Page:Costello - A pilgrimage to Auvergne from Picardy to Velay - A 30154 1.pdf/24

10 its appearance. Could we have sobered our minds down to the admiration of its fabrics of iron and sugar, we need not have complained, for a person of whom we inquired the nature of its commerce entreated us to lose no time in visiting the manufactures. That of iron, he assured us, was the most important in France, and we were content to take his word for it, not then being aware, as we were in due time, that wherever iron-works are carried on, that, spot is vaunted as producing the best in the kingdom: perhaps, as all is indifferent, one town has as much right to be celebrated for its iron as another. Our informant, seeing that we had the bad taste to show our indifference about the first establishment of which he boasted, changed the object of his eulogium, and, with an air of enthusiasm, begged us to visit the sugar mills—“ voila ce qu’il y a de sublime !” he exclaimed. Even this, however, and being further assured that the director was an Englishman, did not induce us to walk in the sun along a very dusty road to sce the immortal buildings which have effaced the glories of the magnificent cathedral now no more.

Arras must have been a very strong town, as its remaining defences prove: the fortifications are being restored with great acvity, and it bids fair to offer as much resistance as ever.