BY-ROADS AND BATTLE-FIELDS IN PICARDY.*
Timm is compensation in everything, and civilization has its draw- backs as well as its advantages. In the article of travel this is as much the case as anywhere else, though travelling is one of the points in which we usually suppose ourselves to have made the greatest progress. Progress, indeed, has been made in the art of getting from place to .place in the quickest possible time, and in making sure, in the principaltowns, of first-rate accomodation, but in
the power which annihilates distance destroys many of the charms which used to attend a less expeditious mode of accomplishing a journey. More people travel, which is a great gain in destroying prejudices and facilitating intercourse for the future, but it is a ques- tion whether more is seen, though what is seen is seen by more eyes. A thousand Englishmen visit Paris for one who reached it formerly, but most certainly the visitors to intermediate places have not in- creased in anything like a similar proportion. As long as it was im- possible to reach Paris in one day the tourist might be tempted to loiter where he was obliged to stop, but now that the latter is un- necessary, he refuses to believe that there is anything worth loitering for. The national tendency to get as much for one's money as pos- sible, causes the man who has a fortnight's holiday to go as far as he can from home—to spend a couple of nights and days, probably, in the vain attempt to sleep in a railway-carriage, and lose part of the stock of health he has acquired, in a bit of similar discomfort on his way home; while, if his plan were less ambitious, he might visit with ease and amusement some really unexplored localities, see a little more variety of foreign character, and have something to talk about
* By-roads and Battle-fields in Picardy: with Incidents and Gatherings by the Way between Ambletewie and Ham; including Agincourt and Caicy. By G. M. lituf- grate, 31.A. With illustrations. Bell and Daldy.
when he came home which would not be absolutely certain to be known to every person present.
Any one who opens Mr. Musgrave's agreeable volume will find ample hints for indulging curiosity in a region by no means thoroughly known to Englishmen, without troubling himself with long railway journeys or incurring any very great expense. He has this time chosen a district not quite so far off as that which employed his pen and pencil on a previous occasion. The "Pilgrimage into Dauphine" embraced some magnificent scenery; of this, we have, of course, nothing at all in Picardy, but its absence is made up for by the rich field of historical recollections, and the many noble and curious architectural monuments which are to be found by those who will take the trouble to look for them. At the same time, those who may be tempted to follow in Mr. Musgrave's track must remember that the more a traveller brings, the more he finds, and that one who knows little of history and nothing of art, and takes no interest in agriculture or national progress, must expect to find Picardy dull, though it contains the churches of Amiens and Abbeville, and the battle-fields of Crecy and Agincourt. Mr. Musgrave is a well-read and cultivated man—" a good scholar and amateur controver- sialist ;" can handle his pencil for a landscape, or astonish a work- man by helping him to paint a wheelbarrow—can report a sermon of twenty minutes, and carry on a temperate discussion on Romanism with a priest and a nun, and put historical records to a very prac- tical test.
Landing at Boulogne, and passing through Wimereux, the scene of Louis Napoleon's disembarkation in 1840, he explored the melan- choly Wissant (the Port= Bias of the Romans), where shapeless sandbanks remain to testify to the existence of a vast Caesarean en- campment, and then went on to investigate the neighbourhood of the river Somme, which the traveller from Boulogne to Paris is usually so anxious to leave behind him. Like a judicious man, he took care to talk to every one he met, and at Airames, a small place a short distance from the Amiens line, fell in with the doctor of the town,. whose grievance was the predilection of the inhabitants for quackery. They went to " wise women" to heal their ailments instead of to the regular medical practitioner, and he seemed to regret that he himself had not set up as an astrologer instead of a tne'cleein. The people were "stupid" enough, he said, to allow themselves to be woke from sleep at midnight on Allhallows-eve, as in the middle ages, by the chief bell-ringer of the brotherhood of St. Ruch, patrolling the streets with a great handbell to arouse them to pray for the souls of guilty sinners. At Noyelle, Mr. Musgrave determined to test the accuracy. of Froissart's account of Edward III.'s passage of the Somme just before the battle of Crecy, and was conducted by an innkeeper re- joicing in the name of Valois, into the right track. for his investiga- tion. Passing the mound with its little grove and its cross, which covers the undistinguished bones of many of the brave men who fell on that memorable day, he set himself to look for the ford of Blanche- tache, where the Somme, spreading widely over a hard bed of gravel, afforded space for Edward's army to cross twelve abreast; a spot to which lie was directed by the "varlet of Mons," Gobin Agace, who. received 100 nobles, a high-bred horse, and the contumely of French historians, for his reward. Gobin Agace promised Edward that he should cross with the water not above his knees, and Mr. Musgrave, taking off boots and stockings, made the experiment at what seemed the most likely spot. It was successful. The water was exactly of the depth described, and a shepherd, who came up just as he had re- crossed, told him that "Blauque-taque" was still the name by which the ford was known.
Of architectural curiosities, the most remarkable which Mr. Mus- grave visited seems to have been the church at St. Riquier, the ex- terior of which, in the Flamboyant style, is nearly equal to that of Abbeville, and is ornamented with a profusion of free and delicate carving. The interior has some objects which must be worth a con- siderable detour to inspect. There are two very quaint clusters of pillars, one on each side the nave, each containing one column lean- ing out of the perpendicular, but clearly neither the result of accident nor serving any purpose of strength. There is a large picture of the Virgin and Child appearing to Philomene, of great excellence, and reminding Mr. Musgrave of some of Hilton's large works—whose artist, destitute of both hands, painted it with his feet. St. Riquier seems to have been fortunate in the enthusiasm of its artists, for two of the stone ribs of the roof have been carved into beautiful plaited tracery enriched with flowers—a task which the sculptor could only perform by lying on his back, but which he nevertheless meant to continue all through the vaulting. Unfortunately, the soaffold on
he lay broke down, and lamed him so cruelly that he never was able to carry his design further. The treasury of the abbey contained some curiosities : a crucifix eleven feet high, with the figure rather smaller than life, all sculptured from a single block of stone ; a per- forated ball, with a cup inside to contain a lighted oil wick, once used as a hand-warmer by the priest at mass ; and an infinity of saints' fingers, teeth, and bones, packed up in little boxes, sealed and labelled. But the gem of the edifice is a crucifix carved in wood, and painted to imitate life, so exactly, that artists and surgeons come from all parts of France to inspect it. Mr. Musgrave found that, for once, a coloured statue could transcend in effectiveness the finest examples of pictorial art ; and appears to have been genuinely im- pressed by this fignre, which, however, he says, is quite unknown, not only to tourists, but to those who might be expected to be better informed.
At Ham, our traveller visited the castle, and devotes a chapter to a detailed account, gathered on the spot, of Louis Napoleon's escape,. which seems to have been favoured by good fortune in the most sur- wising way. Two or three times he was within an ace of discovery. from such a subject to politics the transition is easy, but Mr. Mus- grave, though his admiration of the Emperor's capacity is high, does not lead us to suppose that his policy is altogether favourably re- garded in France. He found the manufacturers and shopkeepers complaining bitterly of the stagnation of trade, owing to the un- certainty in, which the country is kept as to the prospects of fresh war. The Emperor's intentions were undivulged, and, as long as they were so, not only articles of luxury, but even the necessaries of life, "seemed alike to be uncalled for and uncalled for." A much older source of national decline is the partage of land, as to which almost every traveller who has looked into the subject is of the same opinion. Mr. Musgrave inspected the country near Arras, where there is a flourishing agricultural society, which has done much both for the farmer and the labourer, but though its exertions in respect of experiments in tillage, stock, machinery, and fertilization are most laudable, the drawback of small holdings is insuperable. The demand for meat is greater than can be met, and even moderately large estates do not afford enough grazing land to fatten sheep pro- perly. Twenty acres may be seen divided into wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, tares, beetroot, colsa, and poppy crops, all coining up m.succession, and there are tens of thonsands of estates in France smaller than this. Such a state of things excludes, flocks and herds on auy large scale, and Mr. Alusgrave's desoription of the inferiority of the meat would fully justify his reversing, as to France, the well- blown proverb about the respective origins of cooks and meat in Enffland. However, after the author's repeated visits to the country, he still finds its people a riddle, and professes himself unable to determine what precise effect has been produced by the various social changes which have taken place since 1789. One reflection which always occurs to us on looking at a book of this kind, is to wonder whether such works ever reach the country to which they relate, as those of French tourists do ours ? Are there any English travellers who have given as malicious, stupid, and mendacious descriptions of France and French society as are contained in M. Larcher's work on England, to which M. Emile de Girardin has been weak enough to lend an editorial sanction? What opportunity is there of contra- dicting such books in their own country ? Air. Musgrave is a tra- veller of a different sort, but there are two sides to every question, and nothing would be more instructive than a criticism on his work by a French reviewer. We have seen nothing which he relates that does not accord with our own experience, but it would throw, pro- bably, unexpected lights on the subject he discusses to hear the opinion, for instance, of his friend, M. Boucher de Perthes. We rather wonder that English Travellers in France has never formed. the theme of any of the very able articles which the Revue den Deur Monde: occasionally contains on our literature. There is mother way in which the matter might be taken up. M. Louis Blanc is now established as a popular lectUrer. We can imagine few more interesting. topics than might be embraced if he were to afford us an opportunity of hearing his opinion on the correctness of Eng• lish views of his country, We have little doubt that among the eefu most trustworthy as well as entertainin inquirers he would place. Mr. Musgrave, whose freshness of f ' t cr., vividness of descrip- tion, and novelty of the field explored, wi make us glad to meet him again on any other " by-roads" he may select for his next ex- cursion.
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