ltogether the most unspoiled old-world town between the
Ile de France and the Channel ports of Boulogne and Calais through
which so many Anglo-Saxon travellers enter. It is off the beaten
track, though, and that accounts for it. Blessed be the tourist
agencies which know nothing beyond their regular routes, and thus
leave some forgotten and neglected tourist-points yet to be
developed.

The majesty of Noyon's cathedral of Notre Dame is unequalled in all
the world. The grim towers rise boldly without ornament or decoration
of any kind, and are cowled by a peculiarly strange roofing. The
triple porch is denuded of its decorative statues, and there is a
rank Renaissance excrescence in the rear which is unseemly, but for
all that, as a mediaeval religious monument of rank, it appeals to all
quite as forcibly as the brilliantly florid cathedral at Beauvais, or
the richly proud Amiens, its nearest neighbours of episcopal rank.

We did not sit in front of the Hotel du Nord at Noyon, as did
Stevenson, and hear the "sweet groaning of the organ" from the
cathedral doorway, but we experienced all the emotions of which he
wrote in his "Inland Voyage," and we were glad we came.

The Hotel de France and the Hotel du Nord share the custom of the
ever-shifting traffic of _voyageurs_ at Noyon. The latter is the
"automobile" hotel, and accordingly possesses many little accessories
which the other establishment lacks. Otherwise they are of about the
same value, and in either you will, unless you are a very heavy
sleeper, think that the cathedral-bells were made to wake the dead,
so reverberant are their tones and so frequent their ringing.

It was Stevenson's wish that, if he ever embraced Catholicism, he
should be made Bishop of Noyon. Whether it was the simple magnitude
of its quaint, straight-lined cathedral, or the generally charming
and _riant_ aspect of the town, one does not know, but the sentiment
was worthy of both the man and the place.

"Les affaires sont les affaires," as the French say, and business
called us to Paris; so, after a happy ten days on the Seine and Oise,
we cut our voyage short with the avowed intention of some day
continuing it.

Chapter VI
The Road To The North

[Illustration: The Road North]

We left Paris by the ghastly route leading out through the plain of
Gennevilliers, where Paris empties her sewage and grows asparagus,
passing St. Denis and its royal catacombs of the ancient abbey, and
so