never had before. The centuries before ours had been hardly more to us than Arabian Nights' tales, yet here was the visible evidence of the mighty procession of people who had existed before our day. We could not take the shortest walk in the city without being reminded of the dim perspective of history stretching far back of our youth, for here it was written in tangible and enduring stone.

At the rear of the Hôtel Lion d'Or we could see the old hotel of the sign of the Maison Rouge, where the father and mother of Jeanne d'Arc were housed at the time of the crowning of the dauphin. We could walk over the cobblestone of the narrow rue de Tambour, which was once, so history says, one of the largest and most frequented of the streets of Rheims. We could look up at the Maison des Musiciens, so old a building that no one knows for what it was originally built. On its quaint façade how often we curiously examined the broken figures of the sculptured musicians, for this was the street down which the royal processions passed on their way to the coronation at the cathedral. The soldiers in the vanguard had struck and broken the statues with their spears to make way for the banners and pennants of the brilliant cavalcade. How full of color and splendor the street must have appeared then! But that was all past, and the musicians, in our time, looked down only upon market-women trundling their wares through to the market-place beyond. The old building, nevertheless, still served to re-create, in the fancy of two wondering girls, those stately yesterdays.

In the rue Carnot how often we paused to glance up at a curious archway supporting two round towers! Old, very old it looked. And no wonder! for it dated from the Middle Ages. Under the arch we could catch a glimpse of the walls of the cathedral, gray as frost, and the prison, with beggars sitting in its grim shadow.

How the past centuries peered out at us from every corner, showing in quaint portals such as the one on the school of the Petit Lycée, with its bas-reliefs of a laughing child on one side and a crying one on the other, known to the "_bons enfants_" since the beginning of the school as "_Jean qui rit_" and "_Jean qui pleure_." Or that of the old house of the La Salle family, in the rue de l'Arbalète, with its life-size figures of Adam and Eve to guard the entrance.

When we walked down the rue Cérès we passed the house where Louis XIV's famous minister, Colbert, was born, and often pictured him coming out of the wide doorway, the courtly, velvet-clad figure that the portrait of him in the art museum had made familiar to our minds: for many a trip we made to the Hôtel des Ville to see the paintings and the wonderful illuminated books in the library and the beautiful old building itself. We would often stop, I remember, to read the list of marriages posted in the vestibule, the Maries, the Yvonnes, and the Marguerites, the Jeans, the Marcels, and Pierres who were to "live happily ever afterward," or so we confidently believed. Several years later the elder sister came with her lover to read shyly her own, for the old and dignified Salle des Marriages was to be the background of her romance, too.

We had read Dumas, and Anne of Austria, as every one knows, figures largely in his tales. But that she was more real than d'Artagnan we had hardly conceived, until one day we stood before the seventeenth century house in the rue de l'Université which once had the honor of sheltering her. It belonged to Jean Mailefer, and he has left an account of the visit in quaintly spelled old French which we were fortunate enough to have a chance to read. He was very proud of the magnificence of his dwelling, and spread its luxury before us as a peacock might spread his gorgeous tail for humbler birds to admire. It was fit for a queen he felt, and lo! she was coming. He describes exultantly the sound of the trumpets that signalized the consequential arrival of royalty. "_Tatera, tatera, tatera! Que d'honeurs qui vont tomber sur mes foibles espaulles!_" ["What honors to fall upon my poor shoulders!"] The pride of the seventeenth century--how laughably like it is to that of the twentieth. The queen as she entered, jestingly said, "The house is my own!" "Yes, _grande Princess_, you are right," responded its owner, quickly. At the same time the Marshal Duplessis asked of him, "Monsieur, are you the master of this house?" "Monsieur," replied the gallant gentleman of Rheims, bowing with a grand air, I make no doubt, "Monsieur, I was but a moment ago; but when the sun appears, the stars are eclipsed."

In the rue de la Grue we searched out the house where was born Tronson du Coudray, an eloquent lawyer of the Paris Parliament and the courageous defender of Marie Antoinette. With all our young enthusiasm we loved him as the champion of the ill-fated queen. The Porte de Paris, the great iron gateway in Rheims, the guidebooks told us was a triumph of the smith's art, but it held our imaginations in thrall because it had been built in honor of the crowning of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Somewhere we had found an account of the coronation, and read how joyously they had entered the city, and how in the cathedral, in the midst of the acclamations and applause, so loud and prolonged that they covered the sound of the bells and the noise of the cannon, the "_gracieuse Marie Antoinette_" had fainted and thus "_elle a perdu quelques instants du plus beau jour de sa vie_" ["she had lost some moments of the most beautiful day of her life"]. We loved to imagine her against the background of that rich interior of the cathedral, the light through its glowing windows touching with iridescence the tall gray pillars; the royal pennants and draperies, bright tones against the sombre hues of the marvelous tapestries; gold flashing here and there from tall candlesticks and brilliant uniforms; wonderful gems catching fire from the great arched windows that seemed, in the brightness of the sun, to be themselves made of rival jewels. A splendid setting for "the most beautiful day of her life." "The height, the space, the gloom, the glory," how they typified that life!

The Porte de Paris, too, was eloquent of the fierce days of the Revolution. The people of Rheims tell how the mob one day came surging toward it, when the ringleaders proposed that they destroy the gilded crown upon its apex as the symbol of hated royalty. Then the mayor, a man of tactful resource, called to the most furious of the band and asked if he had a ten-sou piece at his service. The man readily passed it to him, whereupon the mayor at once gave it to a beggar standing near. "Take it," said he; "Monsieur will have nothing with a crown upon it." Every one laughed, and the crown on the gate was saved.

Under the wide arch of the Porte de Paris victorious Napoleon entered after the Prussian occupation of the city in 1814. It was already nightfall when the fierce battle was fought, and not until eleven o'clock was Napoleon able to enter the city. What an ovation he received from the rejoicing citizens--the Remois! It thrilled us to read it. All at once the great bells of the cathedral thundered forth a welcome, while at the same time every window in the town was lighted and a great cry of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" rang from end to end of the city. The house in the rue de Vesle, where he slept that night, is an old acquaintance.

If the Porte de Paris seemed old to us and eloquent of the past, what was to be said of the gray old arch known as the Porte de Mars, that dated before Christ and "spoke aloud for future times to hear" of the triumphs of great Cæsar and of the Gallo-Roman days? and what of the market-place which was once, we were told, the Roman forum? Even in our time, though all traces of the forum were gone, the market-place was an ancient-looking square, edged as it was with quaint old buildings, among them, notably, an elaborately carved wooden house, one of the most curious specimens of fifteenth century art.

Near by was the old church of St. Jacques. Often we used to steal in to rest awhile in its rainbow-colored twilight. Not as imposing as the cathedral, but very lovely nevertheless, it was one of the relics of the twelfth century. The cathedral, St. Jacques, and the old abbey church of St. Remi--they have formed for us the beautiful and impressive backgrounds of many a wedding and funeral and quaint religious service.

Many a time we have threaded the queer old streets of Rheims with their queer old names--the rue de la Clef [Street of the Key], the rue des Deux Anges [Street of the Two Angels], the rue des Trois Raisinets [Street of the Three Little Grapes]. _The Maison des Quatres Chats Gringnants_ [House of the Four Grinning Cats], the _Auberge du Lapin Gras_ [Tavern of the Fat Rabbit], curious old buildings of the Middle Ages--we passed them by in our youth, but we shall carry the memory of them into our old age. How tranquil the city used to seem to us then! Too quiet, sometimes; a drowsy old town, we said, sitting like venerable age sleeping in the sun. How little we dreamed what a cruel awakening was in store for it; that horror and terror were to stalk through all those peaceful streets and leave their dreadful scars behind!

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WHERE DOROTHY VERNON DWELT

BY MINNA B. NOYES

At Rowsley, England, the quaint old Peacock Inn, with its vine-covered walls, casement windows, and rare old gardens, is the picture of peace and comfort, and it is also a perfect type of the hostelries of bygone days.

If the guest can tear himself away from its ease and plenty, its stately gardens, and its soothing atmosphere, the surrounding country affords many delightful walks and attractions both historical and romantic.

Following the pretty little river Wye, one soon comes to Haddon Hall, one of the best specimens of medieval domestic architecture now in existence, although it has been added to at various periods from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries.

It was given by William the Conqueror to one of his sons, William Peveril (Scott's "Peveril of the Peak"), and is now the property of the Duke of Rutland, a descendant of the beautiful Dorothy Vernon, whose romantic elopement with John Manners has been celebrated in drama, song, and story, and lends an especial interest to the old castle.