Boulogne-sur-Mer

Boulogne-sur-Mer, a fortified seaport in the French department of Pas-de-Calais, situated at the mouth of the Liane, in the English Channel, 27 miles SW. of Calais, and 158 N. by W. of Paris by rail. The town consists of two parts—Upper and Lower Boulogne. The upper town was in former times strongly fortified; but its ramparts have been converted into beautiful promenades, from which, in clear weather, Dover Castle can be seen. The upper town contains the hôtel-de-ville, on the site of the castle where Godfrey de Bouillon was born in 1061, and the former cathedral, rebuilt (1827-66) in the Italian style, with a dome 300 feet high, and with a miraculous image of the Virgin. The lower town, the seaport proper, is newer, more populous, and more lively, inhabited chiefly by merchants, mariners, and fishermen. It contains the barracks, the great hospital, the theatre, the museum and gallery of art, and many elegant residences. Boulogne has a college, several schools, English as well as French, and a public library of 55,000 volumes; there are extensive and excellent salt-water baths; and, on account of its fine sands, it is a favourite, though somewhat expensive resort for sea-bathing. The English residents have recently become much less numerous. Pop. (1872) 39,700; (1891) 45,205, actively engaged in the manufacture of linen, cordage, iron, steel pens and buttons, oil, soap, and chemical products. Boulogne is the chief station in France of the North Sea fisheries. It has an active coasting trade, and ranks with Calais as one of the nearest and most frequented places of passage between France and England, steamers plying daily to London, which they reach in from 9 to 10 hours, and twice a day to Folkestone, which they reach in about 2 hours. Paris is reached by railway in 4½ hours. About 5000 vessels, most of them English, of over 1,000,000 tons burden, enter or clear the port annually, their cargoes representing a value of some £20,000,000. The principal imports are woollen, cotton, and silk material; the exports are manufactured fabrics, leather, and wine. The harbour of Boulogne is too shallow for large ships of war, although it has been repeatedly enlarged and improved. A large wet-dock was completed in 1872; and a new deep and extensive outer harbour was constructed in 1878-95, at a total cost of little less than £1,000,000. The blue clay cliffs have been cut away, and a solid sea-wall built of the stone and soil; and the works, which have been steadily pushed forward, include outer moles or breakwaters with a length of over 4400 yards, and an inner mole or traverse, 1200 yards long and 200 wide, alongside which steamships may lie at all states of the tide. The whole French navy could find a haven in this harbour, where the largest ships will be able to lie at anchor even at low-water, an advantage hitherto enjoyed by only the military ports of Brest and Cherbourg. Boulogne was known to the Romans as Portus Gesoriacus, but after the time of Constantine the Great, it was called Bononia, and after that of the Carolingians, Bolonia. In 1435 it came into the possession of the Duke of Burgundy, and was united with the crown of France by Louis XI. in 1477. The town was taken by the English in 1544, and restored to the French in 1550. From this point has been contemplated every invasion of England since the days of Caligula; and here Napoleon encamped 180,000 men and collected 2400 transports, ready at any favourable moment to swoop down on the shores of Britain: but after months' watching, the war with Austria created other employment for them. As a memorial of this great camp, a tall marble column was erected on the higher grounds, and in 1841 surmounted by a colossal statue of Napoleon. In 1840 Boulogne was the scene of one of the adventurous expeditions of Louis Napoleon, who was imprisoned in the citadel. The poets Churchill and Campbell, and Le Sage, the author of Gil Blas, died here. Of late years, from its accessibility to English tourists, and rapid railway transit to Paris, Boulogne has greatly superseded Calais as a place of debarkation. See Merridew's Boulogne-sur-Mer (Lond. 1882).