156 Dunkerque. FEB. 



and a foot pavement would be perfectly useless, where the openings to 

 these subterranean dwellings must break into it at every ten or twenty 

 yards. 



We will commence our particular examination of Dunkerque at the 

 Grand Place that ornament of all French towns, great or small and, 

 above all, of this one for I do not know of any elsewhere, that, upon 

 the whole, produces a more pleasing and noticeable effect. The 

 Grand Place of Dunkerque is an oblong square, of about 150 paces by 

 120; with dwelling-houses on all the four sides, no two alike, yet none 

 differing enough from the rest to destroy the general uniformity of effect. 

 These lines of houses are unbroken, except on the west side ; but from 

 each corner of the square the principal streets of the town branch forth 

 running from thence to the extremity of the town in each direction, and 

 being intersected at right angles by others, running equally to the extre- 

 mity of the town respectively. This regularity, in the arrangement of 

 the streets, is one of the characteristics of Dunkerque ; and the effects of 

 it are excellent in every point of view, whether for the purposes of beauty, 

 health, or utility. 



In regard to the picturesque effect of its private buildings, there are 

 few towns of its size that can compete with Dunkerque : for though the 

 houses are all of brick, the excellent taste in which many of them are 

 designed, and the mode in which the brickwork is moulded into friezes, 

 architraves of the windows, &c., enables them to produce all the effect of 

 stone buildings. I speak particularly of the principal private streets- 

 such as the rue du Sud, rue de 1'Ancienne Poste, &c. These streets are 

 spacious, regular, perfectly straight, and the external face of the houses so 

 designed, as to the architraves of the windows, the cornices of the 

 parapets, &c., that they look more like those of an Italian than a French 

 town ; and to some an unity of look (as if of stone- work) is given, by 

 means of a sort of rasping or rubbing with some rough-faced instrument, 

 which the surface of the brick-work has undergone, and which hides 

 almost entirely the joining of the bricks. In the more busy and central 

 streets, most of the houses have been stuccoed, and are painted of 

 different colours from time to time, as the custom is in most of the French 

 and Flemish towns ; and everywhere they have undergone more or less 

 of a restoration, which gives a half modern effect to the whole town. 

 You here and there see a house with a pointed roof, as if it had the gable- 

 end turned towards the street. But this is so rare, that though there is, 

 perhaps, scarcely a house that has not stood for more than a century, the 

 place has all the appearance of a new town, in the most frequented 

 parts of it, by reason of the extreme beauty and regularity of the 

 pavement, and the perfect state of repair in which every thing is 

 maintained. 



The longest and most populous street in Dunkerque is that which 

 runs from the gate of entrance on the south, to the port on the north 

 forming nominally three streets, under the names respectively of 

 rue Royale, rue d'Angouleme, and rue d'Eglise. This is the great 

 line for the houses of retail business ; and the centre portion of it 

 forms one side of the Grand Place. Next to this line, the most busy, and 

 also the most agreeable and picturesque, is a street that runs at right 

 angles with it to the other extremity of the town, called rue de Moulin. 

 There is a look of cleanliness, comfort, and respectability about this street, 

 which, added to its liveliness and variety of aspect, make it altogether 



