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Show ROMANTIC OLD ARRAS; NO MORE PICTURESQUE CITY TO) BE SEEN IN FRANCE. t Has Seen Much of French History In1 the Making and Is Today a Com- j merelal Point of lm- j ' portsnee. ,' The picturesque old city of Arrasr where the Franco-British forces eon-! centrated in huge numbers to check? the German advance, and where th British fell back after the, Germans': occupied Cambral, must have waked' up and rubbed Its antique eyes to seei Its quondam foes within Its gates as) allies of Its beloved country. For, Arras was within the triangle over which the English fought in the; fifteenth century. The baso of the triangle was the sea lino from Harfieur to Calais, and tho apex was Paris. This Is also the ground over which some of the' fiercest battles ot the present war raged. For thirty years the English battled until nothing was left of their French; territory except tho Norman Isles, and the newer conquest of Calais and Its small territory. At last, In 1435, at the peace of Arras, Philip of Burgundy Bur-gundy "solemnly" forsook the English alliance, and tho English power in Franco fell back. ' This old town, which dates back to the time of Caesar, Is 100 miles northeast north-east from Paris, and has a population of something like 25,000 people. While it is most painful to think of this once great art center as an Industrial In-dustrial place, one must, when he recalls re-calls the oil works, dye works, breweries brew-eries and the manufactories of hosiery, hos-iery, lace, beet sugar, soap and earthenware, earth-enware, which make it today a twentieth twenti-eth century commercial town. However, Its glory cannot depart while the beautiful townhouse, dating from the sixteenth century, the citadel cita-del partly gono, erected byVauban, marshal ot France and the greatest military engineer ot the seventeenth century, and the tall, Imposing houses In the Flemish stylo overlooking tho flno squares, with the upper stories projecting over the footway, remain. Theso tophcavy looking houses were built In a time when a man's house was Indeed his castle, and the projecting upper stories were used to wage warfare on the enemy In the narrow street below. The modern armies with their wonderful and numerous nu-merous equipment of war must often find it difficult to get through these narrow streets in the old towns of Frarfce and Germany. They are better bet-ter suited to the time when men fought hand to hand, and warfare was a matter of Individual bravery. That wondertul tapestry In the Angers cathedral, which represents scenes from the Apocalypse, was made In Arras, and some ot the finest pieces used In the decorations of the field of the cloth of gold. Robespierre, the most famous and fanatical of the republican leaders ot the French revolution, was born there in 1758, and later becamo a criminal Judgo and a member of the academy. i He was one of tho dandles and beaux ot Arras, setting the fashion In clothes, and astonishing the most exqulsito 1 with the richness of his laces and I dress. This Is difficult to believe when one's vision, of him Is always In the bonnet rougo'of the revolutionist, standing, with Impassioned eloquence, encouraging tho people. |