Boulogne-sur-Mer

The foundation of the city known to the Romans as Gesoriacum is credited to the Celtic Boii. In the past, it was sometimes conflated with Caesar's Portus Itius, but that is now thought to have been a site near Calais which has since silted up. A tall lighthouse was built at Gesoriacum circa 39 AD by order of the Emperor Caligula,[7] possibly in preparation for an invasion of Britain. Known as the Tour d'Ordre, coastal erosion caused it to topple into the sea in 1644.

The Tour d'Ordre, a Roman lighthouse, in 1550. It fell into the sea in 1644, having stood for over 1600 years.

From the time of Claudius's invasion in AD 43, Gesoriacum formed the major port connecting the rest of the empire to Britain. It was the chief base of the Roman navy's Britannic fleet until the rebellion of its admiral Carausius in 286. As part of the imperial response, the junior emperor Constantius Chlorus successfully besieged it by land and sea in 293.[8] The name of the settlement was changed to Bononia at some point between the sack of Gesoriacum and 310, possibly as a consequence of its refounding or possibly by the replacement of the sacked and lower-lying city by another nearby community.[9]

The city was an important town of the Morini (the 'sea people'), and Zosimus called it Germanorum ("Germanic-speaking") at the end of the 4th century.[10]

Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, as shown on the Bayeux Tapestry.

In the Middle Ages Boulogne was the capital of an eponymous county, founded in the mid-9th century. An important Count, Eustace II, assisted William the Conqueror in his conquest of England. His wife founded the city's Notre Dame cathedral, which became a site of pilgrimage from the 12th century onwards, attended by fourteen French kings and five of England. It was an important whaling center prior to 1121.[11] The city survived on herring fishing and received its municipal charter from Count Renaud of Dammartin in 1203.[8]

The area was fought over by the French and the English, including several English occupations during the course of the Hundred Years War. In 1492 Henry VII laid siege to Boulogne before the conflict was ended by the Peace of Étaples. Boulogne was again occupied by the English from 1544 to 1550. In 1550, The Peace of Boulogne ended the war of England with Scotland and France. France bought back Boulogne for 400,000 crowns. A culture of smuggling was present in the city until 1659, when French gains in Flanders from the Treaty of the Pyrenees moved the border northwards.

The Column of the Grande Armée commemorates Napoleon's gathering of 200,000 soldiers near Boulogne for a proposed invasion of the United Kingdom. His statue is at the top.

Boulogne received its current status as a subprefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department in 1800 due to the territorial re-organisation in Revolutionary France. Three years later, it was given the title of an Imperial City (Ville Impériale).[8]

The 19th century was a prosperous one for Boulogne, which became a bathing resort for wealthy Parisians after the completion of a railway line to the French capital.[8] In the 19th century, the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Boulogne was reconstructed by the priest Benoit Haffreingue, who claimed to have received a call from God to reconstruct the town's ruined basilica. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon amassed La Grande Armée in Boulogne to invade the United Kingdom in 1805. However, his plans were halted by other European matters and the supremacy of the Royal Navy.

A nephew of Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, later Napoleon III, returned to France in secret from his exile in Britain, passing through Boulogne in August 1840. He was later jailed for trying to lead a revolt in Strasbourg.

A "special pass" issued for travel within Boulogne by the British Red Cross in May 1917, during World War I

During the First World War, this was the entrepôt for the first unit of the British Expeditionary Force to land in France and for many others thereafter. Boulogne was one of the three base ports most extensively used by the Commonwealth armies on the Western Front throughout the First World War. It was closed and cleared on 27 August 1914 when the Allies were forced to fall back ahead of the German advance, but was opened again in October and from that month to the end of the war, Boulogne and Wimereux formed one of the chief hospital areas.

Until June 1918, the dead from the hospitals at Boulogne were buried in the Cimetiere de L'Est, one of the town's cemeteries, the Commonwealth graves forming a long, narrow strip along the right hand edge of the cemetery. In the spring of 1918, it was found that space was running short in the Eastern Cemetery in spite of repeated extensions to the south and the site of the new cemetery at Terlincthun was chosen.[12] It also was the site of an Allied (French and British) armaments production conference.

German invasion barges in Boulogne Harbour during the Battle of Britain in summer 1940

On 22 May 1940 during the Battle of France, two British Guards battalions and some pioneers attempted to defend Boulogne against an attack by the German 2nd Panzer Division. Despite fierce fighting, the British were overwhelmed and the survivors were evacuated by Royal Navy destroyers while under direct German gunfire.[13] On 15 June 1944, 297 aircraft (155 Avro Lancasters, 130 Handley Page Halifaxes, and 12 De Havilland Mosquitos) of the Royal Air Force bombed Boulogne harbour to suppress German naval activity following D-Day. Some of the Lancasters carried Tallboy bombs and the harbour and the surrounding area were completely destroyed. In August 1944 the town was declared a "fortress" by Adolf Hitler but it succumbed to Operation Wellhit, the assault and liberation by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division in September. In one incident, a French civilian guided the Canadians to a "secret passage" leading into the walled old town and by-passing the German defenders.[14]

To replace the destroyed urban infrastructure, affordable housing and public facility projects in functional, brutalist building styles were carried out in the 1950s and 60s.

Boulogne-sur-Mer is in Northern France, at the edge of the Channel and in the mouth of the river "Liane". In a direct line, Boulogne is approximately at 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Calais, 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Folkestone, 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Lille and Amiens, 150 kilometres (93 miles) from Rouen and London and 215 kilometres (134 miles) from Paris.

Boulogne is a relatively important city of the North, exercising an influence on the "Boulonnais" territory (74 towns and villages which surround Boulogne). The coast consists of important tourist natural sites, like the capes Gris Nez and Blanc Nez (which are the closest points of France to England), and attractive seaside resorts like Wimereux, Wissant, Hardelot and Le Touquet. The hinterland is mainly rural and agricultural.

Gare de Boulogne-Tintelleries

Boulogne is close to the A16 motorway (Paris-Amiens-Calais-Dunkerque). Metropolitan bus services are operated by "Marinéo". The company Flixbus propose a bus line connecting Paris to Boulogne. There are coach services to Calais and Dunkerque.

The city has railway stations, which the most important is Boulogne-Ville station, located in the south of the city. Boulogne-Tintelleries station is used by regional trains. It is located near the university and the city centre. The former Boulogne-Maritime and Boulogne-Aéroglisseurs stations served as a boat connection (to England) for the railway.

Boulogne has no cross channel ferry services since the closure of the route to Dover by LD Lines in 2010.

The regional trains are TER Nord-Pas-de-Calais run by SNCF. The principal service runs from Gare de Boulogne-Ville via Gare de Calais-Fréthun, Gare de Calais-Ville to Gare de Lille-Flandres.

Walk along the beach.

The city is divided into several parts :

• City centre : groups historic and administrative buildings, and also accommodations, stores, banks, churches, pedestrian streets and places.
• Fortified town : old-town where are a lot of historic monuments (the castle-museum, the basilica, the belfry, the imperial palace) and also the city hall and the courthouse. it is surrounded by 13th-century ramparts very appreciated today by walkers.
• Gambetta-Sainte-Beuve : tourist area situated in the northwest of the city, on the edge of the beach and the recreational harbour.
• Capécure : economic and industrial area, situated in the west of the city, around the harbour.
• Saint-Pierre (Saint Peter) : former neighborhood of the fishermen, destroyed during World War II and reconstructed after.
• Chemin Vert (Green path) : zone created in the 1950s, knowing today poverty and unemployment. it is the neighborhood of Franck Ribéry.
• Dernier Sou (Last penny) : residential area situated in the east of the city.
• Beaurepaire (Beautiful hideout) : residential area situated in the north of the city.
• Bréquerecque : residential area situated in the south of the city.

Boulogne-sur-Mer has an oceanic climate that has chilly winters not far above freezing and cool summers tempered by its exposure to the sea. Considering its position, the climate is quite cold in relation to south and east coast locations in England year round. Precipitation is also higher than in said southern English locations.

• Campus University of the Littoral Opal Coast (Saint-Louis, Grand-Rue and Capérure site), member of Université Lille Nord de France.

• High schools : Lycée Auguste Mariette, Edouard Branly, Cazin (professional).
• College : College Langevin, Angelier, Daunou.

• High schools: Lycée Nazareth, Haffreingue, Saint-Joseph
• College: College Godefroy de Bouillon, Haffreingue, Nazareth, Saint-Joseph

As an international maritime port on the English Channel (La Manche), the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer has European and American influences in local cuisine. They include:

• Welsh rarebit (from Wales, United Kingdom)
• Sandwich américain (an American sandwich introduced from the USA)
• Kipper (Flemish: smoked herring)

Boulogne-born footballer Franck Ribéry.

• Matilda of Boulogne (1105–1152), Countess of Boulogne and queen consort of England; the wife of Stephen, King of England (reigned 1135-1154)
• Michel Le Quien (1661–1733), monk and historian.
• Pierre Claude François Daunou (1761–1840), politician and historian
• Frédéric Sauvage (1786–1857), engineer and a pioneer of the propeller
• Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869), literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history
• Guillaume Duchenne (1806–1875), neurologist
• Auguste Mariette (1821–1881), scholar and archaeologist, one of the foremost Egyptologists of his generation, and the founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo
• Joseph O'Kelly (1828–1885), composer and pianist
• Auguste O'Kelly (1829–1900), music publisher
• Charles Frédéric O'Kelly (1830–1897), managing director of Blanzy-Poure
• George O'Kelly (1831–1914), pianist and composer
• Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911), organist/composer
• Étienne-Prosper Berne-Bellecour (1838–1910), painter
• Benoît-Constant Coquelin (1841–1909), actor
• Ernest Hamy (1842–1908), anthropologist/ethnologist; created (in 1880) the museum of ethnography of Trocadéro (today known as the Musée de l'Homme, Trocadéro)
• Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin (1848–1909), actor
• Olivier Latry (1962), Titular Organist of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and professor at the Paris Conservatory
• Henri Malo (1868–1948), writer and historian
• Léo Marjane (1912–2016), singer
• Georges Mathieu (1921–2012), famous painter, initiator of "lyrical abstraction" and informal art
• Michel Caffier (born 1930), writer and literary critic
• Sophie Daumier (1934–2004), film actress
• Estha Essombe (born 1963), judoka
• Jean-Pierre Papin (born 1963), footballer
• Mickaël Bourgain (born 1980), track cyclist
• Franck Ribéry (born 1983), footballer
• Terence Makengo (born 1992), footballer

Baldwin I of Jerusalem, son and brother of Counts of Boulogne, ruled the Holy Land in the 11th century.

• Godfrey of Bouillon (c.1060–1100), Count of Boulogne, prominent figure in the First Crusade
• Baldwin I of Jerusalem (c.1058–1118), Count of Boulogne, prominent figure in the First Crusade
• Blaise de Monluc (1502–1577), Marshal of France
• Richard Martin (1754–1834), Irish parliamentarian and animal rights campaigner; exiled to Boulogne in 1826, where he died
• Smithson Tennant (1761–1815), chemist, discoverer of osmium and iridium, died falling from a bridge in Boulogne
• Romeo Coates (1772–1848), amateur actor, fled from London to Boulogne to escape debtor's prison. He lived there for several years, and met his wife during this period.
• Adam Liszt (1776–1827), father of Franz Liszt, died from Typhoid fever while on a vacation
• José de San Martín (1778–1850), Argentine general who liberated Argentina, Chile and Peru; lived for two years in Boulogne and died there
• Benoît-Agathon Haffreingue (1785–1871), priest and builder of Boulogne's cathedral
• Félix Godefroid (1818–1897), Belgium-born composer, grew up in Boulogne
• Constant Coquelin (1841–1909), actor

• John McCrae (1872–1918), Canadian doctor, poet; author of In Flanders Field
• Alfred-Georges Regner (1902–1987), painter-engraver
• Maurice Boitel (1919–2007), painter
• Olivier Latry (born 1962), musician, educator
• N'Golo Kanté (born 1991), footballer