The intelligent English traveller, in this fortunate age for him, is aware that,
half-way between Boulogne and Paris, there is a complex railway-station,
into which his train, in its relaxing speed, rolls him with many more than
the average number of bangs and bumps prepared, in the access of every
important French gare, to startle the drowsy or distrait passenger into a
sense of his situation.

He probably also remembers that at this halting-place in mid-journey there
is a well-served buffet, at which he has the privilege of "Dix minutes d'arrêt."
He is not, however, always so distinctly conscious that these ten minutes of
arrest are granted to him within not so many minutes' walk of the central
square of a city which was once the Venice of France.