Sidney D. Light's WWI Diary, Postcards & Letters, 329th Battery Book Accounts

      Regimental headquarters were here on the last stop before the Belgian Camp.  Saint Calais is an ancient Galla-Roman town, named for an abbey founded a the time of Clotaire I.   The Church of Notre Dame there is of 1540 and has the original and rich facade of that period.  The lower part of the octagonal pillars inside dates from 1366.  On the hill and back of the church are the remains of a chateau built in the eleventh century, consisting of two tall fragments of masonry.  In the village stands a bust of Poitenin (1819-1882), the inventor of the permanent carbon print, who was born here.  Population about 3,600—and we will say that the people of this quaint, little old village were about as nice to us as any we met in our travels.

        St. Calais has narrow streets, running in no particular direction.  The houses are arranged irrespective of the streets and, as a result, some of them are set far back in the yards, the majority of them are flush with the sidewalk and some extend over the walks, usually with their base lines at an oblique with the curb.  It is very ridiculous to Americans.

        Everything is old and crumbling.   Vines are obviously present.  The trees are stubby and covered with parasitic moss. Small hedges fill every available corner.

        The shops are small.  Some are extremely neat while others are untidy and uninviting.  There is a hydrant of running water in every block.  The flow crosses the walk into the gutter.  The city is unlighted at night and even the shops have to draw curtains behind their windows, similar to the American saloon.  The French cafes are “beaucoup.”  Every block has one or more.  Mademoiselles and madames serve the drinks.  The poorer people wear wooden shoes and sound like galloping horses when they amble over the cobblestones.  It is a quaint, little old city.