ttraction, that which draws strangers to
the place, is the July "Fete de Gayant," at which M. and Mme. Gayant
(giant), made of wickerwork and dressed more or less _a la mode_, are
promenaded up and down the streets to the tune of the "Air de
Gayante." All this is in commemoration of an unsuccessful attempt to
capture the city by Louis XI. in 1479. The fete has been going on
yearly ever since, and shows no signs of dying out, as does the Guy
Fawkes celebration in England.

We were now going through France's "black country," the coal-fields
of the north, and the gaunt scaffolds of the mine-pits dotted the
landscape here and there, as they do in Pennsylvania or the Midlands
of England. They did not especially disfigure the landscape, but gave
a modern note of industry and prosperity which was as marked as that
of the farmyards of the peasants and high-farmers of Normandy or La
Beance. France is an exceedingly wealthy, and, what is more, a
"self-contained" nation; and this fact should not be forgotten by the
critics of what they like to call _effete Europe_.

Bethune is in the heart of the coal country, and is not a
particularly lovely town. It has a dream of an old-world hotel,
though, and one may go a great deal farther and fare a great deal
worse than at Bethune's Hotel du Nord, a great rambling, stone
Renaissance building, with heavy decorated window-frames, queer
rambling staircases, and ponderous, beamed ceilings.

[Illustration: Villiers-Cotterets]

It sits on a little _Place_, opposite an isolated belfry, from whose
upper window there twinkles, at night, a little star of light, like a
mariner's beacon. What it is all supposed to represent no ones seems
to know, but it is an institution which dies hard, and some one pays
the expense of keeping it alight. A belfry is a very useful adjunct
to a town. If the writer ever plans a modern city he will plant a
belfry in the very centre, with four clock-faces on it, a sun-dial, a
thermometer, and a peal of bells. You find all these things on the
belfry of Bethune, and altogether it is the most picturesque,
satisfying, and useful belfry the writer has ever seen.

The food and lodging of the Hotel du Nord at Bethune are as
satisfactory as its location, and we were content indeed to remain
the following day in the dull little town, because of a torrential
downpour which kept us house-bound till four in the afternoon. If one
really wants to step back into the dark ages, jus