Chapter 2

Such, indeed, it used to be--not without its poetry, too; but the old Calais days are gone. Now the travellers land far away down the pier, at the new-fangled 'Calais Maritime,' forsooth! and do not even approach the old town. The fishing-boats, laid up side by side along the piers, are shadowy. It seems a scene in a play. The great sea is behind us and all round. It is a curious feeling, thinking of the nervous unrest of the place, that has gone on for a century, and that will probably go on for centuries more. Certainly, to a person who has never been abroad, this midnight scene would be a picture not without a flavour of romance. But such glimpses of poetry are held intrusive in these matter-of-fact days.

There is more than an hour to wait, whilst the passengers gorge in the huge _salle_, and the baggage is got ashore. So I wander away up to the town.

How picturesque that stroll! Not wholly levelled are the old yellow walls; the railway-station with its one eye, and clock that never sleeps, opens its jaws with a cheerful bright light, like an inn fire; dark figures in cowls, soldiers, sailors, flit about; curiously-shaped tumbrils for the baggage lie up in ordinary. Here is the old arched gate, ditch, and drawbridge; Hogarth's old bridge and archway, where he drew the 'Roast Beef of Old England.' Passing over the bridge into the town unchallenged, I find a narrow street with yellow houses--the white shutters, the porches, the first glance of which affects one so curiously and reveals France. Here is the Place of Arms in the centre, whence all streets radiate. What more picturesque scene!--the moon above, the irregular houses straggling round, the quaint old town-hall, with its elegant tower, and rather wheezy but most musical chimes; its neighbour, the black, solemn watch-tower, rising rude and abrupt, seven centuries old, whence there used to be strict look-out for the English. Down one of these side streets is a tall building, with its long rows of windows and shutters and closed door (Quillacq's, now Dessein's), once a favourite house--the 'Silver Lion,' mentioned in the old memoirs, visited by Hogarth, and where, twenty years ago, there used to be a crowd of guests. Standing in the centre, I note a stray roysterer issuing from some long-closed _café_, hurrying home, while the _carillons_ in their airy _rococo_-looking tower play their melodious tunes in a wheezy jangle that is interesting and novel. This chime has a celebrity in this quarter of France. I stayed long in the centre of that solitary _place_, listening to that midnight music.

It is a curious, not unromantic feeling, that of wandering about a strange town at midnight, and the effect increases as, leaving the _place_, I turn down a little by-street--the Rue de Guise--closed at the end by a beautiful building or fragment, unmistakably English in character. Behind it spreads the veil of blue sky, illuminated by the moon, with drifting white clouds passing lazily across. This is the entrance to the Hôtel de Guise--a gate-tower and archway, pure Tudor-English in character, and, like many an old house in the English counties, elegant and almost piquant in its design. The arch is flanked by slight hexagonal _tourelles_, each capped by a pinnacle decorated with niches in front. Within is a little courtyard, and fragments of the building running round in the same Tudor style, but given up to squalor and decay, evidently let out to poor lodgers. This charming fragment excites a deep melancholy, as it is a neglected survival, and may disappear at any moment--the French having little interest in these English monuments, indeed, being eager to efface them when they can. It is always striking to see this on some tranquil night, as I do now--and Calais is oftenest seen at midnight--and think of the Earl of Warwick, the 'deputy,' and of the English wool-staple merchants who traded here. Here lodged Henry VIII. in 1520; and twelve years later Francis I., when on a visit to Henry, took up his abode in this palace.

Crossing the _place_ again, I come on the grim old church, built by the English, where were married our own King Richard II. and Isabelle of Valois--a curious memory to recur as we listen to the 'high mass' of a Calais Sunday. But the author of 'Modern Painters' has furnished the old church with its best poetical interpretation. 'I cannot find words,' he says in a noble passage,' to express the intense pleasure I have always felt at first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in England, at the foot of the tower of Calais Church. The large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it, the record of its years, written so vividly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern vastness and gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with bitter sea-grass. I cannot tell half the strange pleasures and thoughts that come about me at the sight of the old tower.' Most interesting of all is the grim, rusted, and gaunt watch-tower, before alluded to, which rises out of a block of modern houses in the _place_ itself. It can be seen afar off from the approaching vessel, and until comparatively late times this venerable servant had done the charity of lighthouse work for a couple of centuries at least.

But one of the pleasantest associations connected with the town was the old Dessein's Hotel, which had somehow an inexpressibly old-fashioned charm, for it had a grace like some disused château. Some of the prettiest passages in Sterne's writings are associated with this place. We see the figures of the monk, the well-known host, the lady and the _petit-maître_: to say nothing of the old _désobligeante_. Even of late years it was impossible to look at the old building, which remained unchanged, without calling up the image of Mr. Sterne, and the curious airy conversation--sprinkled with what execrable French both in grammar and spelling!--that took place at the gate. An air of the old times pervaded it strongly: it was like opening an old _garde de vin_. You passed out of the _place_ and found yourself in the Rue Royale--newly named Rue Leveux--and there, Dessein's stood before you, with its long yellow wall, archway and spacious courts, on each side a number of quaint gables or _mansardes_, sharp-roofed. Over the wall was seen the foliage of tall and handsome trees. There is a coloured print representing this entrance, with the meeting of the 'little master' and the lady--painted by Leslie--and which gives a good idea of the place. In the last century the courtyard used to be filled with posting-carriages, and the well-known _remise_ lay here in a corner. Behind the house stretched large, well-stocked gardens, with which the guests at the hotel used to be recreated; while at the bottom of the garden, but opening into another street, was the theatre, built by the original Dessein, belonging to the hotel, and still used. This garden was wild and luxuriant, the birds singing, while the courtyard was dusty and weed-grown.

This charming picture has ever been a captivating one for the traveller. It seemed like an old country-house transferred to town. There was something indescribable in the tranquil flavour of the place, its yellow gamboge tint alternated with green vineries, its spacious courtyard and handsome chambers. It was bound up with innumerable old associations. Thackeray describes, with an almost poetical affection and sympathy, the night he spent there. He called up the image of Sterne in his 'black satin smalls,' and talked with him. They used to show his room, regularly marked, as I have seen it, 'STERNES'S ROOM, NO. 31,' with its mezzotint, after Sir Joshua, hung over the chimney-piece. But this tradition received a shock some sixty years since. An inquisitive and sceptical traveller fancied he saw an inscription or date lurking behind the vine-leaves that so luxuriantly covered the old house, and sent up a man on a ladder to clear away the foliage. This operation led to the discovery of a tablet, dated two years too late for the authenticity of the building in which 'Sterne's room' was. The waiter, however, in nowise disconcerted, said the matter could be easily 'arranged' by selecting another room in an unquestioned portion of the building! To make up, however, there was a room labelled 'SIR WALTER SCOTT'S ROOM,' with his portrait; and of this there could be no reasonable question.

+------+ | AD | | 1770 | +------+

In later years it did not flourish much, but gently decayed. Everything seemed in a state of mild sleepy abandonment and decay till about the year 1861, when the Desseins gave over business. The town, much straitened for room, and cramped within its fortifications, had long been casting hungry eyes on this spacious area. Strange to say, even in the prosaic pages of our own 'Bradshaw,' the epitaph of 'old Dessein's' is to be read among its advertisements:

'CALAIS.

'HÔTEL DESSEIN.--L. Dessein, the proprietor, has the honour to inform his numerous patrons, and travellers in general, that after the 1st of January his establishment will be transferred to the Hôtel Quillacq, which has been entirely done up, and will take the name of HÔTEL DESSEIN. The premises of the old Hôtel Dessein having been purchased by the town of Calais, it ceases to be an Hôtel for Travellers.'

Still, in this new function it was 'old Dessein's,' and you were shown 'Sterne's room,' etc. I recall wandering through it of a holiday, surveying the usual museum specimens--the old stones, invariable spear-heads, stuffed animals; in short, the usual rather heterogeneous collection, made up of 'voluntary contributions,' prompted half by the vanity of the donor and half by his indifference to the objects presented. We had not, indeed, the 'old pump' or the parish stocks, as at Little Pedlington, but there were things as interesting. Here were a few old pictures given by the Government, and labelled in writing; the car of Blanchard's balloon, and a cutting from a newspaper describing his arrival; portraits of the 'Citizen King' in his white trousers; ditto of Napoleon III., name pasted over; the flagstone, with an inscription, celebrating the landing of Louis XVIII., removed from the pier--in deference to Republican sensitiveness--no doubt to be restored again in deference to monarchical feelings; and, of course, a number of the usual uninteresting cases containing white cards, and much cotton, pins, and insects, stuffed birds, and symmetrically-arranged dried specimens, the invariable Indian gourds, and arrows, and moccasins, which 'no gentlemanly collection should be without.' Never, during many a visit, did I omit wandering up to see this pleasing, old, but ghostly memorial. It may be conceived what a shock it was when, on a recent visit, I found it gone--razed--carted away. I searched and searched--fancied I had mistaken the street; but no! it was gone for ever. During M. Jules Ferry's last administration, when the rage for 'Communal schools' set in, this tempting site had been seized upon, the interesting old place levelled, and a factory-like red-brick pile rapidly erected in its place. It was impossible not to feel a pang at this discovery; I felt that Calais without its Dessein's had lost its charm. Madame Dessein, a grand-niece or nearly-related descendant of _le grand Dessein_, still directs at Quillacq's--a pleasing old lady.

There is still a half hour before me, while the gorgers in 'Maritime Calais' are busy feeding against time; and while I stand in the _place_, listening to the wheezy old chimes, I recall a pleasant excursion, and a holiday that was spent there, at the time when the annual _fêtes_ were being celebrated. Never was there a brighter day: all seemed to be new, and the very quintessence of what was foreign--the gay houses of different heights and patterns were decked with streamers, their parti-coloured blinds, devices, and balconies running round the _place_, and furnishing gaudy detail. Here there used to be plenty of movement, when the Lafitte diligences went clattering by, starting for Paris, before the voracious railway marched victoriously in and swallowed diligence, horses, postilions--bells, boots and all! The gay crowd passing across the _place_ was making for the huge iron-gray cathedral, quite ponderous and fortress-like in its character. Here is the grand _messe_ going on, the Swiss being seen afar off, standing with his halbert under the great arch, while between, down to the door, are the crowded congregation and the convenient chairs. Overhead the ancient organ is pealing out with rich sound, while the sun streams in through the dim-painted glass on the old-fashioned costumes of the fish-women, just falling on their gold earrings _en passant_. There is a dreamy air about this function, which associated itself, in some strange way, with bygone days of childhood, and it is hard to think that about two or three hours before the spectator was in all the prose of London.

For those who love novel and picturesque memories or scenes, there are few things more effective or pleasant to think of than one of these Sunday mornings in a strange unfamiliar French town, when every corner, and every house and figure--welcome novelty!--are gay as the costumes and colours in an opera. The night before it was, perhaps, the horrors of the packet, the cribbing in the cabin, the unutterable squalor and roughness of all things, the lowest depth of hard, ugly prose, together with the rudest buffeting and agitation, and poignant suffering; but, in a few hours, what a 'blessed' change! Now there is the softness of a dream in the bright cathedral church crowded to the door, the rites and figures seen afar off, the fuming incense, the music, the architecture!

During these musings the fiercely glaring clock warns me that time is running out; but a more singular monitor is the great lighthouse which rises at the entrance of the town, and goes through its extraordinary, almost fiendish, performance all the night long. This is truly a phenomenon. Lighthouses are usually relegated to some pier-end, and display their gyrations to the congenial ocean. But conceive a monster of this sort almost _in_ the town itself, revolving ceaselessly, flashing and flaring into every street and corner of a street, like some Patagonian policeman with a giant 'bull's-eye.' A more singular, unearthly effect cannot be conceived. Wherever I stand, in shadow or out of it, this sudden flashing pursues me. It might be called the 'Demon Lighthouse.' For a moment, in picturesque gloom, watching the shadows cast by the Hogarthian gateway, I may be thinking of our great English painter sitting sketching the lean Frenchwomen, noting, too, the portal where the English arms used to be, when suddenly the 'Demon Lighthouse' directs his glare full on me, describes a sweep, is gone, and all is dark again. It suggests the policeman going his rounds. How the exile forced to sojourn here must detest this obtrusive beacon of the first class! It must become maddening in time for the eyes. Even in bed it has the effect of mild sheet-lightning. Municipality of Calais! move it away at once to a rational spot--to the end of the pier, where a lighthouse ought to be.

V.

_TOURNAY._

But now back to 'Maritime Calais,' down to the pier, where a strange busy contrast awaits us. All is now bustle. In the great 'hall' hundreds are finishing their 'gorging,' paying bills, etc., while on the platform the last boxes and chests are being tumbled into the waggons with the peculiar tumbling, crashing sound which is so foreign. Guards and officials in cloaks and hoods pace up and down, and are beginning to chant their favourite '_En voiture, messieurs_!' Soon all are packed into their carriages, which in France always present an old-fashioned mail-coach air with their protuberant bodies and panels. By one o'clock the signal is given, the lights flash slowly by, and we are rolling away, off into the black night. 'Maritime Calais' is left to well-earned repose; but for an hour or so only, until the returning mail arrives, when it will wake up again--a troubled and troublous nightmare sort of existence. Now for a plunge into Cimmerian night, with that dull, sustained buzz outside, as of some gigantic machinery whirling round, which seems a sort of lullaby, contrived mercifully to make the traveller drowsy and enwrap him in gentle sleep. Railway sleeping is, after all, a not unrefreshing form of slumber. There is the grateful 'nod, nod, nodding,' with the sudden jerk of an awakening; until the nodding becomes more overpowering, and one settles into a deep and profound sleep. Ugh! how chilly it gets! And the machinery--or is it the sea?--still roaring in one's ear.

What, stopping! and by the roadside, it seems; the day breaking, the atmosphere cold, steel-blue, and misty. Rubbing the pane, a few surviving lights are seen twinkling--a picture surely something Moslem. For there, separated by low-lying fields, rise clustered Byzantine towers and belfries, with strangely-quaint German-looking spires of the Nuremberg pattern, but all dimly outlined and mysterious in their grayness.

There was an extraordinary and original feeling in this approach: the old fortifications, or what remained of them, rising before me; the gloom, the mystery, the widening streak of day, and perfect solitariness. As I admired the shadowy belfry which rose so supreme and asserted itself among the spires, there broke out of a sudden a perfect _charivari_ of bells--jangling, chiming, rioting, from various churches, while amid all was conspicuous the deep, solemn BOOM! BOOM! like the slow baying of a hound.

It is five o'clock, but it might be the middle of the night, so dark is it. This magic city, which seems like one of those in Albert Dürer's cuts, rises at a distance as if within walls. I stand in the roadside alone, deserted, the sole traveller set down. The train has flown on into the night with a shriek. The sleepy porter wonders, and looks at me askance.

As I take my way from the station and gradually approach the city--for there is a broad stretch between it and the railway unfilled by houses--I see the striking and impressive picture growing and enlarging. The jangling and the solemn occasional boom still go on: meant to give note that the day is opening. Nothing more awe-inspiring or poetical can be conceived than this 'cock-crow' promenade. Here are little portals suddenly opening on the stage, with muffled figures darting out, and worthy Belgians tripping from their houses--betimes, indeed--and hurrying away to mass. Thus to make the acquaintance of that grandest and most astonishing of old cathedrals, is to do so under the best and most suitable conditions: very different from the guide and cicerone business, which belongs to later hours of the day. I stand in the open _place_, under its shadow, and lift my eyes with wonder to the amazing and crowded cluster of spires and towers: its antique air, and even look of shattered dilapidation showing that the restorer has not been at his work. There was no smugness or trimness, or spick-and-spanness, but an awful and reverent austerity. And with an antique appropriateness to its functions the Flemish women, crones and maidens, all in their becoming cashmere hoods, and cloaks, and neat frills, still hurry on to the old Dom. Near me rose the antique _beffroi_, from whose jaws still kept booming the old bell, with a fine clang, the same that had often pealed out to rouse the burghers to discord and tumult. It pealed on, hoarse and even cracked, but persistently melodious, disregarding the contending clamours of its neighbours, just as some old baritone of the opera, reduced and broken down, will exhibit his 'phrasing'--all that is left to him. Quaint old burgher city, indeed, with the true flavour, though beshrew them for meddling with the fortifications!

That little scene in this _place_ of Tournay is always a pleasant, picturesque memory.

I entered with the others. Within the cathedral was the side chapel, with its black oak screen, and a tawny-cheeked Belgian priest at the altar beginning the mass. Scattered round and picturesquely grouped were the crones and maidens aforesaid, on their wicker-chairs. A few surviving lamps twinkled fitfully, and shadowy figures crossed as if on the stage. But aloft, what an overpowering immensity, all vaulted shadows, the huge pillars soaring upward to be lost in a Cimmerian gloom!

Around me I saw grouped picturesquely in scattered order, and kneeling on their _prie-dieux_, the honest burghers, women and men, the former arrayed in the comfortable and not unpicturesque black Flemish cloaks with the silk hoods--handsome and effective garments, and almost universal. The devotional rite of the mass, deeply impressive, was over in twenty minutes, and all trooped away to their daily work. There was a suggestion here, in this modest, unpretending exercise, in contrast to the great fane itself, of the undeveloped power to expand, as it were, on Sundays and feast-days, when the cathedral would display all its resources, and its huge area be crowded to the doors with worshippers, and the great rites celebrated in all their full magnificence.

Behind the great altar I came upon an imposing monument, conceived after an original and comprehensive idea. It was to the memory of _all the bishops and canons_ of the cathedral! This wholesale idea may be commended to our chapters at home. It might save the too monotonous repetition of recumbent bishops, who, after being exhibited at the Academy, finally encumber valuable space in their own cathedrals.

The suggestiveness of the great bell-tower, owing to the peculiar emphasis and purpose given to it, is constantly felt in the old Belgian cities. It still conveys its old antique purpose--the defence of the burghers, a watchful sentinel who, on the alarm, clanged out danger, the sound piercing from that eyry to the remotest lane, and bringing the valiant citizens rushing to the great central square. It is impossible to look up at one of these monuments, grim and solitary, without feeling the whole spirit of the Belgian history, and calling up Philip van Artevelde and the Ghentish troubles.