A detailed sketch for a lithograph published by the Leighton Brothers in 1853. A highly finished watercolour version of it was sold at the Stanley Seeger sale at Sotheby's in  2014 (reproduced in colour in the Illustrated London News, 'Christmas Number', 1947, p 32-3).

This was the time shortly after Napoleon III had been elected to the throne of France in December 1852, marking the beginning of the Second Empire, a period of peace and stabillity, industrialisation, expansion and the rise of French influence in world politics after decades of revolution and chaos. Paddle steamers owned by the South Eastern & Continental Steam Packet Company operated a popular regular day service from Folkestone to Boulogne, which boasted English hotels and a ticket office for the South Eastern Railway. The English could at last travel easily and safely to the Continent.