Page:Costello - A pilgrimage to Auvergne from Picardy to Velay - A 30154 1.pdf/25

Rh Troops were quartered in all the villages through which we passed, and every thing looked warlike, The country beyond Arras continues flat and ugly, corn-fields and windmills alone appearing for leagues, and Bapaume, the goal of La Belle Picarde’s voyage, presented its evidences of mourning in most lugubrious style. Black draperies floated from every door and window, and covered the fronts of the houses, telling of woe in all directions. The rain at this moment of our journey began to descend violently, and we rejoiced to enter the inn yard of the hotel at Peronne, where we received a gentle greeting from a tame lamb whieh ran about amongst the monstrous dogs belonging to the stable: a tenement which is always in evidence before the windows of the chambers reserved for travellers as the best.

We had now entered that part of the country in early times the scene of fierce contention between the rival chiefs who struggled for mastery in France. Here the counts of Vermandois long exercised their power; here they fought, pillaged, ravaged, and subjected the inhabitants to all kinds of eruelty and oppression. Here were carried on in their greatest fury those civil wars of the tenth century, which tore France to pieces. Peronne, St. Quentin, Laon, Soissons, Chateau Thierry,