After a long and tiresome journey, not made pleasanter by having to
change four or five times, he arrived late in the evening at Eu,
where he spent the night. The next morning, an hour's drive in a
hotel omnibus brought him to Ault, a small market-town in the
department of Somme, which the Americans had recommended to him as
the quietest, cheapest, most unpretending, and at the same time
picturesquely situated of any of the seaside places on the north
coast of France, at least as far as Dieppe.
Wilhelm found Ault to be all it had been described. The little place
presented a well-to-do, self-respecting appearance. The High Street,
at right angles with the shore, and rising gently toward the higher,
billowy country beyond, was wide and straight as a dart, and
scrupulously clean; the roadway was macadamized, and a flagged
pavement ran along the two rows of houses. At its upper end, broad
and defiant, was a wonderful mediaeval church in the earliest Gothic
style, with high pointed windows, a severely beautiful west door,
and a mighty square tower. The church blocked the way, and forced
the street to make a bend in order to pass round it. This building,
which would have adorned a capital, stood there haughty and arrogant
like a gigantic knight in full tilting armor in the midst of the
common people, and seemed to wave the simple, unpretentious
provincial houses to right and left with a lordly gesture so that
nothing might intercept his view of the sea.
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