Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/273

 128. VII. SEPT. 18, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

221

LONDON, SEPTEMBER IS, 1920.

CONTENTS. No. 127.

3TOTKS: St. Omer, 221 Irish Family History: Lacy of Dublin, 223 Extracts from the Aldeburgh Kecords : Chamberlain's Account Books, 225 ''Ancaster" and ' Annhun Rex Grecorum," 227 The Lights of London William Billyng and his Devotional Verses Ducks and Drakes, 229- English Pugilists in Paris A Memorandum of Carlyle's, 230.

(QUERIES : " Telling Tales out of the Queen's Coach " The University Family Bible : Henry Southwell Children's Dreams, 230 Christian Wegersloff-Welch Novels of the North Woods "Die Englische Pfer- dedressur " The Vagaries of Indexers Isaak Walton Stourhead and Alexander Pope, 231 Nevill Simmons of Sheffield Great Bedwin, Wilts " Grinders "The Old Horse Guards Buildings Missing Words : Recovery Desired Marbury : Blount Judfte Payne : Reference Wanted Timothy Constable Thos. Thorpe, 232.

REPLIES : President John Richardson Herbert of Nevis, 232 Austis: Le Neve: Arderne, 234 Culcheth The Weather, 1639/40 " Nor did tfly for it'' Renton Nichol- son, 235 Owen McSwiny The Hedges of England- Willow Pattern China -The "'Unable Commons," 236 Julia, Daughter of Csesar the Dictator Local London Magazines Age of Matriculation at Oxford : Eighteenth Century London Street "Grottoes," 237 Wideawake Hats Mahogany and the Dictionaries The Reddle- man, 238 Blessed William of Assisi Brooch and Motto, 239.

NOTES ON BOOKS:- 1 The Influence of Man on Animal Life in Scotland : a Study in Faunal Evolution ' ' Shakespeare's Fight with the Pirates and the Problems of the Transmission of his Text.'

Notices to Correspondents.

ST. OMER.

I.

THE ' Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences, des Arts, et des Metiers' (od. Neufchatel, 1765), describes St. Omer as :

" Ville de France en Artois, capital d'un iDaillage, avec des fortifications, un chateau et un e"vech sufHragant de Cambrai. Elle est sur la xiviere d'Aa dans un marais qui la rend tres forte."

This was the St. Omer of Louis XV. To- day, all that remains true in the above des- cription is contained in the words " ville de France en Artois sur la riviere d'Aa." The Milage and the chateau disappeared in the Revolution, the Bishopric (founded in 1561), ceased to exist in 1801, the fortifications were dismantled in 1894, and the marshlands have been reclaimed. It might even be claimed that technically Artois, too, has ceased to exist as anything but a " geo- graphical expression."

In the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' (.1911) St. Omer is described as a town and fortress of Northern France, capital of the Depart- ment of Pas-de-Calais.

But- in this single sentence are two errors. . The capital of the Pas-de-Calais is Arras, and in 1911 St. Omer had long ceased to be a fortress. Indeed, the ' Encyclopaedia Brit- annica ' proceeds immediately to discgver its own error in recording that the fortifications were demolished during the last decade of the nineteenth century, and boulevards and new thoroughfares made in their place, and also by correctly stating that the town is " the seat of a sub-prefect," which is equivalent to saying that it is the capital of an arrondissement not of the Department. St. Omer may, however, be said to be the judicial capital of the Depart- ment, as the Assize Court is situated there. It might, however, have been better to follow a local guide-book and to have stated

" St. Omer est une ville de 21,000 habitants, Sous -Prefecture du de"partement du Pas-de- Calais, ancienne place forte declassee en 1888."

After noting the former Cathedral and the ruins of the Abbey church of St. Bertin, the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' goes on to state that

" several other churches or convent chapels are of interest, amongst them St. Sepulchre (four- teenth century), which has a beautiful stone spire,"

but there is no reference to the equally interesting thirteenth century tower of the church of St. Denis. This, however, is merely an omission. Much more to be regretted is the perpetuation of the legend of Jacqueline Robins and the siege of the town by Marlborough and Prince Eugene. Ac- cording to the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' " In 1711 St. Omer, on the verge of surrendering to Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough owing to famine, was saved by the daring of Jacqueline Robin [sic], who risked her life in bringing provisions into the place."

It is true that there is a statue to Jacque- line Robins in the town with an inscription setting forth an exploit of this nature* in 1710 (apt 1711), but at the time of its

maroise | sa | ville natale reconnaissante. | Au pe"ril de sa vie | la vaillante femme approvisionna Prince Eugene et Marlborough | furent ainsi force's de lever le siege. | 1710." Fortunately, the inscription is on the back of the pedestal. For other inscriptions in St. Omer see ' N. & Q./ 12 S. vi. 145.
 * The inscription reads, " A I'heroine Audo-
 * de munitions la ville de Saint- Omer. | Le