of Henry
I. of Brabant; and then the house of Auvergne, issue of Alice, daughter
of Henry I. of Brabant, inherited the Boulonnais. It remained in the
possession of descendants of these families until Philip the Good, duke
of Burgundy, seized upon it in 1419. In 147 7 Louis XI. of France
reconquered it, and reunited it to the French crown, giving Lauraguais
as compensation to Bertrand IV. de la Tour, count of Auvergne, heir of
the house of Auvergne. To avoid doing homage to Mary of Burgundy,
suzerain of the Boulonnais and countess of Artois, Louis XI declared the
countship of Boulogne to be held in fee of Our Lady of Boulogne. In 1544
Henry VIII.--more successful in this than Henry III. had been in
1347--took the town by siege; but it was restored to France in 1550.
From 1566 to the end of the 18th century it was the seat of a
bishopric.

BOULOGNE-SUR-SEINE, a town of northern France, in the department of
Seine, on the right bank of the Seine, S.W. of Paris and immediately
outside the fortifications. Pop. (1906) 49,412. The town has a Gothic
church of the 14th and 15th centuries (restored in 1863) founded in
honour of Notre-Dame of Boulogne-sur-Mer. To this fact is due the name
of the place, which was previously called Menus-les-St Cloud. Laundrying
is extensively carried on as well as the manufacture of metal boxes,
soap, oil and furniture, and there are numerous handsome residences. For
the neighbouring Bois de Boulogne see PARIS.

BOULTON, MATTHEW (1728-1809), English manufacturer and engineer, was
born on the 3rd of September 1728, at Birmingham, where his father,
Matthew Boulton the elder, was a manufacturer of metal articles of
various kinds. To this business he succeeded on his father's death in
1759, and in consequence of its growth removed his works in 1762 from
Snowhill to what was then a tract of barren heath at Soho, 2 mi. north
of Birmingham. Here he undertook the manufacture of artistic objects in
metal, as well as the reproduction of oil paintings by a mechanical
process in which he was associated with Francis Eginton (1737-1805), who
subsequently achieved a reputation as a worker in stained or enamelled
glass. About 1767, Boulton, who was finding the need of improving the
motive power for his machinery, made the acquaintance of James Watt, who
on his side appreciated the advantages offered by the Soho works for the
development of his steam-engine. In 1772 Watt's partner, Dr John
Roebuck, got