Ye fires which guard both Thetis and the Seine,
Bright shining compeers of the brothers twain—
Castor and Pollux—vigilant fires, all hail!
O gentle lights, I pray ye, never fail
To guide secure each wealthy Neustrian keel,
And to my country all the fruits reveal
Of blessèd peace, and guard the common weal!
No one can have visited Havre without devoting at least an hour to the Cape La Hève, and to the two lighthouses which have extorted from Casimir Delavigne his poetical homage. A pilgrimage to this point is made all the more willingly that the pilgrim who accomplishes it must necessarily pass through Sainte-Adresse, and Sainte-Adresse—need we remind the reader?—is one of the marvels of Normandy.
“The delicious vale of Tempe, which the poets of all time have pleased themselves with investing in the riches of their imagination, possesses no attraction which the valley of Sainte-Adresse need envy: its limpid waters, the gently sloping hills which enclose it, the little gardens where for once the hand of Art has not defaced and desecrated the work of Nature; the pure ethereal freshness which it inhales from the breath of its myriad flowers, and which the wind of the plain never respires;—all charms, all seduces, and we exclaim, Happy he who can spend his life in an abode which Flora and Pomona embellish! The goddess Hygeia resides there throughout the year, and, by a happy alliance with Boreas, both contend for the pleasure of protecting this new Eden against the hideous host of human infirmities. Painters, seize your brushes, and let its image revive on your imitative canvas; poets, come hither in quest of inspiration!”
It is thus that Morlent expresses himself in his “Monographie du Havre.” It is true that Morlent—as the reader will conjecture—wrote in 1825. Since that date many things have greatly changed—the descriptive style as well as the valley of Sainte-Adresse, which is no longer anything else than a suburb of Havre, covered with edifices of a more or less picturesque character.
The most curious thing which Sainte-Adresse has preserved is the story of the origin of its name. Namely: that a vessel driven by the currents into the immediate vicinity of the promontory of La Hève, which then extended a greater distance into the sea, was on the point of perishing. Already the despairing sailors had given up further efforts; the pilot, having abandoned the rudder, imitated the rest of the crew, and commended his soul to St. Denis, patron-saint of Caux,[53] whose spire was at intervals visible through the haze. “My friends,” said the captain, who in these circumstances had retained his presence of mind, “it is not St. Denis we must invoke, but Sainte-Adresse (St. Skill), for it is only she who at this crisis can carry us safely into port.” The sailors regained courage; the ship entered Havre; and the phrase “Sainte-Adresse” became everywhere popular.
In reference to La Hève, the great writer, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, a native of Havre, relates a fantastic legend:—
“The Seine”—it is Cephas, one of the personages of the Arcadia, who speaks—“the daughter of Bacchus and nymph of Ceres, had pursued into the land of the Gauls the goddess of wheat, when she was seeking all the earth over for her daughter Proserpine. When Ceres had terminated her wanderings, the Seine begged of her, as a reward for her services, the meadows through which the river at present flows. The goddess consented, and granted, moreover, that wine should grow wherever the daughter of Bacchus planted her feet. She left then the Seine upon these shores, and gave her as her companion and follower the nymph Héva, who was bidden to watch beside her, for fear she might be carried away by some god of the sea, as her daughter Proserpine had been by the god of Hades. One day while the Seine was amusing herself on the sands in quest of shells, and when she fled, with loud cries, before the blue sea-waves which sometimes wetted her feet, Héva, her companion, discovered under the waters the white locks, the empurpled visage, and azure robe of Neptune. This god had come from the Orcades after a great earthquake, and was traversing the shores of Ocean, examining with his trident whether their foundations had been shattered. On seeing him, Héva shrieked loudly, and at her warning cry the Seine immediately fled towards the meadows. But the sea-god had also descried the nymph of Ceres, and moved by her brightness and charming mien, he drove his sea-horses in swift pursuit. Just as he was on the point of overtaking her, she cried upon Bacchus her father, and Ceres her mistress. Both heard her; and as Neptune stretched forth his arms to seize her, all the body of the Seine dissolved into water; her green veil and vestments, which the winds fluttered before her, were changed into emerald waves; she was transformed into a river of the same colour, which still finds a pleasure in winding through the scenes she had loved in her days of nymph-hood: but what is best worthy of notice is, that Neptune, despite the metamorphosis, has never ceased to love her, as is also said of the river Alpheus with regard to the fountain of Arethusa. But if the god of ocean has preserved his passion for the Seine, the Seine still cherishes her antipathy to him. Twice a day he pursues her with awful roar; and each time the Seine flies from him into the green inlands, ascending towards her source, contrary to the natural course of rivers.[54] And ever she separates her green waters from the cerulean billows of ocean.