A Days Tour | Page 8

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