n the
plain. The sides, as they get higher, become more precipitous, but from
the thin edge there ascends a road about which houses cluster, irregular
and pointed roofs rising one above the other in strange confusion until
they are crowned at the summit by the chateau standing like their
protector to face and defy the world. To the right, dominating the whole
of this region, is the great double peak, snow-clad and often
cloud-bound, which seems to stand sentinel for the surrounding mountains
as the castle does to the valley; God's work and the work of man. He who
first built his castle there knew well that in might lay right, and
chose his place accordingly. Now houses stretch down to the level of the
plain, but it was not always so. Halfway through the village the road
passes through a gateway of solid stone, flanked by towers pierced for
defense, and the wall through which this gate gives entrance remains,
broken in places, lichen-covered, yet still eloquent of its former
strength and purpose. Within the gate the village widens into an open
square rising toward the chateau, and this square is surrounded by old
houses picturesque and with histories. Many a time Beauvais has stood
siege, its lord holding it against some neighbor stirred by pride or
love tragedy to deadly feud. In these ancient houses his retainers
lived, his only so long as he was strong enough to make himself feared,
fierce men gathered from all points of the compass, soldiers of fortune
holding their own lives and the lives of others cheaply. From such men,
brilliant in arms, have sprung descendants who have made their mark in a
politer epoch, men and women who have become courtiers, companions of
kings, leaders of men, pioneers of learning. Carved into these ancient
houses in Beauvais are crests and mottoes which are the pride of these
descendants now scattered over Europe. Such is the village of Beauvais,
asleep for many years, the home of peasants chiefly, mountaineers and
tenders of cattle, still with the fighting spirit in them, but dormant,
lacking the necessity. A fair place, but to the exile, only through a
veil does the fairest land reveal its beauty. Its sunlit hills, its
green pastures, the silver sheen of its streams, the blue of its sky, he
will see through a mist of regret, through tears perchance. No beauty
can do away with the fact that it is only a land of exile, to be endured
and made the best of for a while, never to be really loved.