The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-10 00:00:00

Boulogne Nearly Fifty Years Ago.

Boulogne in 1815, forty-eight well-sounded years
ago, was a most insignificant and unsavoury
fishing-village. The upper town, which is the
ancient and better one, was not very much different
from what it is now ; but the lower town consisted
chiefly of the Grande. Rue, de l'Ecu, the Rue tent
Perd tent Paye, and a couple of straggling streets
filled with fishermen's huts, ill and irregularly
built, smutty without and smoky within. There
was then scarcely what could be called a harbour ;
there was no pier whatever. There was no cus-
tom-house, but a wretched shed, exposed to the
four winds of heaven, into which the few passen-
gers who arrived by sailing-boats were quickly
huddled to be gruffly examined. Boats then rarely
departed from Boulogne more than once a week,
and the day of departure was never certain. I
have known passage boats wait for passengers, or
for a wind, three or four days together—nay, occa-
sionally a week. Everybody then travelled by
way of Calais; and even at Calais, in winter-time,
the passengers were often not more than a dozen
and seldom above five and twenty. In the principal
port of debarkation in France you were then dragged
into the harbour by haggard old poissardes, har-
nessed with ropes to their work, who carried your
luggage to the hotels in wicker fish-baskets, sus-
pended from their half-broken backs. Boulogne,
like Calais, was then lighted by tallow candles, let
down by a cord and puliey from either side of the
street. In Calais, in those days, it was, with these
rude appliances, just like darkness visible; whereas
at Boulogne, on what is now called the Port, the
Qui de la Denane, the Rue tent Perd tant Paye,
you could not grope your way without a lantern.
There were in 1815 but three decent hotels in Bou-
logne—the Hotel d'Angleterre, in the Rue de l'Ecu;
the Lion d'Or, in the same street ; and the Hotel de
France. Now there are, at least, twenty hotels,
great and small,of which a dozen are very tolerable
and four or five excellent. In the early days of
which I speak, bedrooms at Boulogne were charged
one franc, thirty sous, and two francs a-night,
according to the size and floor in which you were
placed. Breakfasts, plain, with coffee and an egg
or two, were from twenty-five to thirty sous, and
dinner at the tables d'hote, with vin ordinaire, from
two francs, ten sons, to three francs. Now bedrooms
are two, three, four, and five francs, according to the
size and floor; breakfasts are two and three francs,
and four francs, and dinner at the tables d'hote
from three and a half to four, five, and six francs.
Yet the accomodation is but a degree better, and
ere
sttheeacoookeryinsgby no means so good as it was eight-
and-forty, forty, or thirty years ago. There is not
`
bloin in your
the oreatu-ewer for a jug, and the pie-dish for a
excellent)
st
,too,bedroom,unrhave
w a s
o o that existedtrp of
i in my
carpet, youth.
the bedrooms,
as themsanded and tiled, or wooded and
parquetthan is! ar
(et
rh et h
e oldenp Peace
a e time
o fP a;
rbi
su
;t
at
nh d
the e
bedding and mattresses are no better (they were
thn bexdc
silk and damask curtains, where such exist, are
not so rich as they were in 1815. The class of English
visiting Boulogne in the ten years from 1815 to 1825
was highly
aristocratic, though tant sat pets demi-.
, and blackleg in the masculine
gender ; but, though
fashionable now as in a
rep in the feminine
not so aristocratic and,
past generation, the Eng-
lish sojourning at Boulogne in 1863 are, as a whole
community, more respectable than at any former
time. It is true there are still a few scores of Pro-
visional Committee-men left there, the remnant of
those of 1845 and 1846, and a few scores of black-
legs and lavanters, who have failed to pay up their
losses at Tattersall's ; but what 70 or 80 black
sheep among an English population of 7,000 or
8,000, and a general population of about 32,000 P
The number of English at Boulogne, after the peace
of 1815, scarcely amounted to 800, and /
doubt whether it amounted to 1,000 in 1823 ;
but then, among these eight hundred or a
thousand, full a twentieth were scions of the
peerage, being either honourables or titular
Irish or Scotch peers. Now the peerage and
the scions of aristocracy are much less fast
livers than in the days of George 111. and George
IV., when there was scarcely a young man of rank
or fashion that aid not gamble at the clubs, on the
turf, at cock-fights, or on the prize-ring. In the
moral character, therefore, though not in the rank,
of its visitors, Boulogne has iwproved,