A Days Tour | Page 8

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