It is a curious, not unromantic feeling, that of wandering about a
strange town at midnight, and the effect increases as, leaving the
_place_, I turn down a little by-street--the Rue de Guise--closed at
the end by a beautiful building or fragment, unmistakably English in
character. Behind it spreads the veil of blue sky, illuminated by the
moon, with drifting white clouds passing lazily across. This is the
entrance to the Hotel de Guise--a gate-tower and archway, pure
Tudor-English in character, and, like many an old house in the English
counties, elegant and almost piquant in its design. The arch is
flanked by slight hexagonal _tourelles_, each capped by a pinnacle
decorated with niches in front. Within is a little courtyard, and
fragments of the building running round in the same Tudor style, but
given up to squalor and decay, evidently let out to poor lodgers.
This charming fragment excites a deep melancholy, as it is a neglected
survival, and may disappear at any moment--the French having little
interest in these English monuments, indeed, being eager to efface
them when they can. It is always striking to see this on some tranquil
night, as I do now--and Calais is oftenest seen at midnight--and think
of the Earl of Warwick, the 'deputy,' and of the English wool-staple
merchants who traded here. Here lodged Henry VIII. in 1520; and twelve
years later Francis I., when on a visit to Henry, took up his abode in
this palace.

[Illustration: BELFRY, CALAIS.]

Crossing the _place_ again, I come on the grim old church, built by
the English, where were married our own King Richard II. and Isabelle
of Valois--a curious memory to recur as we listen to the 'high mass'
of a Calais Sunday. But the author of 'Modern Painters' has furnished
the old church with its best poetical interpretation. 'I cannot find
words,' he says in a noble passage,' to express the intense pleasure I
have always felt at first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in
England, at the foot of the tower of Calais Church. The large neglect,
the noble unsightliness of it, the record of its years, written so
vividly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern vastness and
gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with bitter
sea-grass. I cannot tell half the strange pleasures and thoughts that
come about me at the sight of the old tower.' Most interesting of all
is the grim, rusted, and gaunt watch-tower, before alluded to, which
rises o