VALENCIENNES IN PEACE TIME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12085, 14 August 1917, Page 8

VALENCIENNES IN PEACE TIME.

FRANCE'S IRON AND COAL COUNTRY. Valenciennes is tho centre of the Black Country oi* the teeming aud laborious north-eastern corner of France. An old city ana once a. walled and crenellated one, it is now girt with the belching chimneys of Anzin, Veuvrages, Bruay, Escaupon't and Fresnes. In unexpected contrast' to tho bricks and | mortar of a mining and manufacturing district is the Forest of Raismes, beyond tho stream of the Escaut. Here blossom the wild violdt, the primrose, and tho lily of the valley, on the spring days when the trees put on their mantle of vivid green all regardless of their neighbourhood. Valenciennes being old and congested with buildings had no room for factories within her gates, with 'the result that industry has spread ■around her borders, beyond her suburbs, to the thirty-six communes which form the outer edge of the most active industrial district of France, before invasion temporarily put a stop "to its normal activity. From Marly, the garden city of Viler;oiennes, 'the ground rises in the direction of Le Quesnoy, between which town, so rich in its history, and Valenciennes lies the valley of the Rhonelle. On the horizon arc rlie smoke clouds ofAnzin, Denatn, Aniehe and, over the Belgian frontier, tho thousand chimneys of the Borinage, with tho Mons amphitheatre hidden behind a smoke pall. The men who go down into the mines are the aristocracy of this working community. It is tiie children's ambition to enter the mines; but the standard for pit boys is kept high. They are not accepted until thirteen years of age and then they have to be picked for their strong physique I and alertness. They also must bo able Ito show good school records. It was among this people of the mines, on the Belgian side of the frontier, that Constantin Meunier fcund inspiration for his noble sculptures symbolic of the labour of humanity. But Valenciennes is not wholly given up to the worship of iron and coal; she prides herself on being the mother of Watteau and Harpignies and of Carolus Durau, and with having given Cacpeaux and Lemaire to French nineteenth century sculpture. A monument to the painter of the " Fetes Galantos " adorns her streets, and she possesses a school of art which is a subiectof immense pride to her. A collection cf Flemish masters, some WV.ttoaus nnd modern work, in the museum are very well worthy of her artistic reputation.^ Perhaps the only link which Valenciennes the modern has w.ith medieval Europe is the statue of Froksart in the square of the old church of St Gory which reminds 'the passer-by that the chronicler was also a son of the old city of French Hainault. Is inscribed on the plinth: "Si aucun quiert snvoiv qui jo suis, je m'appellc Jehan Froissart. natif de la bonne et franke vilie de Valenciennes."