THE BOULEVARD DU CANGE was a broad, quite street taht maked the eastern flank of the city Amiens. The wagons taht rolled in from Lille and Arras to the North made directly into the tanneries and mills of the Saint- Leu quarter without.needing to use this rutted, leafy road. The town side of the boulevard backed on to substanial gardens which were squared off and apportioned with civic precision to the houses the adjoined. On the damp grass were chestnut trees, lilac and willows, cultivated to give shade and quitness to their deep lawns and bursting hedges could conceal small clearings, quite pools, and areas unvisited even by the inhabitants, where pathches of grass and wild flowers lay beneath the branches of overhanging trees.