Wars and revolutions have done their best to destroy what Time had kindly tried to preserve for our delight; nevertheless, a cathedral town in France of to-day is a very pleasant place, and offers exceptional opportunity for the study of French life in almost every aspect. Our business here, however, is with the cathedrals and the historical side of the town, rather than with the lighter points of view; and such things as every traveller will encounter in the course of his journeys, the crowd outside the cafés, the weekly markets, the festivals, civil and ecclesiastical, the quaint ways and speech of the peasant folk and the contretemps of hotel life have not only been described before, times without number, but are such as will be fairly obvious to the average observer, and, if he has never travelled before, will come all the more as a pleasant surprise if he is left to find them out for himself. If, as is more likely to be the case in this enlightened age, he is an experienced traveller, he will know them all by heart, and perhaps be inclined to cavil at having them set before him once again in a light which could not pretend to any novelty.
BOULOGNE TO AMIENS
OULOGNE is perhaps too near the starting point to arrest the outward-bound traveller; he ranks it with Calais, Dieppe, and Havre, as a place to be passed through as quickly as possible; and the splendid train service to Paris naturally makes him hesitate to break his journey at Boulogne. The general tendency in England is to despise the French railway service, and some guide-books even now tell us that the average speed of a French express is from thirty-five to forty-five miles an hour, also that the trains invariably pass each other on the left-hand side. As a matter of fact, all the main lines follow the same rule of the road which obtains in England, and as to average speed, the run from Calais to Paris equals, if it does not exceed, that of any long-distance train-service in our own country, covering the distance of 185 miles at the rate of fifty-six miles an hour.
As a seaport and fishing centre, Boulogne is one of the most interesting and important towns in France; and its fishing-boats sail out in great numbers to the North Sea for the cod fishery along the north coast of Scotland. When the herring fishing begins, Boulogne adds its contingent to the fleets of Cornwall, to the luggers of the West Coast, and to the cobbles of Whitby; and on the eve of the departure to the fishing-ground, the fisherman’s quarter, known as La Beurière, is alive with the orgies of its sailor population. Dancing takes place on the quays, and short entertainments are held in an improvised theatre, while the rich brown-ochre sails of the splendid luggers and smacks are stretched from deck to deck, forming an awning under which the owners and captains meet together with their friends to wish success to the undertaking of those who “go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters.”
Boulogne has the reputation of being the most Anglicised of French towns, and was in years gone by often associated with the seamy side of society. Many a stranger found here a convenient refuge, and Mr. Deuceace and other of Thackeray’s heroes enjoyed the sea breezes of Boulogne after the mental strain of somewhat questionable financial manœuvres.
