Part 29

It will be seen that this democratic council was absolutely essential to the working of the Athenian state. Without having any final legislative authority, it was a necessary part of the legislative machinery, and it may be regarded as certain that a large proportion of its recommendations were passed without alteration or even discussion by the Ecclesia. The Boule; was, therefore, in the strict sense a committee of the Ecclesia, and was immediately connected with a system of sub-committees which exercised executive functions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--With this article compare ECCLESIA, STRATEGUS, ARCHON, DRACO, SOLON, CLEISTHENES, where collateral information is given. Besides the chief histories of Greece (Grote, ed. 1907, Meyer &c.), see Gilbert, _Constitutional Antiquities_ (Eng. trans. by E.J. Brooks and T. Nicklin, 1895); J.B. Bury, _History of Greece_ (1900); A.H.J. Greenidge _Handbook of Greek Constitutional History_ (1896); J.E. Sandys' edition of the _Constitution of Athens_; Boeckh, _Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener_ (1886); Schumann, _Griechische Altertumer_ (1897-1902); Busolt, _Die griechischen Staats- und Rechtsaltertumer_ (1902). See also H. Swoboda, _Die griechischen Volksbeschlusse_ (1890); Szanto, _Das griechische Burgerrecht_ (1892); Perrot, _Essai sur le droit public d'Athenes_ (1869). It should be observed that all works published before 1891 are so far useless that they are without the information contained in the _Constitution of Athens_ (q.v.). See also GREEK LAW. (J. M. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The institution of pay for the councillors may safely be ascribed to Pericles although we have no direct evidence of it before 411 B.C. (Thuc. viii. 69; see PERICLES).

BOULEVARD (a Fr. word, earlier _boulevart_, from Dutch or Ger. _Bollwerk_, cf. Eng. "bulwark"), originally, in fortification, an earthwork with a broad platform for artillery. It came into use owing to the width of the gangways in medieval walls being insufficient for the mounting of artillery thereon. The boulevard or bulwark was usually an earthen outwork mounting artillery, and so placed in advance as to prevent the guns of a besieger from battering the foot of the main walls. It was as a rule circular. Semicircular _demi-boulevards_ were often constructed round the bases of the old masonry towers with the same object. In modern times the word is most frequently used to denote a promenade laid out on the site of a former fortification, and, by analogy, a broad avenue in a town planted with rows of trees.

BOULLE, ANDRE CHARLES (1642-1732), French cabinet-maker, who gave his name to a fashion of inlaying known as Boulle or Buhl work. The son of Jean Boulle, a member of a family of _ebenistes_ who had already achieved distinction--Pierre Boulle, who died c. 1636, was for many years _tourneur et menuisier du roy des cabinets d'ebene_,--he became the most famous of his name and was, indeed, the second cabinet-maker--the first was Jean Mace--who has acquired individual renown. That must have begun at a comparatively early age, for at thirty he had already been granted one of those lodgings in the galleries of the Louvre which had been set apart by Henry IV. for the use of the most talented of the artists employed by the crown. To be admitted to these galleries was not only to receive a signal mark of royal favour, but to enjoy the important privilege of freedom from the trammels of the trade gilds. Boulle was given the deceased Jean Mace's own lodging in 1672 by Louis XIV. upon the recommendation, of Colbert, who described him as "_le plus habile ebeniste de Paris_," but in the patent conferring this privilege he is described also as "chaser, gilder and maker of marqueterie." Boulle appears to have been originally a painter, since the first payment to him by the crown of which there is any record (1669) specifies "ouvrages de peinture." He was employed for many years at Versailles, where the mirrored walls, the floors of "wood mosaic," the inlaid panelling and the pieces in marqueterie in the Cabinet du Dauphin were regarded as his most remarkable work. These rooms were long since dismantled and their contents dispersed, but Boulle's drawings for the work are in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. His royal commissions were, indeed, innumerable, as we learn both from the _Comptes des batiments_ and from the correspondence of Louvois. Not only the most magnificent of French monarchs, but foreign princes and the great nobles and financiers of his own country crowded him with commissions, and the _mot_ of the abbe de Marolles, "_Boulle y tourne en ovale_," has become a stock quotation in the literature of French cabinet-making. Yet despite his distinction, the facility with which he worked, the high prices he obtained, and his workshops full of clever craftsmen, Boulle appears to have been constantly short of money. He did not always pay his workmen, clients who had made considerable advances failed to obtain the fine things they had ordered, more than one application was made for permission to arrest him for debt under orders of the courts within the asylum of the Louvre, and in 1704 we find the king giving him six months' protection from his creditors on condition that he used the time to regulate his affairs or "ce scra la derniere grace que sa majeste lui fera la-dessus." Twenty years later one of his sons was arrested at Fontainebleau and kept in prison for debt until the king had him released. In 1720 his finances were still further embarrassed by a fire which, beginning in another atelier, extended to his twenty workshops and destroyed most of the seasoned materials, appliances, models and finished work of which they were full. The salvage was sold and a petition for pecuniary help was sent to the regent, the result of which does not appear. It would seem that Boulle was never a good man of business, but, according to his friend Mariette, many of his pecuniary difficulties were caused by his passion for collecting pictures, engravings and other objects of art--the inventory of his losses in the fire, which exceeded L40,000 in amount, enumerates many old masters, including forty-eight drawings by Raphael and the manuscript journal kept by Rubens in Italy. He attended every sale of drawings and engravings, borrowed at high interest to pay for his purchases, and when the next sale took place, fresh expedients were devised for obtaining more money. Collecting was to Boulle a mania of which, says his friend, it was impossible to cure him. Thus he died in 1732, full of fame, years and debts. He left four sons who followed in his footsteps in more senses than one--Jean Philippe (born before 1690, dead before 1745), Pierre Benoit (d. 1741), Charles Andre (1685-1749) and Charles Joseph (1688-1754). Their affairs were embarrassed throughout their lives, and the three last are known to have died in debt.

All greatness is the product of its opportunities, and the elder Boulle was made by the happy circumstances of his time. He was born into a France which was just entering upon the most brilliant period of sumptuary magnificence which any nation has known in modern times. Louis XIV., so avid of the delights of the eye, by the reckless extravagance of his example turned the thoughts of his courtiers to domestic splendours which had hitherto been rare. The spacious palaces which arose in his time needed rich embellishment, and Boulle, who had not only inherited the rather flamboyant Italian traditions of the late Renaissance, but had _ebenisterie_ in his blood, arose, as some such man invariably does arise, to gratify tastes in which personal pride and love of art were not unequally intermingled. He was by no means the first Frenchman to practise the delightful art of marqueterie, nor was he quite the inventor of the peculiar type of inlay which is chiefly associated with his name; but no artist, before or since, has used these motives with such astonishing skill, courage and surety. He produced pieces of monumental solidity blazing with harmonious colour, or gleaming with the sober and dignified reticence of ebony, ivory and white metal. The Renaissance artists chiefly employed wood in making furniture, ornamenting it with gilding and painting, and inlaying it with agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, marble of various tints, ivory, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl and various woods. Boulle improved upon this by inlaying brass devices into wood or tortoise-shell, which last he greatly used according to the design he had immediately in view, whether flowers, scenes, scrolls, &c.; to these he sometimes added enamelled metal. Indeed the use of tortoise-shell became so characteristic that any furniture, however cheap and common, which has a reddish _fond_ that might by the ignorant be mistaken for inlay, is now described as "Buhl"--the name is the invention of the British auctioneer and furniture-maker. In this process the brass is thin, and, like the ornamental wood or tortoise-shell, forms a veneer. In the first instance the production of his work was costly, owing to the quantity of valuable material that was cut away and wasted, and, in addition, the labour lost in separately cutting for each article or copy of a pattern. By a subsequent improvement Boulle effected an economy by gluing together various sheets of material and sawing through the whole, so that an equal number of figures and matrices were produced at one operation. Boulle adopted from time to time various plans for the improvement of his designs. He placed gold-leaf or other suitable material under the tortoise-shell to produce such effect as he required; he chased the brass-work with a graver for a like purpose, and, when the metal required to be fastened down with brass pins or nails, these were hammered flat and disguised by ornamental chasing. He also adopted, in relief or in the round, brass feet, brackets, edgings, and other ornaments of appropriate design, partly to protect the corners and edges of his work, and partly for decoration. He subsequently used other brass mountings, such as claw-feet to pedestals, or figures in high or low relief, according to the effect he desired to produce. These mounts in the pieces that undoubtedly come from Boulle's _atelier_ are nearly always of the greatest excellence. They were cast in the rough--the tools of the chaser gave them their sharpness, their minute finish, their jewel-like smoothness.

Unhappily it is by no means easy, even for the expert, to declare the authenticity of a commode, a bureau, or a table in the manner of Boulle and to all appearance from his workshops. His sons unquestionably carried on the traditions for some years after his death, and his imitators were many and capable. A few of the more magnificent pedigree-pieces are among the world's mobiliary treasures. There are, for instance, the two famous _armoires_, which fetched L12,075 at the Hamilton Palace sale; the marqueterie commodes, enriched with bronze mounts, in the Bibliotheque Mazarine; various cabinets and commodes and tables in the Louvre, the Musee Cluny and the Mobilier National; the marriage coffers of the dauphin which were in the San Donato collection. There are several fine authenticated pieces in the Wallace collection at Hertford House, together with others consummately imitated, probably in the Louis Seize period. On the rare occasions when a pedigree example comes into the auction-room, it invariably commands a high price; but there can be little doubt that the most splendid and sumptuous specimens of Boulle are diminishing in number, while the second and third classes of his work are perhaps becoming more numerous. The truth is that this wonderful work, with its engraved or inlaid designs of Berain, its myriads of tiny pieces of ivory and copper, ebony and tortoise-shell, all kept together with glue and tiny chased nails, and applied very often to a rather soft, white wood, is not meet to withstand the ravages of time and the variations of the atmosphere. Alternate heat and humidity are even greater enemies of inlaid furniture than time and wear--such delicate things are rarely much used, and are protected from ordinary chances of deterioration. There is consequently reason to rejoice when a piece of real artistry in furniture finds its final home in a museum, where a degree of warmth is maintained which, however distressing it may be to the visitor, at least preserves the contents from one of the worst enemies of the collector. (J. P.-B.)

BOULOGNE, or BOULLONGNE, the name of a family of French painters. Louis (1609-1674), who was one of the original members of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), became celebrated under Louis XIV. His traditions were continued by his children: GENEVIEVE (1645-1708), who married the sculptor Jacques Clerion; MADELEINE (1646-1710), whose work survives in the _Trophies d'armes_ at Versailles; BON (1649-1717), a successful teacher and decorative artist; and LOUIS the younger (1654-1733), who copied Raphael's cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry, and besides taking a high place as a painter was also a designer of medals.

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, a fortified seaport of northern France and chief town of an arrondissement in Pas-de-Calais, situated on the shore of the English Channel at the mouth of the river Liane, 157 m. N.N.W. of Paris on the Northern railway, and 28 m. by sea S.E. of Folkestone, Kent. Pop. (1906) 49,636. Boulogne occupies the summit and slopes of a ridge of hills skirting the right bank of the Liane; the industrial quarter of Capecure extends along the opposite bank, and is reached by two bridges, while the river is also crossed by a double railway viaduct. The town consists of two parts, the Haute Ville and the Basse Ville. The former, situated on the top of the hill, is of comparatively small extent, and forms almost a parallelogram, surrounded by ramparts of the 13th century, and, outside them, by boulevards, and entered by ancient gateways. In this part are the law court, the chateau and the hotel de ville (built in the 18th century), and a belfry tower of the 13th and 17th centuries is in the immediate neighbourhood. In the chateau (13th century) now used as barracks, the emperor Napoleon III was confined after the abortive insurrection of 1840. At some distance north-west stands the church of Notre-Dame, a well-known place of pilgrimage, erected (1827-1866) on the site of an old building destroyed in the Revolution, of which the extensive crypt still remains. The modern town stretches from the foot of the hill to the harbour, along which it extends, terminating in an expanse of sandy beach frequented by bathers, and provided with a bathing establishment and casino. It contains several good streets, some of which are, however, very steep. A main street, named successively rue de la Lampe, St Nicolas and Grande rue, extends from the bridge across the Liane to the promenade by the side of the ramparts. This is intersected first by the Quai Gambetta, and farther back by the rue Victor Hugo and the rue Nationale, which contain the principal shops. The public buildings include several modern churches, two hospitals and a museum with collections of antiquities, natural history, porcelain, &c. Connected with the museum is a public library with 75,000 volumes and a number of valuable manuscripts, many of them richly illuminated. There are English churches in the town, and numerous boarding-schools intended for English pupils. Boulogne is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. There are also communal colleges, a national school of music, and schools of hydrography, commerce and industry. Boulogne has for a long time been one of the most anglicized of French cities; and in the tourist season a continuous stream of English travellers reach the continent at this point.

The harbour is formed by the mouth of the Liane. Two jetties enclose a channel leading into the river, which forms a tidal basin with a depth at neap-tides of 24 ft. Alongside this is an extensive dock, and behind it an inner port. There is also a tidal basin opening off the entrance channel. The depth of water in the river-harbour is 33 ft. at spring-tide and 24 ft. at neap-tide; in the sluice of the dock the numbers are 29-1/2 and 23-1/2 respectively. The commerce of Boulogne consists chiefly in the importation of jute, wool, woven goods of silk and wool skins, threads, coal, timber, and iron and steel, and the exportation of wine, woven goods, table fruit, potatoes and other vegetables, skins, motor-cars, forage and cement. The average annual value of the exports in the five years 1901-1905 was L10,953,000 (L11,704,000 in the years 1896-1900), and of the imports L6,064,000 (L7,003,000 in the years 1896-1900). From 1901 to 1905 the annual average of vessels entered, exclusive of fishing-smacks, was 2735, tonnage 1,747,699; and cleared 2750, tonnage 1,748,297. The total number of passengers between Folkestone and Boulogne in 1906 was 295,000 or 49% above the average for the years 1901-1905. These travelled by the steamers of the South-Eastern & Chatham railway company. The liners of the Dutch-American, Hamburg-American and other companies also call at the port. In the extent and value of its fisheries Boulogne is exceeded by no seaport in France. The most important branch is the herring-fishery; next in value is the mackerel. Large quantities of fresh fish are transmitted to Paris by railway, but an abundant supply is reserved to the town itself. The fishermen live for the most part in a separate quarter called La Beurriere, situated in the upper part of the town. In 1905 the fisheries of Boulogne and the neighbouring village of Etaples employed over 400 boats and 4500 men, the value of the fish taken being estimated at L1,025,000. Among the numerous industrial establishments in Boulogne and its environs may be mentioned foundries, cement-factories, important steel-pen manufactories, oil-works, dye-works, fish-curing works, flax-mills, saw-mills, and manufactories of cloth, fireproof ware, chocolate, boots and shoes, and soap. Shipbuilding is also carried on.

Among the objects of interest in the neighbourhood the most remarkable is the Colonne de la Grande Armee, erected on the high ground above the town, in honour of Napoleon I., on occasion of the projected invasion of England, for which he here made great preparations. The pillar, which is of the Doric order, 166 ft. high, is surmounted by a statue of the emperor by A.S. Bosio. Though begun in 1804, the monument was not completed till 1841. On the edge of the cliff to the east of the port are some rude brick remains of an old building called Tour d'Ordre, said to be the ruins of a tower built by Caligula at the time of his intended invasion of Britain.

Boulogne is identified with the _Gessoriacum_ of the Romans, under whom it was an important harbour. It is suggested that it was the _Portus Itius_ where Julius Caesar assembled his fleet (see ITIUS PORTUS). At an early period it began to be known as _Bononia_, a name which has been gradually modified into the present form. The town was destroyed by the Normans in 882, but restored about 912. During the Carolingian period Boulogne was the chief town of a countship that was for long the subject of dispute between Flanders and Ponthieu. From the year 965 it belonged to the house of Ponthieu, of which Godfrey of Bouillon, the first king of Jerusalem, was a scion. Stephen of Blois, who became king of England in 1135, had married Mahaut, daughter and heiress of Eustace, count of Boulogne. Their daughter Mary married Matthew of Alsace (d. 1173), and her daughter Ida (d. 1216) married Renaud of Dammartin. Of this last marriage was issue Mahaut, countess of Boulogne, wife of Philip Hurepel (d. 1234), a son of King Philip Augustus. To her succeeded the house of Brabant, issue of Mahaut of Boulogne, sister of Ida, and wife of Henry I. of Brabant; and then the house of Auvergne, issue of Alice, daughter of Henry I. of Brabant, inherited the Boulonnais. It remained in the possession of descendants of these families until Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, seized upon it in 1419. In 147 7 Louis XI. of France reconquered it, and reunited it to the French crown, giving Lauraguais as compensation to Bertrand IV. de la Tour, count of Auvergne, heir of the house of Auvergne. To avoid doing homage to Mary of Burgundy, suzerain of the Boulonnais and countess of Artois, Louis XI declared the countship of Boulogne to be held in fee of Our Lady of Boulogne. In 1544 Henry VIII.--more successful in this than Henry III. had been in 1347--took the town by siege; but it was restored to France in 1550. From 1566 to the end of the 18th century it was the seat of a bishopric.

BOULOGNE-SUR-SEINE, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine, on the right bank of the Seine, S.W. of Paris and immediately outside the fortifications. Pop. (1906) 49,412. The town has a Gothic church of the 14th and 15th centuries (restored in 1863) founded in honour of Notre-Dame of Boulogne-sur-Mer. To this fact is due the name of the place, which was previously called Menus-les-St Cloud. Laundrying is extensively carried on as well as the manufacture of metal boxes, soap, oil and furniture, and there are numerous handsome residences. For the neighbouring Bois de Boulogne see PARIS.

BOULTON, MATTHEW (1728-1809), English manufacturer and engineer, was born on the 3rd of September 1728, at Birmingham, where his father, Matthew Boulton the elder, was a manufacturer of metal articles of various kinds. To this business he succeeded on his father's death in 1759, and in consequence of its growth removed his works in 1762 from Snowhill to what was then a tract of barren heath at Soho, 2 mi. north of Birmingham. Here he undertook the manufacture of artistic objects in metal, as well as the reproduction of oil paintings by a mechanical process in which he was associated with Francis Eginton (1737-1805), who subsequently achieved a reputation as a worker in stained or enamelled glass. About 1767, Boulton, who was finding the need of improving the motive power for his machinery, made the acquaintance of James Watt, who on his side appreciated the advantages offered by the Soho works for the development of his steam-engine. In 1772 Watt's partner, Dr John Roebuck, got into financial difficulties, and Boulton, to whom he owed L1200, accepted the two-thirds share in Watt's patent held by him in satisfaction of the debt. Three years later Boulton and Watt formally entered into partnership, and it was mainly through the energy and self-sacrifice of the former, who devoted all the capital he possessed or could borrow to the enterprise, that the steam-engine was at length made a commercial success. It was also owing to Boulton that in 1775 an act of parliament was obtained extending the term of Watt's 1769 patent to 1799. In 1800 the two partners retired from the business, which they handed over to their sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt junior. In 1788 Boulton turned his attention to coining machinery, and erected at Soho a complete plant with which he struck coins for the Sierra Leone and East India companies and for Russia, and in 1797 produced a new copper coinage for Great Britain. In 1797 he took out a patent in connexion with raising water on the principle of the hydraulic ram. He died at Birmingham on the 18th of August 1809.