Of course the place isn't older than Rheims. It's of the same time and
the same significance. But its face looks older in ruin--such features
as haven't been battered out of shape. There's the wonderful St.
Jean-des-Vignes, which should have interested the little lady, because
the great namesake of her family St. Thomas a Beckett, lived there, when
it was one of Soissons' four famous abbeys. There's the church of St.
Leger, and the grand old gates of St. Medard, to say nothing of the
cathedral itself. And then there's the history, which goes back to the
Suessiones who owned twelve towns, and had a king whose power carried
across the sea, all the way to Britain. If Mother Beckett doesn't know
much about history, she loves being in the midst of it, and hearing talk
of it. But when our Frenchman told us a story of her latest favourite,
King Clovis, she had the air of being asleep behind her thick blue veil.
It was quite a good story, too, about a gold vase and a bishop. The gold
vase had been stolen in the sack of the churches, after the battle of
Soissons, when Roman rule was ended in France. St. Remi begged Clovis to
give the vase back. But the booty was being divided, and the soldier who
had the vase refused to surrender it to a mere monarch. "You'll get what
your luck brings you, like the rest of us!" said he, striking the vase
so hard with his battle-axe that it was dented, and its beauty spoiled.
Clovis swallowed the insult, that being the day of soldiers, not of
kings: but he didn't forget; and he kept watch upon the man.
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