Jean Calas

“ You have a long journey yet to make before you arrive at Calais, whither it is your intention to go; and there are in this town a great number of inhabitants who will defend themselves obstinately in their houses, if you force them to it: besides, it will cost you many lives before the town can be destroyed, which may put a stop to the expedition to Calais, and that will not redound to your honor. ”

“ A month later the Commons came before the Duke of York, as the king’s lieutenant, with two very urgent petitions. Defence of Calais. The first related to the defence of Calais and the safeguard of 138 the sea. Notwithstanding the very liberal grants which had already been voted by this Parliament, Calais was still in danger, and the sea was still very insufficiently protected; insomuch that the Lord Chancellor had told the House of Commons £40,000 would be required to obviate very serious perils. The Commons were very naturally alarmed; a modern House of Commons would have been indignant also. ”

“ It will be put right now, now that Ralph can no longer oppose it."
I bowed my head silently, thankful and deeply impressed with the strange turn taken by events and the sudden light let in upon the darkness that had surrounded us.
The rest of the adventures that began in the sleeping-car between Calais and Basle, and came abruptly to an end on the North African shore, may soon be told. Our first act was to [290] return to England at the very earliest opportunity, and we embarked that evening on a Forwood steamer direct for London, which port we reached in less than five days. ”

“ Agathe and Nieullay, the secret arrangement that you had with persons in the town would place the Risbank fort in our hands, and thus Calais might be shut off from all hope of reinforcement by sea or land. Yes, Gabriel, I remember, and you must remember yourself, that you gave me that assurance."
"Very well!" said Gabriel, without the least symptom of anxiety or embarrassment.
"Well," rejoined the duke, "your hopes deceived you, did they not? Your friends in Calais have failed to keep their word, as was to be expected. They are evidently not yet certain of our success, and are timid ”

“ The letter containing the death sentence, for it was nothing less, of English rule in Calais was crossed on the way by another from Grey, in which he informed the queen that there were thirty or forty vessels in the harbour at Hambletue, two fitted as floating batteries, the rest loaded with hurdles, ladders, and other materials for a siege. Four-and-twenty thousand men were in the camp above Boulogne; and their mark he knew to be Calais. For himself, he would defend his charge to the death ”

“ Having put Calais into a state of defence, the Duke of Guise marched on the 13th of January to Guisnes, about five miles distant, to reduce the town and fort there. These were defended stoutly by Lord Grey de Wilton, who had received about 400 Spanish and Burgundian soldiers from King Philip, but they were in too miserable a state of repair to be long held. The walls in a few days were knocked to pieces; the Spanish soldiers were nearly all killed, and the remaining force compelled their officers to surrender. ”

“ When Calais had shouted itself hoarse, Paine travelled towards Paris. The towns he traversed on the road thither received him with similar honors. From the capital he addressed a letter of thanks to his fellow-citizens. Although he sat for Calais in the Convention, he had been chosen by three other departments. Priestley was a candidate for Paris, but was beaten by Marat, a doctor of another description. He was, however, duly elected in the department L'Orne, but never took his seat. ”

“ They said that their treasuries were exhausted, and that they had no men. At last, however, Margaret promised to the King of France that if he would furnish her with a fleet and an army, by which she could recover the kingdom of her husband, she would cede to him the town of Calais, which, though situated on the coast of France, was at that time an English possession. This was a very tempting offer, for Calais was a fortress of the first class, and a military post either for England or France of a very important character. ”

“ Calais will merit to be described by every Englishman who visits it, and to be read of by every one who does not—so long as Hogarth, and "Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England!" shall be remembered, and—which will be longer still—till the French and English become one people, merely by dint of living, within three hours' journey of each other. Calais has been treated much too cavalierly by the flocks of English, who owe to it their first, and consequently most fixed impressions of French manners, and the English want of them. ”

“ In vain Cape Grinez, coming frankly forth into the sea, exhorts the failing to be stout of heart and stomach: sneaking Calais, prone behind its bar, invites emetically to despair. Even when it can no longer quite conceal itself in its muddy dock, it has an evil way of falling off, has Calais, which is more hopeless than its invisibility. The pier is all but on the bowsprit, and you think you are there—roll, roar, wash!—Calais has retired miles inland, and Dover has burst out to look for it. ”

“ We know perfectly well that to land at Calais was then—as it is even now to some degree—to find oneself in a new world, with radically different manners, religion, politics, institutions, and ways of thinking. A Frenchman might put on top-boots and keep a bull-dog without being really one bit the more a genuine John Bull. ”

“ We had most of our property hastily packed up and placed in [ix] store. In Calais we remained till nearly the beginning of winter, when my son-in-law took his family back to Guiñes and we returned to our house. In fact it began to be recognised that Calais was too far out of the way, and presented too little temptation to a conquering army to make it likely we should be molested.
The spring of 1871 brought great changes, both public and private. The war ended, but France was no longer the same country to us. ”

“ If you believe its maligners, Calais is no better than a sort of Alsatia to England, a kind of extension of the rules of the King's Bench. The same persons would persuade you that America is something between a morass and a desert, and that its inhabitants are a cross between swindlers and barbarians ”

“ There was an element of grim comedy in the transaction when I recalled that the Calais harbour officials sent in—and reasonably—a huge claim for the mischief done to the pier; but the company soon satisfied that by speedily going 'into liquidation.' There was no resource, so the Frenchmen had to rebuild their pier at their own cost.
Close to Calais is a notable place enough, flourishing, too, founded after the great war by one Webster, an English laceman. It has grown up, with broad stately streets, in which, it is said, some four or five thousand Britons live and thrive. ”

“ The new inhabitants of the town were substantial citizens of London, and great numbers of agricultural people from the adjoining county of Kent, to whom he gave the surrounding lands. From that day to the reign of Queen Mary, Calais became altogether an English colony. He made it the staple of wool, leather, lead, and tin, the four principal articles which England furnished to the Continent, and where the foreign merchants could come to procure them. Having strengthened the defences of the town, Edward concluded a truce with Philip, which was by degrees extended to six years. ”

“ Every patriotic travelling Englishman must be delighted to think that some few centuries ago we gave up Calais. Had it been nowadays in English hands, why it might even now be possessed of a "Refreshment Room" no better than—any on our side of the Channel, for there is no necessity to particularise. From Dover to Calais is the shortest and best restorative'd route for the traveller, whether ill or well, at sea. ”

“ Wentworth had but 500 men to repel an army, and he was without provisions. Calais was probably gone, but Guisnes might be saved; Guisnes could be relieved with a great effort out of the Netherlands. On the night of the 4th, Grey found means to send a letter through the French lines to England. "The enemy," he said, "were now in possession of Calais harbour, and all the country between Calais and Guisnes." ”

“ The chief building in Calais is the Hôtel de Ville with its handsome tower, and a clock 4 which has a sweet clear chime; before it, each on its pedestal, are the busts of Richelieu and Guise le Balafré: that of Eustache St. Pierre holds the place of honour on the façade. To reward for the trouble of walking up stairs, the old woman only exhibited two rooms, “là où l’on marie” and “là où l’on reçoit,” she called them: in the latter, Louis Philip, whom the artist intended to smile, and who sneers instead, occupies the wall opposite a Surrender of Calais. The citadel is forbidden ground ”

“ The crowd looking on, especially those wives of substantial citizens of Calais who stood at their windows behind half-closed shutters and drawn blinds, stared down at Jacques de Wissant with pitying, concern. "He has a warm heart, though a cold manner," murmured these ladies to one another; "and just now, you know, he is in great personal anxiety, for his wife—that odd, beautiful Claire with whom he doesn't get on very well—is in Italy, ill of scarlet fever. ”

“ Jacques de Wissant was a narrow-built man of forty-six; his clean-shaven, rather fleshy face was very pale; and on this hot August morning he was dressed in a gray frock-coat and a pale yellow waistcoat. On his wife's writing-table lay his tall hat and lemon-colored gloves.
As Mayor of Calais—a position he owed to his historic name and to his wealth—he had to perform civil marriages, and to-day, it being the eve of the Assumption, there were to be a great many weddings celebrated in the Hôtel de Ville. ”

“ On Friday he was left alone to make his way up Channel towards the French shore. The English still followed, but he counted that in [Pg 271] Calais roads he would be in French waters, where they would not dare to meddle with him. They would then, he thought, go home and annoy him no further. As he dropped anchor in the dusk outside Calais on Saturday evening he saw, to his disgust, that the endemoniada gente—the infernal devils—as he called them, had brought up at the same moment with himself, half a league astern of him. ”

“ Even in England itself communication from one part of the island to the other became slow and rare. No vessel stemmed the flood that divided Calais from Dover; or if some melancholy voyager, wishing to assure himself of the life or death of his relatives, put from the French shore to return among us, often the greedy ocean swallowed his little craft, or after a day or two he was infected by the disorder, and died before he could tell the tale of the desolation of France. ”

“ Calais was soon in sight. The English could see the harbour crowded with vessels, which as they approached, however, ran close up under their batteries where the ships could not get at them. The wind was off shore, which gave them smooth water; and the squadron, in gallant style, beat up as near to the town as the water would allow. They now anchored, their men-of-war protecting the bomb-vessels, which instantly commenced throwing shells into the place. It was a fine sight to see them, like vast rockets, rising in the air and curling over, until they fell into the devoted town. ”

“ Thus the last vestige of English dominion, the last substantial pretext of the English sovereign to wear the title and the lilies of France, was lost forever. King Henry visited Calais, which after two centuries of estrangement had now become a French town again, appointed Paul de Thermes governor of the place, and then returned to Paris to celebrate soon afterwards the marriage of the Dauphin with the niece of the Guises, Mary, Queen of Scots. ”

“ It made war a little more red; humanity a little more human and kind and helpless under the scourge which it had brought on itself.
Though Calais was not prepared for wounded, when they came the women of energy and courage turned to the work without jealousy, without regard to red tape, without fastidiousness. I have in mind half a dozen other women about the streets that day in uniforms of short skirts and helmets, who belonged to a volunteer organization which had taken some care as to its regimentals. ”

“ How white the flashing rapiers play,
Parry, riposte! and lunge! The fray
Shifts for a while, then mournful stands
The Victor: life ebbs fast away
On Calais Sands!
p. 33On Calais Sands a little space
Of silence, then the plash and spray,
The sound of eager waves that ran
To kiss the perfumed locks astray,
To touch these lips that ne’er said ‘Nay,’
To dally with the helpless hands;
Till the deep sea in silence lay
On Calais Sands!
Between the lilac and the may
She waits her love from alien lands;
Her love is colder than the clay
On Calais Sands! ”

“ This lord of Calos- 235 - distinguished me, as I have said, beyond my comrades. I had a great vigor of limb which is not common among this people, except in so much as it moves them to great agility. They are rather light, swift and expert, than powerful in war; and trust rather to great cunning than superior strength, in the meeting with their enemies. The king of Calos greatly admired to see me lift heavy logs of timber, such as would have borne down any among his people if laid upon his shoulders. ”

“ Calais, as being the nearest point to the English coast, and at which we so often obtain our first peep at France, merits some notice, and although it offers but few attractions, and is surrounded by a flat cheerless country, yet there are connected with it some associations which are replete with interest; as who that has ever read Sterne's Sentimental Journey can forget the simple but impressive description he gives of the poor friar and other objects which he there met, and which he has engraven on the minds of his readers, in his own peculiar style, in characters never to be erased ”