. These attributes, which have retained their original
identities across the borders, were for many centuries, and even so late
as the seventeenth century, existent in French Flanders. Curiously
enough, in none of these cities are any of the primitive Gothic types to
be noted in the cathedral churches, though many possess their
olden-time belfries and watch towers, preserved to-day with something of
the local pride which evinces itself elsewhere with respect to
cathedrals. It is possible that this is due to the fact that this great
industrial centre of northern France is more given to the arts of
manufacture than to the devotion of church-going or even of church
building. Another notable and almost universal feature of these cities
are the Renaissance or Romanesque gateways,--silent reminders to-day of
the mediaeval communities which they once protected, and of the warlike
invasions of the past.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Cambrai is on the site of an older abbey
church, which was of the same ugly style as the present edifice itself,
but which dated, however, only from the early eighteenth century. The
present building is said to furnish a replica, of the vintage of 1859,
of the tasteless and crude style of the earlier building. There are
statues therein of Fenelon, Bishop Belmas, by David d'Angers, and of
Cardinal Regnier; and a series of grisaille windows, after originals by
Rubens, by Geeraerts of Anvers.

The chimes of Cambrai rank among the most noted in Europe. They are
composed of thirty-nine bells and produce a carillon, "very agreeable,"
says a French authority. They certainly do,--the author can endorse this
from a personal knowledge,--and they have not as yet descended to such
banalities as popular military marches. The largest bell, given by
Fenelon in 1786, weighs 7,500 kilos.

[Illustration: Notre Dame de Cambrai]

IV

NOTRE DAME DE ST. OMER

Under Baldwin of Hainault, Artois, including St. Omer, was ceded to the
kingdom of France as late as the mid-seventeenth century. Few minor
churches are possessed of the galaxy of charms and attractions of the
_ci-devant_ Cathedral of Notre Dame at St. Omer. Hardly in the accepted
forms of good taste are the Byzantine slabs of marble stuck upon the
walls here and there, as in a museum; the Renaissance screens; the
overpowering organ case; the votive offerings and tablets without
number; and the alleged wonderful astronomical clock, with its colossal