be quite a consideration with _pater-familias_ with a limited
income derived from Consols or some other traditionally "excellent
investment."

Most travellers are familiar with what attractions Boulogne really does
offer, but few if any would consider its very modern and ugly cathedral
one of them.

Perched in the centre of the _Haute-Ville_, overlooking the city and
port, the Cathedral of Notre Dame exists to-day more as a monument to
the energy and devotion of its founder than as a notable architectural
work. It follows no particular style, except that it is Italian of the
most debased general type, though no doubt parts of it meet the
dimensions and formulas laid down by accepted good examples in its
native land. There is no doubt but that its domed cupola is manifestly
out of place, though this detail is the only feature which gives the
cathedral any distinction.

A Gothic church stood here up to the Revolution, and the building of the
present structure was devotedly undertaken to replace its loss by a
doubtless earnest man, who, in his zeal, sought to build after what he
considered a newer if not a better style. Parts of the crypt are of the
ancient twelfth century church; but the structure above dates from
1827-66.

Its facade, of a poor classical order, is flanked by two slight cupola
towers equally meaningless and insignificant. Surmounting the central
dome is a colossal statue of the Virgin.

The interior is in no way remarkable or interesting. There are a few
monuments and a gorgeous high altar of precious marbles, mosaic, and
bronze, the gift of Prince Alex Torlonia. The lady-chapel is still
resorted to as a place of pilgrimage by the seafaring and fisher folk of
the neighbourhood.

A modern reproduction of a sarcophagus from the catacombs at Rome forms
the tomb of Mgr. Haffreingue (1871).

III

NOTRE DAME DE CAMBRAI

Cambrai is one of that quartette of cathedral cities of northern France
which in no sense take rank as ecclesiastical shrines of even ordinarily
interesting, much less beautiful, attributes. Of the other three, Arras,
St. Omer, and Boulogne, St. Omer alone is possessed to-day of anything
approaching the great Gothic churches which were spread broadcast
throughout France during the five centuries of church building in the
middle ages.

In manners and customs, and indeed in speech to some extent, these
cities all partake somewhat of the _locale_ of those of the Low
Countries