Amiens (Somme) - Cathedral Front Façade Prior to 1919. And the Egg McMuffin.

            The Postcard

The west façade of Amiens Cathedral on a postcard published by L. Caron.  The card was posted on Sunday the 5th. January 1919.

Amiens is the chief city of Picardy, in the valley of the River Somme, and is just over 100 km north of Paris.

Amiens Cathedral

The Gothic Cathedral of our Lady of Amiens is the tallest complete cathedral in France, with the greatest interior volume (estimated at 200,000 cubic metres).  

According to this estimate, the cathedral could comfortably accommodate well over sixty billion marbles. (Yes, billion, not million!) This number of marbles, laid end to end, would produce a line 900,000 km long - it would encircle the earth 22 times, or stretch to the moon and back nearly two and a half times.  It's a big building!

The vaults of the nave are 42.3 metres high.   The size of the people in the photograph at the base of the entrance steps give an idea of the sheer scale of the building.

Work on the cathedral started in 1220 and was mostly finished by 1266. The floors include a number of designs, including a swastika.  The labyrinth was installed in 1288.  

John The Baptist

The cathedral contains what is alleged to be the head of St. John the Baptist, a relic brought back from Constantinople.  You can find out what happened to one of his fingers by searching for the tag 65SJD88.  There are bits of him all over the place!  

In fact the Great Mosque in Damascus also claims to hold the head of John the Baptist.

The West Front

The west front of the cathedral, which is shown in the photograph, was built between 1220 and 1236.  It shows an unusual degree of artistic unity.  Its lower tier with 3 vast deep porches is capped with a gallery of larger than lifesize kings which stretches across the entire façade beneath the rose window.

The Rose Window

The immense rose window has a diameter of 43 feet (13 m).

Above the rose window is an open arcade - the Galerie des Sonneurs.   A sonneur is a player of traditional music, primarily in Brittany, typically playing a clarinet or the Breton bagpipe.

John Buchan

In the 1919 book Mr. Standfast by John Buchan (1875-1940), the character Richard Hannay describes the cathedral as being:

"The noblest church that the 
hand of man ever built for God".

The Egg McMuffin

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

Well, the 5th. January 1919 marked the birth in Chicago of Herbert Ralph Petersen. Herbert was an early McDonald's restaurant franchisee.

Herbert Ralph 'Herb' Peterson was an American fast food advertising executive and food scientist, best known for being the inventor of the McDonald's Egg McMuffin in 1972. 

The breakfast business that he pioneered with this item had grown to an estimated $4–5 billion in annual revenues for McDonald's by 1993.

Life and Career of Herb Peterson

Petersen served in the United States Marine Corps, where he attained the rank of Major in three years during World War II.

He began his career with McDonald's as vice president of D'Arcy Advertising in Chicago, which was McDonald's in-house advertising arm.  Peterson coined McDonald's first national advertising slogan:

'Where Quality Starts 
Fresh Every Day'.

Herb later became a franchise co-owner and the operator of six McDonald's restaurants in and around Santa Barbara, California.

Peterson developed the Egg McMuffin, which is now a McDonald's breakfast signature item, in 1972.  Herb liked Eggs Benedict, so he worked to develop a breakfast item which was similar to it for the fast food chain. 

Peterson eventually came up with the Egg McMuffin, which was an egg sandwich consisting of an egg formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with Canadian bacon and a slice of cheese. The Egg McMuffin was originally served as an open-faced sandwich on a buttered and toasted English muffin.

The Egg McMuffin was created and first sold at a McDonald's in Santa Barbara, California (Milpas St. location, with placard outside marking the location) which Peterson co-owned with his son, David Peterson.

Death of Herb Peterson

Peterson died in Santa Barbara on the 25th. March, 2008, at the age of 89. He was survived by his wife, son and three daughters. Herb Peterson is the grandfather of professional surfer Lakey Peterson.

Taken in: France / Picardie / Amiens (show map)

Taken on: November 25, 2009

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