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In the chapel of this nunnery was preserved a kneeling statue of Mahaut, representing her as foundress, in the habit of the Order strewn with the arms of Artois. Jean Aloul, of Tournai, has been suggested as the sculptor, since it is known from the accounts that he was working for the Countess at Arras in 1323.
Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournai, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France.
In front, across the Belgian frontier, General d'Amade lay with a French brigade at Tournai as an outpost. Before proceeding to British headquarters, General French held a conference with General Joffre, Commander in Chief of all the French armies. Until the outbreak of the war, General Joffre was practically unknown to the French people.
These included the deferring of actual participation in hostilities, and indemnification for the inevitable loss of the Tournai purchase-money, of which France had paid only a part.
Before their second line of defences the Romans, under Ætius, put up a last fight, but they were defeated by the Frankish king Clodion, who extended his kingdom along the coast as far as the Somme and established himself at Tournai , where his grave was discovered twelve centuries later.
As late as the thirteenth century these writers, who had adopted the Picard dialect, proclaimed their independence from purely French literature, so that, in their own domain, they play a similar part to that played by the Tournai master-builders in theirs.
In order not to split up our subject we have wandered from the civilization of the Middle Ages into the early Renaissance. Let us now go back to Notre Dame of Tournai, with her five pointed towers, and see what we may learn from her with regard to the intellectual and literary developments of the period.
"Oh! that is a poem by Milo, his 'De Sobricate. I heard that the manuscript was still preserved in the convent of Saint Amand, near Tournai, and I sent and had a copy made for me. That was the simplest way. You have no idea how difficult it is to buy the works of any Latin authors except those of the Augustan age. Milo was a monk, and he lived in the eighth century.
On the other hand, the Reformation pressed on with rapid strides; vast crowds gathered outside of Tournai, Harlem, Antwerp, and other cities to listen to Calvinist preachers. Ten, twelve, and twenty thousand of the populace assembled at a time to sing psalms and hymns and to listen to the appeals of teachers eloquent and devout, but almost invariably heretical.
During all the time that the allies had been employed upon the siege of Tournai, Marshal Villars had laboured to form an impregnable line of entrenchments, barring all farther advance.
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