1828.] Dunkerque. 161 



content with a good sitting-room, bed-room, servants'-room, and kitchen, 

 may have them from thirty to fifty francs, according to the goodness of 

 the furniture, &c. 



It only remains for me to speak of those immediate environs of Dun- 

 kerque, which form virtually a portion of the town. To say that they 

 are more picturesque and agreeable than those of most French towns, is 

 saying very little indeed in their favour ; since a French city is almost 

 always a precise and settled thing, having certain fixed and, as it were, 

 legal limits having passed which, you are as much out of the town 

 as if you were out of the world. This is necessarily the case with s /br- 

 tified towns ; but it is so with almost all, by reason of feeling and habit. 

 There are few in regard to which it is so little the case as it is to Dun- 

 kerque. Having canals branching fr,om almost every part of it but that 

 which faces the sea, houses of business, as well as little campagncs, or 

 country-houses, have sprung up in many parts of the immediate vicinity, 

 which give a comparatively pleasing effect to the aspect of the country 

 which would otherwise be dreary to the last degree partly from its 

 absolute flatness, and partly because the soil is not favourable to the 

 growth of wood vegetation. But the most agreeable portion of the 

 environs is a little village called Rosendahl, which does not border either 

 of the canals, but is situated on each side of a winding road, paved, and 

 thickly bordered with pollard trees. Through this lane you may wind 

 along for two miles, in the hottest day of summer, without feeling the 

 sun, but merely seeing it chequering the earth as you walk; and here 

 the Dunkerquois betake themselves every Sunday literally in flocks, to 

 enjoy the open air, and spend an innocent afternoon in one or other of 

 the various public gardens which are situated on either side. The prin- 

 cipal of these is the (f Jardin Royal," a spacious plot of ground, so thickly 

 planted as to form almost a wood, and presenting an appearance as much 

 superior to any of our public gardens even in the vicinity of the capital, 

 as our Vauxhall is to any of the evening places of a similar kind in 

 France. It is a garden altogether French : that is to say, of all the 

 innumerable trees and shrubs of which it consists, not one is in its natural 

 state, but has been clipped, twisted, tied, trained, and tortured in con- 

 formity with certain received rules and fancies, which for time imme- 

 morial have held sovereign sway over the French taste in these matters. 

 To this garden all the most respectable of the bourgeois repair every 

 Sunday at least, as regularly as they do to mass ; and evidently with no 

 other motive than that of meeting each other : for to partake of any of 

 the refreshments included in the price of admission and particularly of 

 that most popular of all refreshments in France, a dance in the open air 

 would be the depth of mauvais ton. Not so, however, the soubrettes 

 and bonnes, and their male companions, the labourers and artizans of the 

 town. They enjoy every where the unequivocal advantage over their 

 betters, of not being too proud to make themselves as happy as they can ; 

 and here their never-failing Sunday's resource, with this view, is, the 

 dancing and its concomitants at this and the various other guingettes in 

 the neighbourhood. They bargain for it in their engagemects with their 

 employers ; and they enjoy it not to say practice it at least as well as 

 the best of their betters. Rosendahl is the spot where most of the excel- 

 lent vegetables are grown that supply the Dunkerque market. The soil 

 is a light sand, mixed with a black loam ; and it seems to do for its simple 

 cultivators all that the most laborious efforts of art can do with us. I 



M. M. NewSerws.-^Voi.V. No. 26. V 



