A rare glimpse of rural northern France frozen in time — the village square (La Place) of Mondicourt, a tiny commune in the Pas-de-Calais department, photographed in the early 1900s with two men in dark working clothes standing beside a bicycle at the center of a muddy unpaved place, a horse and cart at left, and the tall brick chimney stack of a local factory or sugar beet processing plant rising above bare winter trees in the background. The "Paris Visé 720" circular censor/authorization mark on the right-side building wall is a fascinating detail — this stamp was used to authorize postcard images for sale, a French government control system active from the early 1900s. Published by Charles Ledieu of Arras, a prolific regional editor for the Pas-de-Calais, this is a true small-village topographic card with strong local history value; Mondicourt saw significant WWI activity as it lies near the Arras front.