Mediterranean Pirates
° Angers ° Avignon ° Bordeaux ° Boulogne ° Brest ° Caen
° Callais ° Cannes ° Cette ° Cherbourg ° Corsica
° Dieppe ° LeMans ° Limoges ° Lyon ° Marseilles
° Monaco ° Montpellier ° Nantes ° Nice ° Orleans
° Paris ° Reims ° Toulon ° La
Rochelle
Boulogne
The Port of Boulogne-sur-Mer was a Roman harbor called Gesoriacum and, later, Bononia. Roman Emperor Claudius used the town as a base for his invasion of Britain in 43 AD.
By the middle of the 16th Century, the port was held by England's Henry VIII until France bought it back for 400 thousand crowns in 1550 as a term of the Peace of Boulogne.
It was the embarkation point for Napoleon's when he attempted to invade England in the early 19th Century. In 1815 when Napoleon was defeated and the French monarchy returned, people could again cross the channel from England for their holidays. English artist J.M.W. Turner made many watercolors and sketches of the Port of Boulogne-sur-Mer’s beautiful seascapes, its fisher-folk, and sunsets.
The first major harbor developments came in the early 19th Century when Napoleon planned his invasion of England. He excavated a turning basin and constructed a quay. He built several forts and an inner harbor. After Napoleon abandoned the plan, the port remained abandoned for a couple of decades.
In 1822, the first steamship arrived at the docks from Dover, and work on port infrastructure began again in the 1830s. During the 1830s, new jetties were built, the harbor was dredged, and the Marguet Bridge was completed. In 1843, the transport route for passengers between the Port of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Folkestone, England, began operations.
After 1850, port development efforts kept pace with the steady growth in traffic. In the 1860s, a new wet dock, the Napoleon Basin, was completed. During the 1860s and 1870s, a shelter was constructed to make the port was made accessible during all weather conditions, and the harbor was dredged to remove silt and accommodate larger vessels. In 1889, the Port of Boulogne-sur-Mer welcomed the first ship to sail from the United States. Soon, cruise ships were arriving from across the world.
September 7, 1878, IRON
London, United Kingdom
BOULOGNE DEEP-WATER HARBOUR. — Tomorrow and Monday have been set apart at Boulogne-sur-Mer for fetes, to commemorate the recent passing of the vote by the French Chamber and Senate for the creation of a deep-water harbour at that port. The new harbour will be bounded on the north-east by the existing harbour and will extend three kilometres west, the coast-line forming its base, and the stone breakwaters will inclose a large portion of Boulogne Roads. Travellers by the Folkestone and Boulogne route are well acquainted with a windmill on the cliff west of Boulogne and the signal station in an old fort close to the fishing village of Portel. At a point midway between the windmill and signal station, at the foot of the cliff, a solid stone breakwater will extend out to sea, first running 1350 metres north-west, where it will reach a depth of eight metres (26 feet), describe a curve of 200 metres, and then run 600 metres north-north-east, following the line of eight metres' soundings. Having attained a length of 2150 metres (7032 feet), it will terminate with a lighthouse. Here there will be an opening for the entry of vessels; then in a north-east line will be another breakwater 500 metres long, with a lighthouse at each end, and then another entrance 250 metres across. The existing east jetty of Boulogne harbour will be extended 1440 metres (4710 feet) in a curved line towards the breakwater, where it will terminate in a lighthouse. The two breakwaters will be made by casting large blocks of stone into the, sea, extending over a wide base, gradually diminishing up to the level of low-water mark, on which will be built a broad wall or quay of stone filled in with Portland cement, rising two metres above the level of the highest spring tides, and a stone parapet two metres higher on the sea side. On the outer side of these breakwaters, where the lower portion of the wall joins the foundations, the junction will be additionally protected from the action of the sea by layers or belts of artificial stone blocks measuring 8 to 10 cubic metres each. Inside deposits, as also those brought down by the river Liane, calculated at from 30,000 to 40,000 cubic metres annually, will easily be removed by dredging. The new harbour, exclusive of the foreshore, will contain a water area of 137 hectares (339 acres), into the centre of which will extend a steam-packet quay, 400 metres long by 200 metres broad, on which will be erected a railway station, a custom-house, buffet, waiting-rooms, & c , the whole to be connected with the shore by two lines of rail, passing between the sand battery and the Chateau Huguet. The port will be dredged to a depth of from 8 to 5 metres at low tide: The new port is due to the initiative of M . Alexandre Adam, of Boulogne, who, in 1826, founded in his native city the first Chamber of Commerce in France, since which time he has taken the lead in all important matters connected with Boulogne and international communications between England and France. M. Alexandre Adam, now in his 88th year, with unimpaired faculties, sees the great wish of his life about to become a reality. The plans and estimates of the new port have been made by M . Stcecklin, chief engineer of the coast of the Pas-de-Calais, who will direct their execution, the estimated cost of which is 17,000,000 fr. (,£680,000), which has been voted. The time required for the execution of the work will be fifteen years, but it is hoped that a portion will be sufficiently advanced in five years to insure a steam-packet service at all hours between France and England.
Marseilles
Marseilles is the oldest town in France, settled by seafaring Phocaean Greeks from Asia Minor c.600 B.C. Known as Massilia, it became an ally of Rome, which annexed it (49 B.C.) after it supported Pompey against Caesar. Although the city retained its internal autonomy, it was of secondary importance during the Middle Ages. The upper city was ruled by its bishops from A.D. 539 until 1288, when it was reunited with the lower city, which had been governed independently by a city council since 1214. During the Crusades (11th–14th cent.) Marseilles was a commercial center and a transit port for the Holy Land. The city declined commercially in the first half of the 14th cent. Marseilles was taken by Charles I of Anjou (13th cent.) and then absorbed by Provence and bequeathed (with Provence) to the French crown in 1481.In the 1700s commerce revived. Although the plague wiped out almost half its population in 1720, Marseilles continued to enjoy prosperity until the civil strife of the French Revolution.
In the 19th Century the French conquest of Algeria and the opening of the Suez Canal led to a tremendous expansion of the port of Marseilles and to the city's industrialization.
The sight of Marseilles from the sea, a gleaming white city rising on a semicircle of bare hills, is famous.
The French resumed emigration to America in the 19th century. Many were political refugees fleeing from the failed 1848 revolution. In 1851 over 20,000 French immigrants arrived in the United States and the French newspaper, Le Republican, began to be published in New York. There were also French-language newspapers published in Philadelphia and Charleston and in San Francisco in the 1850s. The loss of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War also resulted in an increase in French immigration. Most preferred city life and settled in New York, Chicago and New Orleans. However, a few French settlements were established during the Middle West and a quite large French population enjoyed San Francisco during its most formative years.
