Boulognesur Seine

Boulogne-sur-Seine, a town of France, in the Seine department, arrondissement of St. Denis, on the right bank of the Seine, and about five miles from Paris. It lies between the Seine and the well-known wood called the Bois de Boulogne, and is opposite St. Cloud. It is not without some connection with Boulogne-sur-Mer, since, in 1319, Philippe V. gave leave to Parisians and others who had made the pilgrimage to Boulogne-sur-Mer, to build a church at the village of Menus, by St. Cloud, and this church, becoming also the object of a pilgrimage, soon gave a new importance to the village. The Bois de Boulogne - called also the Forest of Bouvray, and, in old times, the Wood of St. Cloud - is between Boulogne and Paris, and has been from time almost immemorial, and still is, one of the chief pleasure places around Paris. A visit to Paris would be incomplete without a drive in the Bois; and it is in some measure to Paris what Rotten Row is to London, save that it is more democratic and considerably more varied in its pleasures. It is now a gigantic park, with water, wood, lawns, fountains, avenues, and broad walks, having been made over to the city of Paris in 1853. There was a royal castle here, said to have been built by Francis I., in remembrance of the castle where Charles V. kept him prisoner; and the Bois was one of the scenes of the extravagant pleasures of the court and noblesse down to the Revolution, when it became equally the resort of the dandies of the First Republic, and is still the necessity of life to fashionable Paris under the Third Republic. The wood suffered in 1815, when part of the army of occupation was encamped there, and military necessities played havoc with it during the siege of Paris in the late Franco-German wax of 1870. It would not be right to quit the subject of Boulogne-sur-Seine without a word of tribute to the many laundresses for whom the town is famous.