this palace.

[Illustration: BELFRY, CALAIS.]

Crossing the _place_ again, I come on the grim old church, built by
the English, where were married our own King Richard II. and Isabelle
of Valois--a curious memory to recur as we listen to the 'high mass'
of a Calais Sunday. But the author of 'Modern Painters' has furnished
the old church with its best poetical interpretation. 'I cannot find
words,' he says in a noble passage,' to express the intense pleasure I
have always felt at first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in
England, at the foot of the tower of Calais Church. The large neglect,
the noble unsightliness of it, the record of its years, written so
vividly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern vastness and
gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with bitter
sea-grass. I cannot tell half the strange pleasures and thoughts that
come about me at the sight of the old tower.' Most interesting of all
is the grim, rusted, and gaunt watch-tower, before alluded to, which
rises out of a block of modern houses in the _place_ itself. It can be
seen afar off from the approaching vessel, and until comparatively
late times this venerable servant had done the charity of lighthouse
work for a couple of centuries at least.

But one of the pleasantest associations connected with the town was
the old Dessein's Hotel, which had somehow an inexpressibly
old-fashioned charm, for it had a grace like some disused château.
Some of the prettiest passages in Sterne's writings are associated
with this place. We see the figures of the monk, the well-known host,
the lady and the _petit-maître_: to say nothing of the old
_désobligeante_. Even of late years it was impossible to look at the