Marquise, Pas-de-Calais

Marquise is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.

Geography
Marquise is a farming, quarrying and light industrial town, situated some 10 mi northeast of Boulogne, at the junction of the D191, D231 and D238 roads. The river Slack flows through the commune, as does the A16 autoroute. Marquise-Rinxent station has rail connections to Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer.

History
Part of the Flemish-speaking territory until 1346, Marquise became an English county under King Edward III after the battle of Crécy and the hexagonal bell-tower goes back to the English period. In 1420, in the suburbs of Marquise, at Leulinghen, the church of which was divided by the French-English border, King Henry V married Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France. Marquise received national media attention in autumn 2006 when the local gendarmerie retrieved a famous painting by Maurice Boitel, stolen forty years before and taken out of France.

Places of interest

 * The church of St.Martin, dating from the thirteenth century.
 * A watermill and manorhouse of the 17th century.
 * The marble quarries.
 * The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery.

Notable people

 * Alphonse Pinart, explorer, was born here in 1852.