Page:The Bible of Amiens.djvu/29

Rh "Un règlement de l'échevinage, du 12$me$ avril 1566, fait voir qu'on fabriquait à cette epoque, des velours de toutes couleurs pour meubles, des colombettes à grands et petits carreaux, des burailles croises, qu'on expédiait en Allemagne — en Espagne, en Turquie, et en Barbarie!"

All-coloured velvets, pearl-iridescent colombettes! (I wonder what they may be ?) and sent to vie with the variegated carpet of the Turk, and glow upon the arabesque towers of Barbary! Was not this a phase of provincial Picard life which an intelligent English traveller might do well to inquire into? Why should this fountain of rainbows leap up suddenly here by Somme; and a little Frankish maid write herself the sister of Venice, and the servant of Carthage and of Tyre?

And if she, why not others also of our northern villages? Has the intelligent traveller discerned anything, in the country, or in its shores, on his way from the gate of Calais to the gare of Amiens, of special advantage for artistic design, or for commercial enterprise? He has seen league after league of sandy dunes. We also, we, have