Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1889.]
The aspect of the old French town was very different from anything
English; whiter, infinitely cleaner; higher and narrower houses, the
entrance to most of which seeming to be through a great gateway affording
admission into a central court-yard; a public square, with a statue in the
middle, and another statue in a neighboring street. We met priests in
three-cornered hats, long frock-coats, and knee-breeches; also soldiers
and gendarmes, and peasants and children, clattering over the pavements in
wooden shoes.
It makes a great impression of outlandishness to see the signs over the
shop doors in a foreign tongue. If the cold had not been such as to dull
my sense of novelty, and make all my perceptions torpid, I should have
taken in a set of new impressions, and enjoyed them very much. As it was,
I cared little for what I saw, but yet had life enough left to enjoy the
Cathedral of Amiens, which has many features unlike those of English
cathedrals.
It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered
look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of England, which cover a
great space of ground in proportion to their height.
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