Page:The Bible of Amiens.djvu/35

Rh tianity stood, and with what monument has it been honoured?

It stood where we now stand, companion mine, whoever you may be; and the monument where- with it has been honoured is this—chimney, whose gonfalon of smoke overshadows us—the latest effort of modern art in Amiens, the chimney of St. Acheul.

The first cathedral, you observe, of the French nation; more accurately, the first germ of cathedral for the French nation—who are not yet here; only this grave of a martyr is here, and this church of Our Lady of Martyrs, abiding on the hillside, till the Roman power pass away.

Falling together with it, and trampled down by savage tribes, alike the city and the shrine; the grave forgotten,—when at last the Franks themselves pour from the north, and the utmost wave of them, lapping along these downs of Somme, is here stayed, and the Frankish standard planted, and the French kingdom throned.

Here their first capital, here the first footsteps of the Frank in his France! Think of it. All over the south are Gauls, Burgundians, Bretons, heavier-hearted nations of sullen mind:—at their outmost