the Sambre, runs north-east and so permits of free access
to Belgium and Holland, or conversely, as we have seen,
permits invasion to those who regard not treaties. Finally,
to the north-east, across the sunken Strait of Dover and the
Channel, free communication is possible with the plain of
Eastern England, the narrow belt of water being the only
notable obstacle.
Thus the Basin of Paris is the heart of France ; upon it
converge routes and therefore influences from north, south,
east and west. But this very freedom of communication,
if it makes for civiUsation, brings with it also an element
of risk. It was not by chance that at times when it has
seemed as though France as a world power was in its death
throes the government has taken refuge in Bordeaux. The
i plain of A guita ine, with less free access to surrounding
regions, is for this very reason somewhat better protected,
and if it cannot provide a suitable site for the capital of a
world-power, yet can give a cradle — a function of Umited
but yet of temporarily great importance.
Let us note in a word or two the significance to the traveller
of to-day of the various routes which, as we have seen,
converge upon Paris. The Cote d'Or route, as we saw in
Chapter ii., carries much of the Swiss trafl&c, the Riviera
traffic, and a considerable part of the Italian traffic. The
traffic from the south-west of France and from Spain passes
through Orleans, and thus reaches Paris through the Strait
of Poitou. To the north-east a number of routes communi-
cate with England across the plain, so that the traveller
from England may land at Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe or
Le Havre as he pleases. The Oise valley leads through
Brussels to the northj and we have already discussed (p. 30)
the direct route to the north-east which leads the traveller
from Paris through Nancy to the Rhine valley.
270 CITY AND PLAIN IN FRANCE
Thus, owing to the pecuUar advantages of its position,
Paris is the centre of the railway system of France, and
therefore the centre of its hfe, to an extent beyond that to
which London — though a greater city — is the centre of the
railway traffic of Great Britain. This is a fact which will
be borne in upon the traveller who aspires to know something
of the remoter parts of the country, or even upon him who
attempts cross-country journeys. A curious Uttle example
is to be found in the badness of the service between places
so near together as Rouen and Chartres. Chartres commands
a river valley which drains direct to Rouen. In earher days
the communication between the two towns, as one would
expect from their relative position, was easy ; a Roman road
connected the two places, and at the time when the great
cathedral was built the inhabitants of Rouen were not only
zealous in the promotion of the work, but are said to have
actually participated in it in large numbers. The impression
left upon the tourist who travels by train between the two
towns to-day is that a period of centuries has elapsed between
the time when he quits the dehcate tracery of the cathedral
and that at which he sees the busy city by the Seine. Paris,
greedy of influence and power, tends to suppress, so far as
she can, direct intercommunication between her daughter
cities, a fact well seen in her converging railway lines.
To what geological causes does the Paris Basin, with Paris
as its natural centre, owe its attractive influence upon routes
and population ? To answer this question we must take a
general survey of the region. The fundamental fact is that
this Basin, hke that of London and of Belgium, is a region
which, in geologically recent times, but at various periods,
has been flooded by the sea, and in it sea-water has laid
down a variety of beds, mostly forming soft, easily decom-
posed rocks. Many of these rocks break up to give rise to
fertile soil, but at the same time they change in character
over short distances, and thus yield a variety of types of
WEALTH OF THE PARIS BASIN 271
landscape and of products — a condition directly favourable
to human activity.
The Highlands of Scotland, and parts of the Central
Plateau of France, are unfavourable to human hfe not only
because they consist of old, hard rocks, decomposing to form
at best a thin, poor soil, but also because, owing to the pro-
longed period through which they have been exposed to the
denuding forces, only rocks of, roughly speaking, few types
have been left. The great advantage of the rocks of the
Basin of Paris, as also of those of the London Basin, is that
they are varied enough to supply many different needs.
Here we have calcareous rocks giving admirable building
material ; here cement-yielding beds ; here fertile loams ;
here forest-bearing gravels ; here dry limestone slopes well
fitted for the vine, and so forth, through most of the gamut
of human needs. Most, but not all, for that special condition
which has, within the last century, brought fabulous wealth
to parts of England is only scantily represented on the margin
of the Basin of Paris. In other words, only to the north does
coal occur, and since the industrial revolution coalfields in
the opinion of the world have been a more desirable possession
than the golden wheat lands which have always been France's
pride. The fact that her coal is not very abundant, and not
very accessible, has thus diminished in recent years the
relative importance of Paris and of France.
The geological characters of the Basin of Paris must next
be noted. We have spoken of the general similarity between
it and the London Basin, for both contain rocks of the period
called Tertiary, while the surrounding beds are Secondary.
But in Tertiary times the two Basins were apparently not
continuous. Across what is now the Strait of Dover, it
seems clear, the London Basin was once continuous with
that of Belgium, but this large Basin was separated from the
arm of the sea in which the Paris beds were laid down by a
ridge which represents a buried part of the Ardennes upland.
272 CITY AND PLAIN IN FRANCE
At the north-western and western edge of the Ardennes
region we find coal measures, the coal further west being
buried beneath younger beds, so that Belgian coal is worked
at great depths. The same beds are continued across the
Strait of Dover, for coal occurs in Kent, also at great depths.
This hne along which coal occurs, then, represents the old
ridge which once separated the Tertiary Basin of Belgium
and London from that of Paris, and the present undulating
country of Artois, which forms the boundary of France and
Belgium, is thus a geological as well as a pohtical division
line. It is the fact that the two hues do not exactly coincide
that gives North France coalfields, for the Belgian beds
extend beyond the pohtical frontier, and are worked within
French territory, with the result that Lille, Roubaix and the
surrounding towns have a manufacturing industry.
We have thus demarcated the Basin of Paris from that of
London and Belgium — let us note next its special features.
These are fundamentally very simple (see Fig. 17). The
Basin, we have seen, is incompletely ringed by uplands. On
travelhng from the uplands inwards towards Paris as centre
one crosses beds which become progressively younger.
Outermost, resting on the old rocks of the uplands, comes a
ring of Jurassic beds, Hke those which run in a broad belt
through England from north-east Yorkshire to Dorsetshire.
Next comes the chalk, like that of southern England. Finally,
forming the centre of the Basin are Tertiary beds — loams,
sands, gravels, hmestones. On the seaward side the Jurassic
ring is incomplete, so that the traveller from England, by
whatever route he approaches Paris, crosses the chalk, which
forms the characteristic scenery near the coast, save where
limited areas of Jurassic beds appear.
But this arrangement does not represent the primitive
one. It will be noted that the Jurassic beds are exposed
close to the uplands. Now it is just in this position that
the rivers have the greatest erosive force, for here their
STRUCTURE OF NORTH FRANCE
273
valleys are steeper than elsewhere. The present arrange-
ment is therefore a result of erosion ; the oldest beds are
exposed close to the hills because here wear and tear has
been greatest, the youngest beds remain towards the centre
Fiu. 17. — Geological sketch-map of Northern France to show the
structure of the Basin of Paris.
(1) Clays, limestones and sands forming the Tertiary beds of Hamp-
shire and the Paris Basin. (2) Clialk, grits and clays forming the
Cretaceous beds. (3) Oolitic limestones, etc., of Jurassic Age. (4)
Ancient rocks of the Central Plateau, Brittany, Cornwall, and Devon,
crystalline or sedimentary.
because here erosion has been least. If the meaning of this
statement has been grasped it will be easy to realise how it
is that the harder strata of the Tertiary deposits present
escarpments on their outer margins. The process of strip-
s
274 CITY AND PLAIN IN FKANCE
ping oft' surface beds takes place from the periphery towards
the centre, and therefore while the rivers flow from the
margin to the centre, the escarpments face — not towards
the centre — but outwards to the periphery. In detail these
escarpments are often important in connection with the
site of towns. In approaching the centre of the Paris Basin
from the north or east they give the Tertiary beds the appear-
ance of forming a scarped island rising from the surrounding
chalk.
There is still another interesting result of the Basin arrange-
ment. Broadly speaking, fertihty in the Paris Basin increases
from the margin towards the centre, and the marginal
Jurassic beds especially tend to produce the accessories of
civihsation, such as wood and wine, rather than prime necessities,
such as wheat. But the Basin arrangement and the direction
of flow of the rivers promotes easy communication, and
therefore large towns tend to arise where navigable waters
meet, for these waters have been flowing through districts
yielding varied products. Paris is fundamentally the junc-
tion of the Marne and the Seine, while the Oise unites with
the main stream not far below the town. One should not
omit to notice also that all the more important tributaries
join the Seine above Paris. Thus it is the centre towards
which the varied products of the Basin, themselves deter-
mined by the very varied rocks represented, drain by the
natural routes of the rivers, and in addition to this initial
importance it has the wider one, due to that convergence of
great routes of which we have already spoken.
One should note also that it is only by making a sudden
turn that the Loire avoids the Seine and the Paris Basin.
It seems tolerably certain that at an earher stage it was
one of the factors of a greater Seine, and the sharp bend to
the west was a later development. Fundamentally the
advantages of position which Orleans possesses over Paris
are not very great, or were not very great until the develop-
•SITUATION OF AMIENS 275
ment of the northern countries. Like the .Seine also, the
Loire has its series of historic towns determined in similar
fashion by the junction of zones of different structure and
products.
To discuss in detail the raison d'etre of the important
towns of the Paris Basin would be impossible, but we shall
take as types and examples the three great cathedral towns
which attract especially the attention of the tourist — Amiens,
Reims and Chartrcs.
Let us begin with Amiens, which is nearest to us, and is
placed in Picardy. The first point is that it hes in the chalk
belt, but the chalk is not the determining factor in the mode
of land utihsation practised. This is because it does not crop
out at the surface, but is covered by an often thick bed of a
loamy soil similar to the loess of which we spoke in Chapter vi.,
which is easy to plough, fertile, and forms nearly level plains.
This soil has for centuries borne crops of wheat ; now sugar
beet has become also important. But though the direct
importance of the underlying chalk is not very great, indirectly
it affects human life markedly. The loess — like loam — is
highly permeable to water, and this is also true of the chalk
beneath, so that the region tends to suffer from want of
water, and isolated habitations are rare, because a domestic
water supply is often only obtainable from deep wells, costly
to dig, and therefore not constructed by isolated famiUes.
Local variations, especially the outcrop of sands, attract
villages, and the presence of trees around them emphasises
the presence of water-bearing beds.
But we must not forget that the rainfall is considerable
in this oceanic margin of France. The water absorbed by
the porous chalk must sooner or later come to the surface.
As in other similar regions, therefore, the rivers, instead of
beginning in small trickles of water, spring full-formed from
the hillsides, and run in ^\^de valleys, far larger than the
present streams. Of such the Somme, on which Amiens
276
CITY AND PLAIN IN FRANCE
stands, is an excellent example. Owing to the way in which
it is fed by springs from the chalk it is extraordinarily con-
stant in its flow, a fact taken advantage of in the extensive
use of water-power at Amiens. Further, the present stream-
bed has a very gentle slope, and the river meanders over the
wide, flat valley floor, dividing into many branches as it
passes through Amiens, and causing the marshy valley to
offer the maximum of contrast to the dry hill slopes above.
The origin of the valley marshes is interesting. No chalk
is absolutely pure, and the water, acting through countless
generations upon the rock, has dissolved away the carbonate
of lime but left a clay-hke deposit, which has been carried
by tributaries and spread over the valley,
thus caulking, as it were, the natural
fissures of the chalk which forms its
floor.
In an earher era, apparently during
an interglacial period, when melting ice
to the north supphed the rivers with
abundant water, a larger Somme carried
down great deposits of gravel, gravel
which the present constant sluggish
stream could not move. At this period
Early Stone Age man lived in the dis-
trict, and his reUcs are found in those old
river gravels. The stone implements
found here, instead of being merely
lozenge-shaped, like those of the epoch
immediately preceding (Chellean), were
sharpened at the extremity. Such implements are called
Acheulean (Fig. 18), from the fact of their being found near
the Abbey of St. Acheul at Amiens, and the sightseer may
find some additional interest in the thought that here some
unknown genius hved and died, to whom in his daily warfare
with rhinoceros, elephant and cave bear — a sadly unequal
Fig. 18.— a Stone Age
implement of the
Acheuleau type, show-
ing the characteristic
sharpening of the
point.
(After Butld-lUeinn.)
SITE OF AMIENS 277
struggle — there came the brilliant idea that a sharpened stone
had more penetrating force than a blunt one.
The reason which determined the actual site of Amiens
on the river Somme is not perfectly clear, but it is possible
that at the time of its foundation the tides came up to near
this spot, so that it may be an example of a city at a tidal
limit (c/. London, Newcastle-on-Tyne, etc.). Another advan-
tage which it possesses is that the valley here has an outcrop
of firm rock on which the cathedral is built.
Apart from its cathedral, the tourist will find in his survey
of Amiens several points of geographical interest. Its fates
de canard recall the fact that the marshy valley still lodges
much game, and remind us of what has been said above of
the clay deposit on its floor. Similarly the market gardens
surrounded by water, which are one of the sights of the city,
owe their existence to that constant flow of the river of which
we have already spoken. A river liable to periodic inundation
would render such a mode of land utilisation impossible.
The cotton manufacturers depend partly upon water-power,
partly upon the ease with which raw material can be imported,
and the relative proximity of coal (p. 271). The cathedral
may be said to owe its origin to the wealth produced by
the cornfields of the loam-covered plateau. In brief, the
position of Amiens is due to the fact that in a fertile country
where water is deficient large settlements must be placed in
river valleys. In this case the width of the Somme valley
has been a specially favouring cause.
Reims as regards situation affords a marked contrast, for
the stream upon which it stands is insignificant, though it is
connected by canal with the Aisne and the Marne. The
importance of the town hes in the fact that it is situated near
the junction of the wine-producing chalk of the Champagne
country, and the varied Tertiary beds, which produce wood
on the sands, excellent building material {cf. the cathedral)
from the calcareous strata, and the possibiUty of a great
278 CITY AND PLAIN IN FRANCE
variety of crops. Even more than this, however, Reims
is a crossing-point of routes. Till it was in a sense suppressed
by Paris it lay on the natural route between Champagne,
Burgundy, the Middle Rhine valley and the Low Countries,
all regions with special products upon which a system of
exchange could be based. The cathedral here, therefore,
may be said to be built from the profits of trade.
The vicinity of Chartres, on the other hand, shows a
certain resemblance to the region round Amiens. The town
is the natural centre of the fertile region of Beauce, whose
grain brought the local wealth which enabled the cathedral
to be built. Beauce is floored by hmestone beds — a resem-
blance to Picardy — but the Hmestone is here of Tertiary
date, having been deposited in a lake at that period,
the lake into which the Loire once drained. Fortunately,
however, as in Picardy, though to a less extent, a cover-
ing of loam hes upon the limestone, and gives here also
great local fertility. The land is thus abundantly grain-
producing, and, as in Picardy, the difficulty of obtaining water
causes the habitations to cluster about special areas, separated
by wide, uniform wheat-fields. Around this fertile region
are belts where an almost sterile clay rests upon chalk, and
the wheat-lands then give place to forests, e.g. in the direction
of Evreux and Blois. To the inhabitants indeed the term
Beauce imphes grain-producing, and the name is applied in
a fashion which on the map appears erratic, to villages where
this type of soil prevails. In essence the region is a plain.
Beneath the thin layer of loam material for building and for
road-making is easily obtainable, communication is easy,
but the uniformity, the absence of trees and of streams, give
monotony to the landscape. But just as the clays to the
north-west and west bear timber, so also do the sands to the
south in the vicinity of Orleans. This encircling forest gives
the region a natural boundary, and made it early of political
significance. As in the case of Picardy the larger settlements
CHAETRES 279
were naturally associated witli the appearance of rivers, and
Chartres on the Eure is comparable to Amiens on the Somme.
The fact, not unfamiliar to the tourist, that the country
people bring their children at the harvest season to place
them under the protection of the famous Black Virgin of
Chartres is full of significance in the history of the region.
Beauce is a natural unity, a grain-producing land encircled
by forest and marsh ; in such cases the emotions engendered
by the corporate life tend to associate themselves with a
central shrine, which is at once their expression and their
fount. To the market the peasants bring their corn ; in
the cathedral they express and renew the feelings which make
continuity of human Ufe possible. The generations come
and go, but the despair which the shortness of their duration
tends to produce is conquered by the splendours of the
cathedral, which is the symbol of the permanent in human
ideals, in spite of the ceaseless alternation of birth and death.
The child brought to receive the blessing of the great Mother
has at best before it but a brief span of life, but the pavement
which it treads has been trodden by the feet of countless others
in the generations which are gone, and will be trodden by
the feet of countless others still to come. Its fathers have
sown and reaped and they and their sheaves have rotted into
dust, but the cathedral remains, and is in its turn but an
image of something greater even than itself or than the creed
it symboUses.
Acheulean man near Amiens chipped and sharpened his
flints, and his laborious care expressed something more than
a mere desire for an efficient weapon. The twelfth-century
architects built a church to the glory of a particular creed.
The creed may decay, the church may crumble, both may
become as functionless as the chipped flints which expressed
the aspirations of an earlier race, but the consciousness which
they give to each individual of being not merely a short-lived
unit but a linlc in an endless chain — this remains. We may
280 CITY AND PLAIN IN FRANCE
kneel then with the peasant on that variegated pavement,
and forget the creeds in the thought of the continuity of
emotion.
If one leaves the cathedral and wanders about the town it
becomes obvious that, here no less than at Reims, the pre-
dominance of Paris has thrown Chartres into a backwater.
Its old importance as a crossing-point of routes has all but
disappeared, only its grain remains. The minor manufactures,
e.g. of wool and of leather, are interesting, for, in accordance
with an old custom, the sheep are allowed to feed upon the
fallowed lands, and thus sheep farming is combined with
wheat.
This description must suffice to give some idea of life in
the northern plains of France. In Aquitaine there is another
Tertiary basin with somewhat similar characters, while
Provence, which we shall consider separately, is of another
type.
References. Fuller accounts of the geography of France will be
found in Prof. Vidal de la Blache's Tableau de la Oeographie de la France,
upon which the foregoing account is largely based. Reference should
also be made to the description of France in de Lapparent's Leqons de
Geographie Physique.
CHAPTER XXI
THE NORTH ITALIAN PLAIN
' The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair.'
No greater contrast to the Basin of Paris could be imagined
than that great plain which stretches from Turin to Venice,
from Cuneo round the curve of the Apennines to Rimini,
and from Piuerolo along the sigmoid bend of the Alps
to the Gulf of Trieste. Yet, despite their contrasts, both
contain marvellous examples of urban settlements. It is
somewhat curious to note also, that while geologically the
Plain of the Po, in itself and in its encirchng mountains, is
much more recent than the Basin of Paris, yet historically
it is far older. On the whole, that is, the splendours of the
present are to be sought in the northern plain, of the past
in the dead or dying cities of the southern. In both we have
stored up the treasures of human endeavour.
Let us note in a httle detail some of the contrasts between
the two. In the Basin of Paris, as we have seen, a ring of
much denuded mountain stumps, separated by open gaps,
surrounds a plain whose central and youngest beds are of
the age we call Tertiary, girdled about with the clays and
limestones of the Secondary period. The diversity of the
deposits, the fact that the rivers run across the beds, thus
traversing rocks of successively later origin, are, as we saw,
factors in determining the origin of towns at points where
the products of the difierent regions are most easily collected
â– 2Sl
282 THE NORTH ITALIAN PLAIN
and exchanged. Further, as the surrounding broken ring
of mountain stumps is widely interrupted to the north-west,
access to surrounding regions is here excessively easy. In
the other compass directions also only minor obstacles to
intercommunication occur. The net result is that Paris
arose as the centre of the Basin at the point where the water
routes converged, and has become, to an overwhelming degree,
the centre of the land of which it is the capital. France,
as a country, is to* a very high degree centrahsed, and as a
world power her susceptibiHty to new ideas is to be directly
connected with her easy communication with many lands
of different products and characters. The high mean level