I Was Offered A Compleat House, With
A Garden Of Four Acres Well Laid Out, And Two Fields For Grass Or
Hay, About A Mile From The Town, For Four Hundred Livres, About
Seventeen Pounds A Year:
It is partly furnished, stands in an
agreeable situation, with a fine prospect of the sea, and was
lately occupied by a Scotch nobleman, who is in the service of
France.
To judge from appearance, the people of Boulogne are descended
from the Flemings, who formerly possessed this country; for, a
great many of the present inhabitants have fine skins, fair hair,
and florid complexions; very different from the natives of France
in general, who are distinguished by black hair, brown skins, and
swarthy faces. The people of the Boulonnois enjoy some
extraordinary privileges, and, in particular, are exempted from
the gabelle or duties upon salt: how they deserved this mark of
favour, I do not know; but they seem to have a spirit of
independence among them, are very ferocious, and much addicted to
revenge. Many barbarous murders are committed, both in the town
and country; and the peasants, from motives of envy and
resentment, frequently set their neighbours' houses on fire.
Several instances of this kind have happened in the course of the
last year. The interruption which is given, in arbitrary
governments, to the administration of justice, by the
interposition of the great, has always a bad effect upon the
morals of the common people. The peasants too are often rendered
desperate and savage, by the misery they suffer from the
oppression and tyranny of their landlords. In this neighbourhood
the labouring people are ill lodged and wretchedly fed; and they
have no idea of cleanliness. There is a substantial burgher in
the High Town, who was some years ago convicted of a most
barbarous murder. He received sentence to be broke alive upon the
wheel; but was pardoned by the interposition of the governor of
the county, and carries on his business as usual in the face of
the whole community. A furious abbe, being refused orders by the
bishop, on account of his irregular life, took an opportunity to
stab the prelate with a knife, one Sunday, as he walked out of
the cathedral. The good bishop desired he might be permitted to
escape; but it was thought proper to punish, with the utmost
severity, such an atrocious attempt. He was accordingly
apprehended, and, though the wound was not mortal, condemned to
be broke. When this dreadful sentence was executed, he cried out,
that it was hard he should undergo such torments, for having
wounded a worthless priest, by whom he had been injured, while
such-a-one (naming the burgher mentioned above) lived in ease and
security, after having brutally murdered a poor man, and a
helpless woman big with child, who had not given him the least
provocation.
The inhabitants of Boulogne may be divided into three classes;
the noblesse or gentry, the burghers, and the canaille.
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