HAVRE
The wall of cliff continues right on to Havre, where the Cape de la Hève feels the full shock of the resistless north winds. Also the cliff is always crumbling, with that law of nature that ordains that the sea shall gain on the land on the rocky coasts, and the land shall advance out to sea on sandy beaches. Once or twice, more than mere crumbling has taken place, for with a noise like the rumbling of artillery the face of the cliff has broken away, and fallen headlong into the sea, sending gigantic spouts of water heavenwards, while the roar attracted attention even at Havre. Havre has a population of 120,000, and is a self-respecting busy town. It has a very large traffic, and it is also favourably situated for inland trade, being connected by a dredged-out canal with Tancarville, and thence by the Seine to Rouen. The mouth of the Seine is here so treacherous and shifty, that without constant dredging navigation would be impossible. There is only one more remark to make before leaving Havre, and that is, to tell how it earned its secondary title of Le Havre de Grace. One of those terrible high tides that about once in a generation sweep through the Channel, appeared on the coast and overwhelmed the breakwater, flooding it to such a height that it seemed to the inhabitants nothing remained for them but utter ruin, even if they managed to preserve their own lives; when, as they were momentarily expecting to see the town swept from end to end by the lowering mass of water, a new channel burst suddenly through one of the walls which prevented the escape, and the water flowed away into the bed of the Seine. This was considered a special miracle in favour of the town, which was henceforth known as Le Havre de Grace.
A more complete contrast than that presented by the next two coast towns could hardly be made. We have Honfleur, old, picturesque, tumble-down, full of fishermen, with a church which for quaintness could hardly be surpassed, and we have the villa-ed and elegant Trouville, resembling one of the most gaily dressed of Parisians, where not a line is out of order, nothing is left to chance, every fold, so to speak, is arranged, every movement self-conscious.
I confess that to me such towns as Trouville exercise a repulsive effect; the moment I arrive there I want to flee, and yet it is impossible to overlook a place so patronised, so praised, so entirely self-satisfied. Trouville is not Norman; it is a little bit of Paris by the sea, and it is French entirely; it does not share in the old Norman history, “C’est le monde frivole, joyeux et bruyant qui s’agite et s’amuse et dont les petit cris, les chants quelquefois vulgaires et de gout douteux, et tous les bruits de fêtes se percent dans le grand murmure de la mer.” Hardly more than fifty years ago, Trouville was a mere collection of fishing-huts; then someone saw the advantages of the situation, the high cliff-like hills, the surrounding woods, the flat sands, and almost at once sprang up the hotels, the casinos, the shops, and the other accompaniments of a fashionable resort. Fishing is now the least of its sources of wealth, or rather, perhaps, we may say it is replaced by angling of another sort. Deauville is a kind of offshoot of Trouville, situated on the other side of the Fouques, a lesser Trouville, a shade quieter, but after the same pattern.
The next point to notice along the coast is the mouth of the river Dives, where William assembled his ships before setting out to conquer England. They remained here waiting for a favourable wind, and finally put into St Valery, at the mouth of the Somme, from whence they made their real start. The number of ships is estimated very variously; Wace puts it at six hundred and ninety-six, a number which he had heard from his father, but he says he saw it stated in writing to have exceeded three thousand, a number which may have likely included every boat or flat-bottomed raft which crossed over. William’s own ship, made like the others of a boat-shape, with high prow, was propelled by oars. It was brilliantly decorated; its sails were crimson, and its metal parts were gilded; the figure-head was a child armed with bow and arrow, aimed at England. The whole was a present from his duchess Matilda, and it is said that the figure of the child had been copied from that of their son Robert, a boy who was to cause them both so much sore grief.
Then we come to the mouth of the Orne, on which stands Caen. From the Dives to the Orne we have had flat sands and sand dunes, a state of things which continues still. Back from the coast is one of the most splendid pasturage lands in Normandy, only rivalled by those about the drained lands behind Carentan. Ouistreham and the minor seaside resorts near Caen are much patronised, and contain hotels and villas to suit all purses. After passing Courseulles, the hotels and shops and bathing stations are left behind, and little fishing-hamlets take the place of coast resorts. Port en Bessin is situated in the fracture of a cliff, and there are in the neighbourhood formidable rocks. Then we come to the great angular Bay de Veys, in shape not unlike our own Wash. Here stands Carentan, and before the land was drained Carentan was almost surrounded with water, for the tides ran far inland, making any attempt to pass that way from the Côtentin hazardous and difficult. A grand scheme was once mooted to build a large dike which should protect these meadows, but the much more reasonable scheme of drainage was tried, and has succeeded. Instead of being marsh land, the flat stretches now serve for pasturage. The town has been no less than twelve times taken by the English, in addition to which it suffered in the religious wars of the seventeenth century. It is now a flourishing port, carrying on an enormous trade in butter, of which the exports in one year to Southampton alone were equal to 15,000,000 francs! Isigny, which stands a little eastward, is the chief butter-producer, so much so that the name Isigny butter has come to be a synonym for good quality. We have now reached that strange peninsula, which, with exception of a strip along the eastern side, is almost all of granite; the coast town La Hogue marks the transition from the one sort of coast to the other. We have dealt so fully with the Côtentin and with its continuation on the west to the little stream Couesnon, that it is of no use to say more here. We would merely remark that the action of waste by the sea can be seen strikingly on the western side, where the peninsula meets the full winds of the Atlantic. History says, though the statement may be accepted with caution, that at one time Jersey was severed only by a narrow channel from the mainland; if this is so, then without doubt, at some far distant geological epoch, the whole of the peninsula will be worn away to one thin strip of sandy beach, like those arms we see extending for miles along the northern coasts of Germany.