Chapter III: Section I: Havre to Rouen, 58¼ Miles

(93½ KILOMETRES)

(_OMITTING JUMIÈGES, 89 KILOMETRES_)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Havre= to Harfleur =7= 4½ =Harfleur= to Lillebonne via St. Romain de Colbosc =29= 18 =Lillebonne= to Caudebec =16= 10 =Caudebec= to Jumièges =14½= 9 =Jumièges= to Duclair =7= 4½ =Duclair= to St. Martin Boscherville =9= 5½ =St. Martin Boscherville= to Rouen =11= 6¾

DIEPPE TO ROUEN, 36 MILES

(58 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Dieppe= to Tôtes =29= 18 =Tôtes= to Maromme =24= 15 =Maromme= to Rouen =5= 3

BOULOGNE TO ROUEN, 109½ MILES

(176 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Boulogne= to Montreuil (via Samer) =35= 21½ =Montreuil= to Abbeville =40= 25 =Abbeville= to Neufchâtel =56= 35 =Neufchâtel= to Rouen =45= 28

CALAIS TO BOULOGNE

1. By the coast =39= 24 2. By Marquise =36= 22

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

=Harfleur.=--On the way to St. Romain, a long ascent, with four
turns.

=St. Romain de Colbosc.=--Steam tramway.

=Lillebonne.=--After leaving the town, a steep ascent, with sharp
bends.

=Caudebec-en-Caux.=--A long, winding descent; 5 kilometres farther, a
dangerous level crossing (_passage à niveau_).

=Canteleu.=--Steep, winding descent into Rouen for 3 kilometres.

=In bad weather=, when the roads are likely to be sticky and greasy,
the route by the Seine described here is often troublesome to
motorists, and those who wish to avoid such inconvenience, and have
perhaps travelled through Caudebec before, are advised to go
through Bolbec and Yvetot to Rouen.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

=Havre.=--Second port of France; founded in 1514 by order of François
I. Church of Notre Dame, Early Renaissance.

=Graville.=--Suburb of Havre; eleventh century church of the Abbey of
Ste. Honorine.

=Harfleur.=--Picturesque old town; flamboyant church, with fine spire
and north porch; old houses.

=Lillebonne.=--Small town in a pretty valley; Roman theatre; castle,
thirteenth century, with slight remains of the Norman predecessor,
in which the Conqueror held his council for the invasion of
England.

=Caudebec-en-Caux.=--Extremely picturesque old town on the Seine;
streets full of old timber houses and a rich flavour of
medievalism. Church commenced in 1426; exceedingly rich in
sculpture; magnificent spire.

=St. Wandrille.=--Ruins of a Norman abbey in a beautiful valley.

=Jumièges.=--Stately ruins of the Norman abbey church; museum in the
abbey grounds.

=St. Martin Boscherville.=--A picturesquely situated village on
sloping ground, with a great church built in the eleventh century;
it is considered the finest and most complete Norman church in
France.

In spite of the fact that Havre is a port of such magnitude, and that its tonnage approximates to a quarter of that possessed by France, one is dependent on the state of the tide for disembarking a car when, after the night crossing, one finds the ship tied up to the Grand Quai.

Instead of the ranges of dock-sheds and the giant cranes of Southampton, the ship seems to be lying along the side of a second-rate French street, and one looks in vain for the great steel arm that should silently let down a hook to lift the car like a toy from the ship’s lower deck. So if the tide should be low, one must wait until the deck is level with the quay--a delay more often than otherwise a boon to a party adjusting itself and its luggage for a long tour.

Although Havre is an infant port when compared to Marseilles, with its founding by the Greeks, there are things worth remembering about the place. When Rollo with his Norsemen in their black-sailed ships hovered at the mouth of the Seine in preparation for their attack upon Rouen, there was no Havre, and it was not until six centuries had passed that François I. gave the order to Guillon le Roy, the Commandant of Harfleur, on the opposite shore of the estuary of the Seine, to construct a port for great ships, owing to the necessity for an ocean seaport after the discovery of America. In 1514 the making of the port began, and its growth has been continued up to the present day.

_Walker & Boutall sc._]

Of the original town and its defences nothing is left, for even the old tower of the château in which Cardinal Mazarin imprisoned the Princes of Condé and of Conti, and the Duke of Longueville, has gone, and the only relic of the century that saw the birth of the city is the Church of Notre Dame. It stands in the Rue de Paris, near the Grand Quai, and is a mixture of the last flicker of Gothic and of Renaissance architecture. The building would appear to be the successor of the original Church of Notre Dame de Grâce, founded for the sailors of the port, which then bore the title of Le Havre-de-Grâce. In 1562 the Huguenots invited the English to enter the town, and the church tower was used as a gun platform, so that an effective fire on the royal camp could be maintained. But the townsmen paid for this by having the spire and walls of their church taken down. The rebuilding began in 1574, and the completion of the aisles and chapels took place in the following century.

Henri IV., Richelieu, and Colbert, who employed Vauban, not only improved the harbours, but added to the defences of the town, which in 1694 and 1759 resisted English bombardments. In 1856 the walls were removed, and the town now relies on three forts.

LEAVING HAVRE FOR ROUEN

The road to Rouen is through the Rue de Normandie, and this rapidly brings one to the suburb of Graville, where, on the left side of the road, on a hill above the Town Hall, stands the church of the Abbey of Ste. Honorine. It is an interesting building of the eleventh century, with curiously carved corbels outside, and within capitals as grotesque, and the sarcophagus which contained the remains of St. Honoria. Pilgrims, it is said, were just as numerous at Graville after the relics of the saint had been removed to Conflans for safety at the time of the Norman invasion!

The view over the Seine from the abbey church is exceedingly fine, and on sunny mornings the broad river shimmers in a silvery light.

HARFLEUR,

to which the tramway comes, is a quaint town, with narrow streets and a flamboyant church, whose highly enriched spire and curiously tall north porch, recessed in the wall and full of elaborate carving, give one a foretaste of that wealth of detail and medieval charm which a tour through Normandy offers to the stranger.

Either the walls of Harfleur must in 1415 have been exceedingly strong or their defenders of exceptional resource and courage, for in that year Henry V., with 30,000 English, besieged the town when the garrison numbered only 400, and yet for no less than forty days did they maintain the defence. It was 75 Englishmen to 1 Frenchman; but it generally took a few weeks to get through medieval walls, unless treachery or hunger came to the help of the attackers. Harfleur languished as a port owing to the shifting sand of the river-mouth, and the growth of Havre put an end to its commercial importance.

Bending to the left after passing the church, and going to the right almost immediately at a fork, Harfleur is soon left behind, as the road ascends the side of a green valley containing one or two large country houses.

The farms stand compactly inside a hedge of trees, which almost hides the buildings, and suggests the _tun_, or hedge, of the villages of our Saxon ancestors. A straight poplar-bordered road leads past pretty thatched farmyards, with timber-framed barns, to St. Romain de Colbosc. Besides the sixteenth-century cross in the cemetery there is a twelfth-century lepers’ chapel, with paintings inside, but it has for long been reduced to a mere farm-building.

In St. Romain one turns to the right for Lillebonne, and soon afterwards the road bears nearly due east, and runs straight for Lillebonne, descending into the picturesque wooded valley of the Bolbec River with several turns.

LILLEBONNE

If there was reason to complain of the juvenility of Havre, there is sufficient antiquity at Lillebonne to satisfy the most exacting, for the presence of a Roman theatre indicates the former existence of an important Roman city, and there is some reason for believing that this _Julia Bona_ of the Romans was built where the chief town of the tribe of the Caletes stood. The heavy squared stones that formed the seats were to a great extent carried away to the other side of Caudebec to build the Abbey of St. Wandrille, and one can only get a small idea of the perfect building from the rough inner stonework of the two lowest tiers. Even these were only revealed through the excavations which took place between 1812 and 1840. Many of the discoveries made in the excavations are to be seen in the museum at Rouen.

Of exceptional interest to Englishmen is the castle of Lillebonne, for in the great Norman hall--now also demolished--William the Conqueror gathered together a great assemblage of his viscounts, his warrior bishops, and men of lesser potency, and before them all announced his intention of invading England. The reception of this portentous declaration was mixed, many of the barons being unwilling to consent to so hazardous an enterprise, in spite of the enthusiasm of the Duke’s particular friends. Notwithstanding this lukewarmness, William’s determination eventually carried away all opposition, and the invasion ‘scare’ became an accomplished fact. That the historic hall should have survived until a wealthy cotton-spinner, who had purchased the castle, destroyed it in cold blood is distressing to the visitor who longs to feast his eyes on the building that once held that stirring council. What he sees to-day is the ruins of the thirteenth-century castle built on the site of the Conqueror’s stronghold, and the great round donjon did not come into existence until long after William had been gathered to his fathers. The church has a beautiful crocketed spire of the fifteenth century, similar to the one seen at Harfleur.

As one climbs out of the valley the road winds in different directions, and gives charming views over the Seine, with its passing steamers, and the distant green country beyond.

Two pretty villages, La Frenaye and St. Arnoult, are passed, each with its mossy thatched roofs and quaint little church, its particularly attractive half-timbered houses, and here and there an outside wooded staircase; then follows a winding descent into that most romantic of towns--

CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX

Although artists have painted the church, the river, and the old streets and waterway for years, there are still many of the most appealing aspects of the place that seem to remain outside the attainments of the painters and sketchers who reveal the results of their work there. There is one particular old street of houses, with romantic frontages on one side rising from the green water of a narrow canal, which is not easy to forget. Not only are the greens and greys and reds and ochres a delight to the eye, and the detail of the windows, overhanging eaves, and timber framing of the walls and gables particularly attractive, but one also gets peeps into interiors, where one can see old folk seated by windows with faces and curious black headgears such as Holbein and Rembrandt painted.

Even Lisieux cannot eclipse Caudebec in the completeness of its antique streets, for here there have been few attempts to hide the picturesque timber fronts with stucco, and there are half a dozen narrow streets by the church where the buildings, with the passage of the centuries, have let their time-worn gables nod towards one another until the strip of sky that the builders left has been appreciably narrowed. Then, in wandering through these ancient ways one is suddenly confronted with a wealth of the most delicately carved stone, and looking up, one sees the exquisitely graceful tower of the church, with its profusion of ornament and its crocketed and coroneted spire rising above. The western entrance is often open, so that the passer-by may see the lacelike ornament of the doorway thrown out against the velvet blackness

One of the most picturesque towns in Normandy.]

of the interior, a darkness relieved by the brilliant fifteenth and sixteenth century stained glass of the Flamboyant windows.

Henri IV., when he stayed at Caudebec, said that the town had _la plus jolie chapelle que j’ai jamais vue_, but added that the jewel was badly set. The building was commenced in 1426, and in 1484 Guillaume Le Tellier, the master mason, died, and was buried in the Lady-chapel of the glorious building he had created.

There existed in the sixteenth century an island in the Seine opposite Caudebec, and it is stated by Mrs. Macquoid that there were ‘three beautiful churches’ on it until the _mascaret_, a tidal bore, which at certain full moons in the spring and autumn equinoxes comes up the river with tremendous force, swept the whole island away. By 1641 the island had appeared again, but the _mascaret_ again demolished it. The wall of water that rushes up the narrowing river-mouth varies from 6 to 12 feet in height, and its force is sufficient to dislodge and carry away great stones.

Caudebec began its existence as a fishing village under the control of the Abbey of St. Wandrille, and, with its convenient quay, soon grew prosperous. When Henry V. besieged the town, it held out for six months.

During the Franco-Prussian War the Germans occupied the old town, but fortunately did no damage to it.

It is with keen reluctance that one leaves the sunny quay of Caudebec, with its busy market scenes, its steam ferry-boat, and the lovely views up and down the curving river. However, the road follows the Seine, and one enjoys for mile after mile lovely views across the wide belt of silvery water, backed by sweeping green forests.

ST. WANDRILLE

About two kilometres from Caudebec a turning to the left leads up in a few minutes to St. Wandrille, where the ruins of the Norman abbey stand in a pretty valley. The conventual buildings are now the residence of M. Maurice Maeterlinck, the dramatist and author, who recently performed an historical play in the refectory and cloisters of the abbey, the audience moving from one part of the buildings to another for each successive scene.

The abbey was originally called Fontenelle, after the stream that flows through the valley. It was founded in the middle of the seventh century by a pupil of St. Columba, and the early buildings fell a prey to the harrying Norsemen, who left the place in ruins. In 1033, having been rebuilt, the abbey was dedicated to St. Wandrille, but a fire did much destruction in the thirteenth century, and in 1631 the tower and spire of the church fell, and smashed down the nave and aisles, the Lady-chapel, and the choir-stalls. What remains of the church is not so remarkable as the ornate cloisters of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the imposing Norman refectory, with its vaulted roof of the fifteenth century and its fine Flamboyant windows.

Returning to the main road, and continuing towards Rouen, one soon catches sight of the two towers of the abbey of Jumièges rising above trees beyond a bend of the winding river. At the small village of Yainville, with a Norman church, the road to Jumièges goes to the right, and the singular beauty of this stately ruin justifies the détour.

JUMIÈGES

The entrance to the abbey is at a lodge gate on the left side of the road in the pleasant village, and the _concierge_--a quite charming type of country-woman--accompanies one through the admirably-kept ruins, and afterwards to the museum adjoining, where is preserved, among other carved stones from the ruined buildings, the slab of black marble under which was buried the heart of Agnes Sorel, the beautiful mistress of Charles VII. She died near Jumièges in 1449, after the birth of her fourth daughter, and her body was buried at Loches, which is passed through on the way southwards from Tours (see Section VI.).

The impressiveness of the twin towers of the west end of the great church is due in part to the extreme simplicity of the Norman work--for the buildings were completed just before the Norman Conquest--and also to their great height of 328 feet. On entering it is hard to believe that until 1790 the abbey and its great church were in a perfect state of preservation, for the roofs have gone except in the aisles, where the stones of the vault have been in some places so disturbed by roots and frosts that collapses are imminent. There are traces of orange-coloured painting on the arches, and the stone is of a warm cream, which looks singularly beautiful when afternoon shadows are falling from arches and pillars. There are only the foundations of the semicircular apse, with its nine chapels, and the gaps in the east end of the church are beautified by the presence of tall larches that droop their graceful branches over the broken moss-grown walls. The fourteenth-century chapel on the south side, dedicated to St. Pierre, is also in a state of ruin.

St. Philibert founded Jumièges in 654, about the same time as St. Wandrille was begun, and it also suffered terribly at the hands of the Northmen, who tortured and massacred without mercy, and left the once prosperous abbey a shattered ruin.

The rebuilding was encouraged by William Longsword, the son of Rollo; but the builder of the Norman church which stands to-day was Abbot Robert of Jumièges, who was afterwards appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Edward the Confessor, who had been educated at Jumièges under his care. The buildings, completed and consecrated in 1067, remained in use until 1793, the date of the Suppression, so that, with an interval of about a century in its early history, Jumièges existed as a monastery for 1,139 years, and in that period was ruled by eighty-two abbots.

It is interesting to know that, although the Benedictines of Jumièges contributed a very large sum towards the ransom of Richard I. after his capture on the way home from the Holy Land, the monastery was twice plundered by English armies, and the first occasion was in Edward III.’s reign, when the generosity of the monks seems to have been quite forgotten!

A portion of the buildings belonging to William Longsword’s church is to be seen in the Chapel of St. Pierre already mentioned.

An interesting legend of the founder of the abbey explains the presence of a wolf at the feet of the saint on a carved stone boss. St. Philibert had given to a convent four leagues from Jumièges the laundry work of his abbey, and the Abbess and her nuns washed the linen which was sent to them. One day a wolf ate the ass that carried the washing, but the holy Abbess induced the wicked wolf to carry the baskets, which he did, we read, until the end of his life.

The greatness and power of the abbey declined very much after the Reformation, and at the time of the Revolution the religious who were dispersed were not numerous.

The short distance from Yainville has to be retraced, and then, going to the right through a belt of forest, one reaches the banks of the Seine once more, and passes through the little town of Duclair, with its sunny quay and its ferry-boat. There are beautiful views over the river, and as the car runs along the level road one may overtake a steamer that is sliding along with a little pile of water pushed up in front of its bow, and note the contrast of its stained red funnel with the soft green landscape beyond. On the left curious little chambers are cut out of the cliff of chalk, and several form complete cottages. So even and horizontal are the layers of chalk, with bands of flint at different heights, that the cliff has often an exceedingly artificial appearance.

Soon afterwards the road cuts across the neck of another peninsula formed by one of the deep windings of the Seine, and on reaching the foot of the rising ground a turning to the right leads to the hamlet of St. Martin Boscherville, whose noble Church of St. Georges rears its great bulk on the hillside. The hurried tourist might be inclined to pass this by, thinking that of ecclesiastic architecture he has seen enough in this neighbourhood; but throughout the whole of France he will not find another Norman church so perfect as that of St. Georges de Boscherville. The abbey was founded and built in the eleventh century by the Grand Chamberlain of William the Conqueror, Raoul de Tancarville, a fact proclaimed in an inscription above the chief portal; and the great church, built at the time when England was newly subjected to the Norman, stands to-day, with the exception of the western turrets, exactly as the original builders left it.

The transepts are remarkable for their galleries, similar to those in Winchester Cathedral; and the chapter-house, which is later than the church, being Transitional in style, should also be seen. The sixteenth-century tomb of Le Roulx, the last Abbot, is in front of the altar.

On resuming the journey, the hill just mentioned is negotiated with some considerable winding, which enables one to get especially fine views over the wooded country to the west, with the big church in the middle distance, and the gleaming river showing its snaky windings on either side.

After passing through a belt of typical French forest, composed of thin trees without beauty or individuality, one begins the long curving descent to Rouen, the historic capital of Normandy. The city appeals so much to the student of history that this first view of the place as a whole, threaded by its broad river, and dominated by the fretted spire and beautiful towers of cathedral and churches, is one that stands out vividly in the memory when other impressions have faded.

DIEPPE TO ROUEN (36 miles--58 kilometres)

This is a direct road, with a few hills, the ascent from the river at Sanqueville and the winding descent at Malaunay being the only ones worth mentioning.

_Walker & Boutall sc._]

BOULOGNE TO ROUEN (109½ miles--176 kilometres)

This road is through the little town of Samer, where there is an interesting fifteenth-century church and the ruins of the Abbey of St. Wulmer. Soon afterwards there is a steep hill.

Montreuil-sur-Mer has a Palais de Justice, which was formerly part of a Carmelite convent, and the college and École d’Infanterie occupy the buildings of the Abbey of Ste. Austreberthe. The chapel of the Gothic Hôtel Dieu has a curious altar-screen, and the very interesting Church of St. Saulve dates from the twelfth century. The view seawards down the Canche from the citadel, which is surrounded by towers and walls of the Middle Ages, is remarkably fine.

On the road to Abbeville there is a steep ascent at Nampont St. Martin, and a steep descent to Bernay-en-Ponthieu. The forest of Crécy lies to the left of the road, and on the farther side of it is the medieval battlefield, where the English army, under Edward III., crushingly defeated the French in 1346.

Abbeville is an interesting old town, still possessing some very good specimens of its domestic architecture of the thirteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The best are the Maison François I., with richly carved woodwork, at 29, Rue de la Tannerie; No. 2 in the same street (sixteenth century); 7, Rue du Pont de Boulogne; 3 and 5, Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville; 41, Rue de la Boucherie; and, besides these, several others will be noticed in a walk through the town. There are also some good town houses, or _hôtels_, in the Rue St. Gilles. The Church of St. Vulfran belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and is remarkable for its fine restored façade, with beautifully sculptured doorways. The interior is not remarkable, except for two curved altar-screens.

The Hôtel de Ville has a bell-tower dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the library in the Jardin Public d’Emonville contains a Gospel which belonged to Charlemagne.

Neufchâtel-en-Bray is famous for its cheeses, and is the chief town of the district, which has been called ‘the dairy of Paris.’ It was at one time called Driencourt, the name having been altered when a new castle was built by Henri Beauclerc. The Church of Notre Dame, of various periods from the twelfth century, has a sixteenth-century tower. A passage from the Grand Rue leads to the Maison des Templiers, a most picturesque timber-framed building, with much carved woodwork.

From Neufchâtel to above the River Arques the road climbs, dropping steeply down to that river at St. Martin Omonville. After leaving the valley the road is comparatively level to Rouen.

CALAIS TO BOULOGNE

Along the coast, 22 miles--35 kilometres

By Marquise, 20 miles--32 kilometres

The coast route is the most interesting, as it gives splendid views of the Straits of Dover and the white cliffs of England. Sangatte (7½ kilometres from Calais) is famous in connection with M. Blériot’s cross-Channel flight, and for the abandoned workings of the Channel tunnel.

_Walker & Boutall sc._]

Four miles before passing over Cape Grisnez one passes the little town of Wissant, associated with the Roman _Portus Itius_, from which Julius Cæsar sailed when he made his first reconnaissance of the coast of Britain. Beyond the great headland is Ambleteuse, the landing-place of the fugitive James II. at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day, 1688. The King had left Rochester on the night of the 23rd, and had passed by a back-door on to the Medway, where he boarded the smack which brought him to the French coast.

At the next river-mouth is Wimereux Harbour, the landing-place of Prince Louis Napoleon in August, 1840. Having received no support, the Prince and his followers were easily captured, and in Boulogne one can see the thirteenth-century château, now converted into barracks, where he was imprisoned.

Boulogne Cathedral was erected in 1869 on the site of the original Norman church, built in 1104 by Ida, the mother of Geoffrey de Bouillon.