Wednesday, July the 5th 1838.
Hotel de Meurice, à Calais.
My dear William,
When we called on you a few weeks since, on our ride from Liverpool to Dover, you desired a journal of that which was to follow across France and to Florence. We embarked, then, at seven in the morning of the 4th of July, with no wind, but a heavy swell and drizzling rain: D—— and myself, Fanny and the patient Grizzel in their horse boxes, with John (from Cork!) beside them, combing tails and rubbing curb-chains—his resource against ennui. Landed at ten: Fanny profiting by her first free moment to bite a douanier who caressed her; and from his calling obtained no more pity from the bystanders than from John, who was grinning derision at his “big ear-ring.” Worried by the Customhouse, though we have nothing contraband. The signalement of the horses taken with care and gravity: it would suit any grey mare and bay pony in the world. The officers do not quite understand the shining of their coats, and (supposing them cleaned after the fashion of spoons) asked John “with what powder?” he has been rather awed by the ceremony of receiving his passport, particularly when standing up to be measured and described. We remain here three days, as the inn is exceedingly comfortable, but there is very little to see; on the Grande Place, near the lighthouse tower, stood, even in 1830, the ruins of the old Halle, where John de Vienne the governor, and Sire Walter de Mauny communicated the hard terms of surrender to Eustache St. Pierre: there is no trace of it now. The site of St. Pierre’s house is marked by a neat marble slab, at the corner of the street which bears his name. The building still called “Cour de Guise,” though it has been turned to various purposes, rebuilt and altered, was the wool staple originally built by Edward the Third of England; and afterwards bestowed on Guise the Balafré, in reward of his services when he retook Calais from the English in 1577. The church has little worth notice excepting its altar. The vessel, which in Louis the Thirteenth’s time bore it from Genoa, on its way to Antwerp, was wrecked on the Calais coast. With its bassi-relievi and crowd of statues and marble columns, it wants simplicity, and is too large for the place it occupies; for the roof appears to crush the glory of the Saviour. The old Suisse who shows the church is most proud of a Last Supper carved in relief, gilded and coloured: he knocks on the head the little figure of Christ to prove his assertion, “Monsieur c’est en bois!”
In the old revolution this church was unprofaned: a Club built before it masked its entrance; and the then mayor of Calais warned Lebon that he might enter if he would, but that he could not answer for the temper of his townsmen.
The chief building in Calais is the Hôtel de Ville with its handsome tower, and a clock which has a sweet clear chime; before it, each on its pedestal, are the busts of Richelieu and Guise le Balafré: that of Eustache St. Pierre holds the place of honour on the façade. To reward for the trouble of walking up stairs, the old woman only exhibited two rooms, “là où l’on marie” and “là où l’on reçoit,” she called them: in the latter, Louis Philip, whom the artist intended to smile, and who sneers instead, occupies the wall opposite a Surrender of Calais. The citadel is forbidden ground; we were turned back by the sentinel, as we were proceeding to search for the ruins of the Chateau of Calais, in which, by Richard the Second’s order, the Duke of Gloucester was imprisoned and murdered; they are built into a bastion, called that of the “Vieux Chateau.”
John has decided that eating a dinner in France is the most wonderful thing which has happened to him yet. He describes the spreading a white cloth over his knees preparatory to serving up soup, fish, made dishes and dessert; he has made acquaintance with the “Garçon d’Ecurie,” whose thin tall figure is a contrast to his own, with its round head and bowed legs. They keep up a conversation of signs and contortions; this hot day they have passed seated in a wheelbarrow on the sunny side of the court-yard: it was first Pierre’s place of repose, but beginning by sitting on the wheel, and encroaching by degrees, John made it so uncomfortable to his comrade, that he gained sole possession, and is now coiled up asleep. He told me this morning that he must go to church, the Irish father by whom he was married a month ago not having “quite done with him in the way of confession:” I represented that these priests were Frenchmen; that he said was of no consequence, “Clargy spaking all kinds of languages.” He knew but one exception, and that was the very father who married him and could not speak Irish; it was he who (by John’s account) gave him a blow when instead of the fifteen shillings he demanded he offered him five.
The stout waiter François, known for four and twenty years at the hotel, is as perfect a specimen of French nature in his class, as is John of that of Ireland. He informed me he had lately crossed to England; an ordinary intellect would have supposed it was to see the country, or the coronation, but no, it was to see Lablache! and being in London he also saw Taglioni!! and her dancing, he said, went to his very soul. While we were at dinner, a fair girl, with a wrinkled old woman on her arm, looked in at the window and touched a bad guitar: I said we wanted no music, and François scolded her away, but as he stooped down to arrange the fire, muttered in a low voice, “It was true that she was troublesome, and had only one excuse, she supported her old mother.” We gave her something, and François, whose face had grown radiant, told us his own story, and how he had worked from a boy with the hope of assisting his father, and at last had purchased him an annuity of 600 francs, which the old man had enjoyed thirteen years, proud in the gift of a son, who, like Corporal Trim, thought that “Honour thy father and thy mother” meant allowing them a part of his earnings. “He had been looked on as the best son of the province;” and his own child had promised well likewise but he died—he thought he might have weathered the storm, but death, François said, was the strongest and not to be battled with; and with a mixture of feeling and philosophy, as he changed my soup-plate, he shook his head and added, “que voulez-vous?”
D—— misses a Commissionaire, a civil fellow well known to all who frequented the Hotel Meurice, his story being romantic from its commencement; he has become a hero malgré lui; he was brought from Portugal when a child by an officer of the 11th Regiment, and left here when the army of occupation quitted France. He travelled to Paris in the July of 1830 and was there surprised by the revolution. Being of a peaceable temper he hid himself within doors; through some unlucky window a ball came and grazed his arm, and, determined to profit by events if possible, as soon as danger was passed he emerged, showing his wounds and claiming cross and pension; he has obtained both as due to his merit, and is now a “gros portier dans un hôtel de libéral.” We walked this lovely evening past the Courtgain to the Pier. The Courtgain is the fishermen’s quarter, being nothing more than a large bastion ceded them, with permission to build, in 1622; it contains seven very narrow streets. We watched the fishing-boats towed out against wind and tide by their owners’ wives and daughters; the men look picturesque in their red caps and high boots, and they crawl through the mud and up the sides of their craft, with two oars serving for ladder, with the dexterity of cats. It blew fresh this evening; the boats were out at sea a few moments after the women let go the ropes at the pier head. They did not murmur at their hard work, nor did sign or token offer them thanks for it. The skiffs sailed on and they just glanced at them as they lessened in the distance, and returned dragging along and scolding disobedient children; yet the sky was wild though the sun shone; sufficiently stormy to make one wonder they looked no longer.