little city of La Fere, set in
the midst of well-tilled and fertile fields, has a martial air which
harmonises with its history. During the religious wars which ended with
the coronation of Henry of Navarre, this small Catholic stronghold was
besieged, taken, and retaken no fewer than four times in twenty years;
and, if we may believe an old sixteenth-century local ballad, the
Huguenots behaved in a way which showed that the 'Reformation' had not
improved their morals. The 'Deploration des Dames de la ville de La Fere
tenues forcement par les ennemis de la religion catholique' draws a
doleful picture of life in a conquered city three centuries ago.

Est-ce pas bien chose assez deplorable
De voir (helas) son haineux a sa table
Rire, chanter et vivre opulement
De ce qu'avions garde soigneusement?
En nostre lict quand il veut il se couche,
Faict nos maris aller a l'escarmouche
Ou a la breche, enconstre notre foy,
Pour resister a Jesus et au Roy.

There are soldiers enough in La Fere to-day, for it is an artillery
station, as it was when Napoleon got his training here, but the peace of
the picturesque little fortress-town is less troubled by them than by
the politicians. A little local newspaper published here, which I bought
of an urchin at the uninviting but thriving station of Tergnier, was
full of paragraphs deriding and denouncing the clergy, which might have
been inspired by that model patriot and philanthropist Curtius, who
proposed in the year one of the Republic that the Government should make
a bargain with the Deys of Tunis and Algiers to ransom the French held
as slaves in those countries, exchanging them for French priests 'at the
rate of three priests for one patriot'!

'What sort of a newspaper is this?' I asked a cheery, red-faced old man,
well and substantially dressed, and, as he afterwards informed me, a
cattle-breeder and dealer on his way from Amiens to Laon.

'That journal, Monsieur?' he replied with a kind of 'sniff': 'that leaf?
It is a cabbage-leaf, Monsieur!' 'C'est une feuille de choux!' As for
himself he was a Republican--no, not a Boulangist--but he had voted for
Boulanger, and he would vote for him again. There must be an end of all
those taxes. It was too strong. The land could not pay them. In his
country a farm worth 30,000 francs eight years ago, to-day would not
sell for 20,000 francs. The farms that were mortgaged would not pay the
amount of the mortgages. Look at t