He
was the very picture of your reverence - one would swear you were
brothers.
Poor Baudouin! he died of a fall - rest his soul! I
would willingly pay for a couple of masses to pray him out of
purgatory."
Among other public edifices at Boulogne, there is an hospital, or
workhouse, which seems to be established upon a very good
foundation. It maintains several hundreds of poor people, who are
kept constantly at work, according to their age and abilities, in
making thread, all sorts of lace, a kind of catgut, and in
knitting stockings. It is under the direction of the bishop; and
the see is at present filled by a prelate of great piety and
benevolence, though a little inclining to bigotry and fanaticism.
The churches in this town are but indifferently built, and poorly
ornamented. There is not one picture in the place worth looking
at, nor indeed does there seem to be the least taste for the
liberal arts.
In my next, I shall endeavour to satisfy you in the other
articles you desire to know. Mean-while, I am ever - Yours.
LETTER IV
BOULOGNE, September 1, 1763.
SIR, - I am infinitely obliged to D. H - for the favourable manner
in which he has mentioned me to the earl of H - I have at last
recovered my books, by virtue of a particular order to the
director of the douane, procured by the application of the
English resident to the French ministry. I am now preparing for
my long journey; but, before I leave this place, I shall send you
the packet I mentioned, by Meriton. Mean-while I must fulfil my
promise in communicating
the observations I have had occasion to make upon this town and
country.
The air of Boulogne is cold and moist, and, I believe, of
consequence unhealthy. Last winter the frost, which continued six
weeks in London, lasted here eight weeks without intermission;
and the cold was so intense, that, in the garden of the
Capuchins, it split the bark of several elms from top to bottom.
On our arrival here we found all kinds of fruit more backward
than in England. The frost, in its progress to Britain, is much
weakened in crossing the sea. The atmosphere, impregnated with
saline particles, resists the operation of freezing. Hence, in
severe winters, all places near the sea-side are less cold than
more inland districts. This is the reason why the winter is often
more mild at Edinburgh than at London. A very great degree of
cold is required to freeze salt water. Indeed it will not freeze
at all, until it has deposited all its salt. It is now generally
allowed among philosophers, that water is no more than ice thawed
by heat, either solar, or subterranean, or both; and that this
heat being expelled, it would return to its natural consistence.
This being the case, nothing else is required for the freezing of
water, than a certain degree of cold, which may be generated by
the help of salt, or spirit of nitre, even under the line. I
would propose, therefore, that an apparatus of this sort should
be provided in every ship that goes to sea; and in case there
should be a deficiency of fresh water on board, the seawater may
be rendered potable, by being first converted into ice.
The air of Boulogne is not only loaded with a great evaporation
from the sea, increased by strong gales of wind from the West and
South-West, which blow almost continually during the greatest
part of the year; but it is also subject to putrid vapours,
arising from the low marshy ground in the neighbourhood of the
harbour, which is every tide overflowed with seawater. This may
be one cause of the scrofula and rickets, which are two
prevailing disorders among the children in Boulogne. But I
believe the former is more owing to the water used in the Lower
Town, which is very hard and unwholsome. It curdles with soap,
gives a red colour to the meat that is boiled in it, and, when
drank by strangers, never fails to occasion pains in the stomach
and bowels; nay, sometimes produces dysenteries. In all
appearance it is impregnated with nitre, if not with something
more mischievous: we know that mundic, or pyrites, very often
contains a proportion of arsenic, mixed with sulphur, vitriol,
and mercury. Perhaps it partakes of the acid of some coal mine;
for there are coal works in this district. There is a well of
purging water within a quarter of a mile of the Upper Town, to
which the inhabitants resort in the morning, as the people of
London go to the Dog-and-duck, in St. George's fields. There is
likewise a fountain of excellent water, hard by the cathedral, in
the Upper Town, from whence I am daily supplied at a small
expence. Some modern chemists affirm, that no saline chalybeate
waters can exist, except in the neighbourhood of coal damps; and
that nothing can be more mild, and gentle, and friendly to the
constitution, than the said damps: but I know that the place
where I was bred stands upon a zonic of coal; that the water
which the inhabitants generally use is hard and brackish; and
that the people are remarkably subject to the king's evil and
consumption. These I would impute to the bad water, impregnated
with the vitriol and brine of coal, as there is nothing in the
constitution of the air that should render such distempers
endemial. That the air of Boulogne encourages putrefaction,
appears from the effect it has upon butcher's meat, which, though
the season is remarkably cold, we can hardly keep four-and-twenty
hours in the coolest part of the house.
Living here is pretty reasonable; and the markets are tolerably
supplied. The beef is neither fat nor firm; but very good for
soup, which is the only use the French make of it.
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