THE SEINE FROM ROUEN TO PONT DE L’ARCHE
Rouen is truly celebrated for its art; but above all it interests the
tourist by reason of the multiplicity and accessibility of its sights.
One can well call it to mind by these lines of Victor Hugo’s:
“Rouen, la ville aux vieilles rues,
Aux vieilles tours, débris des races disparues,
La ville aux cent clochers carillonnant dans l’air,
Le Rouen des châteaux, des hôtels, des bastiles
Dont le front hérissé de flèches et d’aiguilles
Déchire incessamment les brûmes de la mer.”
All the city’s monumental glories cannot be described here. The most
that is attempted is the record of various rambles here and there in
nooks and corners often not covered by the general traveller;
practically leaving Rouen’s magnificent cathedral, its great churches
and their appointments, its architectural monuments such as the Palais
de Justice, to the guide-books of convention.
Time was, though difficult of belief now, when Rouen was called by an
eighteenth-century traveller “an ugly, stinking, close, and ill-built
town.” To-day no provincial city of France is more visited by tourists
of every degree of wealth than the ancient Norman capital, and certainly
none is more liked.
Its general aspect is that of a city of modern appointments and ancient
architectural treasures, and its municipal governors are keenly alive to
all that makes for the betterment of life within the city limits.
In spite of all this, some of its back streets and alleys are badly
cared for, even to-day; and the condition of nodding, leaning, old
timbered houses which artists love, does not by any means tend to purify
the atmosphere.
There are some things in regard to which the French are still behind the
times. Their streets are not in the immaculate condition of cleanliness
in which they ought to be. There is always some sort of municipal
scavengering, but often this does not reach to the far corners, and
often individual effort itself, in the poorer quarters, does not go
beyond sweeping refuse into the gutter or some byway. This is perhaps no
more true of Rouen than of Amiens, of Lyons, or of Marseilles; but,
nevertheless, there is a great opportunity for a new effort with
respect to some of the older quarters, such as the streets running
immediately back of the Church of St. Maclou.
That “Rouen is dearer than Paris” is a saying which has come to us from
a century-old traveller; and there is certainly some truth in it.
The history of Rouen’s bridges is most interesting. To-day there are but
three, and only two of them are of the conventional order. The
celebrated _Pont Transbordeur_, while being essentially practical, is a
weird exotic, not entitled to be classed with those masterpieces in
stone built throughout France in the middle ages, many of which exist
even to-day.
The first bridge at Rouen was probably not built before the year 1000,
and the first document which makes mention of any bridge here is an
_acte de donation_ of Richard II. in favour of the Abbey of Jumièges,
dated at Fécamp in 1024. Therein was conceded to the monks at Jumièges,
the right to fish _from Pont de l’Arche up to the Pont de Rouen_. At
this time the _Pont de Rouen_ was a stone structure. A bridge of boats
replaced this early stone bridge, and was considered one of the marvels
of its time.
The monks, it seems, were always endowed with certain talents for
bridge-building; and like the brothers of the bridge of St. Bénézet’s
day at Avignon, took a certain guardianship over travellers by road who
were obliged to make use of these conveniences. The monks established
shelters near the bridges, or even on them in some instances, as in the
case of the establishment kept up by “_Les Frères du Pont_” at Avignon.
It was an Augustinian monk, Père Nicolas, who had furnished the plans
for this bridge of boats at Rouen. In 1630 it was begun, but five years
later it was, in part, carried away by a flood, which misfortune induced
the authorities to rebuild it with improvements, permitting certain
sections to be opened to allow the passage of floating ice. However, it
met with disaster again and again,--in 1669, in 1741, 1777, and 1799.
To-day, besides the _Pont Transbordeur_, Rouen’s bridges are the _Pont
Corneille_, named for the great dramatist, and the _Pont Boïeldieu_,
named for his brother in arts--this time for a great music master.
Above the Ile Brouilly, the Western Railroad crosses the Seine on an
iron structure held aloft on stone piers. The newest of Rouen’s bridges
is the unique and essentially practical _Pont Transbordeur_, opposite
the Boulevard Cauchoise, not a wholly beautiful structure, though
certainly a marvel of interest to the stranger.
It belongs to the workaday world of docks and shipping, and is nothing
but a mass of wire rope and suspended car, or cradle, like that of a
travelling crane; but it was economical to build, and is equally so to
run, and it serves the purposes of those whose business takes them among
the shipping of the really great port of Rouen.
At any rate this marvel is no less beautiful than the Tower Bridge on
London’s river, which serves the same purpose.
After all, the standard of beauty by which one judges the things of this
world is a variable one, and the same person may decry the ugliness of
the _Pont Transbordeur_ at Rouen, and yet think a full-rigged ship
beautiful. As a matter of fact they are each a collection of struts and
ties, and each is best adapted to the end in view; so the standard of
judgment becomes a more or less artificial one, based simply on what we
have been accustomed to see.
Not every visitor to Rouen searches out the delightful Hôtel
Bourgtheroulde, one of the most brilliant Renaissance domestic
establishments yet enduring in Normandy. It was built at great expense
in the earliest years of the sixteenth century by Messire Guillaume
Leroux, the seigneur of Bourgtheroulde. The exterior to-day shows little
of luxury, but its interior court has the finely preserved decoration of
other days, still left for us to marvel at. A series of bas-reliefs
representing the triumphs of Petrarch and the famous interview of the
“Field of the Cloth of Gold” are the chief of these admirable works of
art.
In the desire to absorb all of the momentous historical attractions of
Rouen one is apt to overlook a certain literary shrine, hidden away
behind the old market.
In the Rue Pierre Corneille is the house where the father of the two
poets by the name of Corneille lived. One reads upon a tablet placed
upon the house:
“Ici étaient la maison
où sont nés les deux Corneilles
Pierre le 6 juin 1606, Thomas le 24 Août 1625.”
One of Rouen’s great attractions for many is Notre Dame de Bon Secours.
As a place of pious pilgrimage its virtues may be all that are claimed
for it, but as an artistic religious expression of an artistic and
devout people it is about as low and vulgar a one as it is possible to
see. No pagan ever erected a temple so hideous; and the church itself is
set about by a burial-ground wherein are as offensive, ill-assorted a
lot of tombstones as ever spoiled one of nature’s masterpieces. It is a
masterpiece of landscape,--the winding Seine, the busy city of Rouen
with its church towers and its bridges, and the forests of Rouvray, La
Londe, and Roumare.
In addition there are curio shops for the sale of “_objets du vertu et
du piété_,” the quality of which would be a disgrace to a fifth-rate
watering-place.
A huge bell, too great to be hung in the tower of the modern Gothic
Church of Our Lady, protrudes into the foreground surrounded by a clumsy
iron cage. A placard requests the public not to throw pieces of stone at
the bell, though why this should be necessary it is hard to say.
Another sort of a pagan temple, in triplicate, is supposed to
commemorate the memory of Jeanne d’Arc; but it fails utterly to attract,
and is merely to be counted as another of the side-shows of this
splendid natural landscape, now utterly spoiled.
The simple marble square in Rouen’s old market-place, which presents
only the plain statement that “on this spot, tied to the stake, was
burned alive Jeanne d’Arc,” etc., is much more satisfactory.
An old-time traveller has said: “The first view of Rouen is sudden and
striking.” He had come by road from Gisors. “The road again doubled in
order to turn more gently down the hill, and presents the finest view of
a town I have ever seen. The city, with all its churches and convents,
and its cathedral proudly rising in the midst, fills the whole vale.”
The scene from the height of Bon Secours, where the great national
highway from Paris drops down on Rouen, is in no way different to-day,
and indeed it is doubtful if there be a finer view of a town in all the
world than that same prospect.
What is the finest view in the world will, doubtless, always be a
question for dispute; but those who have seen wide-spread Rouen, from
the road which winds around to the back of Bon Secours,--not from the
plateau or terrace of the church, or the Jeanne d’Arc monument,--have
often reversed their previous judgments.
[Illustration: _Rouen from Bon Secours_]
It is indescribable, unpaintable, impossible to photograph in all its
glories; so one must see it for himself to really know it. The
spectacle is so magnificent that it seems unreal and fairylike,--the
great city and its faubourgs, with its apparently innumerable church
spires, chimney-stacks, and roof-tops, and the broad, brilliant Seine,
busy with its puffing tugs, great six-thousand-ton steamers, and an
occasional four-masted ship, flowing through its midst.
Rouen is so admirably supplied with tramways and steamboats, that a week
might well be spent in exploring its suburbs by any one who has the time
and inclination.
Ossel, practically a suburb of Rouen, as one goes Paris-ward, has the
look of an important manufacturing town; and so it really is, although
it has one architectural treasure in the manor-house of Chapelle, dating
from the sixteenth century. In its enclosure is a curious Renaissance
work in the form of a pyramid held aloft by four columns, beneath which
is sheltered an ancient well.
There are numberless small towns and villages throughout the length of
the Seine which are nameless to the majority of summer travellers to
Normandy. Caudebec they know, but Elbeuf, Pont de l’Arche, Les Andelys,
St. Pierre de Vouvray, Bonniers, Giverny, and La Roche-Guy on are
unknown ground to most of them.
Just above Rouen are innumerable riverside villages, many of which have
their chief source of income from catering to those who like to dine _al
fresco_ in the country, in a garden overlooking the Seine.
These resorts are more or less of the country-fair or rural holiday
order, to be sure; but hidden away here and there in snug little nooks
are innumerable delightful gardens and many hundreds of arbours and
groves where one may eat a meal in the open air, or while away a sleepy
afternoon. And this is precisely just what does take place, not only
throughout the length of the winding Seine, but on every other waterway
in France.
There is no limit to the self-respecting capacity for enjoyment of those
who fill these riverside resorts on Sundays and holidays. There is no
drunkenness, no maudlin riot, no blasphemy, and apparently no satiety.
The games which amuse the French middle class on such occasions may, to
Anglo-Saxons, seem absurdly childish; but no one will deny that the very
simplicity of them is wholesome, and far less detrimental to
self-respect than the faro and three-card monte games which are usually
set forth under like conditions elsewhere. Grown men, sane fathers, and
portly matrons join with the younger folk at such juvenile sports as
swings, tilting-boards, “Aunt Sally,” and ninepins, not forgetting the
ever-present ring and cane games.
In contrast to this are the more luxurious, if less moral, resorts of
the wealthy class; or, at least, of that class which keeps more money in
circulation.
The dwellers in the Seine valley, like those along the countless other
streams of France, are great fishermen; not so much for the sport or the
quarry it may provide, nor for sociability, since the fisherman’s art is
the least sociable of sports, as, it would seem, for the purpose of
meditation. There is good fishing in the Seine, as all who partake
thereof well know. From the Paris bridges and quays down the river to
Rouen are many famous fishing-grounds.
Here it is that you see the true fisherman in all his glory. He sits
beneath his big hat, or under an umbrella if the sun shines strongly, in
a low-backed chair in a punt, and patiently holds his rod or line from
early morn to late at night.
[Illustration: SOME SEINE SKETCHES]
When he lays down his line for a time the French fisherman begins to
think of eating and drinking. None of your ordinary picnic lunches
either, of cold ham and hard boiled eggs; but most likely a cold fowl,
washed down with good wine; and he prefers cold coffee to weak tea as an
afterthought. This if he is not within hail of a waterside inn, in which
case he will find provided a variety and a quantity of well-prepared
food to suit both his taste and his appetite.
One has heard of chapels in rocks before now. Indeed, if memory serves
truly, there are several in various parts of Europe that are remarkable
not only for the manner of building, but often for local tradition and
legend as well. There is nothing remarkable about the rock-hewn,
cliff-cut Chapel of St. Adrien, near Rouen, to give it any great
distinction, except its manner of building; and in this respect it is
far more interesting than many already more famous. There is no pretence
at architectural splendour, and the size of the edifice precludes the
possibility of any vast utility. Still there is something more than a
mere curio-value to this little chapel cut in the limestone cliff above
the Seine, and as an ecclesiastical monument of note it is far more
worthy than the pilgrim shrine at Bon Secours.
The cafés and open-air restaurants at its feet somewhat savour of the
frivolous. But what would you? They are there simply because it is a
beautiful spot accessible to the busy city of Rouen; and are withal
orderly and well-conducted, well-patronized places. Between Pont de
l’Arche and Rouen is Elbeuf, perhaps as famous to-day for its
cloth-manufactories as for its storied past. This, however, will not
interest the seeker of historic shrines, nor will the miles of execrable
pavement and the tram-tracks which line its five kilometres of main
street please automobilists. These detractions account for the absence
of the tourist from the busy but picturesque town of Elbeuf. Nor is
there much to admire here except its curious, conglomerate old church
and the general picturesqueness of its surroundings, heightened even by
the commonplaceness of the busy little industrial city itself. The tall
chimneys of its cloth-factories, and the streamers of black smoke
continually belching therefrom, soften and tone down the tints of sky
and landscape in the real symphonic fashion set by Whistler.
The streams which ripple through the town are all shades of the rainbow,
on account of the refuse of the dye-works; and the very atmosphere is
charged with an odour which bespeaks the industry of a manufacturing
town, such as one comes across only in France or Germany, picturesquely
situated on a river’s bank, and literally humming with the whir of many
wheels.
All manner of cloths are made here, especially those finer qualities
used in the make-up of officers’ uniforms, carriage cloths, and the
coverings of billiard-tables. There are at least twenty-five thousand
men and women employed here, and all the shops of the town are supported
by them. The combined industries turn out a product to the value of
ninety millions of francs per year.
It was at an inn here that Arthur Young, that astute observer of matters
agricultural, learned at _table d’hôte_--a matter of common knowledge
among the guests there assembled--that the wine provinces of France were
actually the poorest in all France. With some exceptions this is true
to-day, and is plausibly explained elsewhere. Times have truly changed
since Young wrote that he had not found one decent inn in all France.
It must be recalled that the fashionable, or rather the modern
up-to-date hotel, with its elaborate _table d’hôte_, is much the same
wherever found; and that an inland spa or a watering-place on the
Mediterranean coast of France, or at Ostend, Dieppe, or Trouville, does
not differ greatly from an establishment of the same class in Paris,
London, or New York.
The genuine traveller will have none of this, however, with its ever
recurring mutton served under the name of _agneau de Pauillac_, and the
eternal rag-time music of an alleged Hungarian band whose only claim to
the title is the more or less incorrect copy of a Magyar uniform in
which the players are dressed. The hotels _de luxe_ have their place in
the scheme of things as ordained to-day, no doubt, but they offer
absolutely nothing to the lover of travel for its own sake, and are
accordingly dreaded by most.
The inns of France which one meets in touring the country are so much
better than similar establishments in England that the comparison is
odious.
This may be disputed. Yet where in England, in a village of 1,500
inhabitants, will you get a five-course dinner or luncheon splendidly
cooked, bountifully served, and with a seasoning and garnishing which it
is impossible to duplicate elsewhere, for a modest two francs and a
half, and at practically a moment’s notice? To be sure, it is always
omelet, chicken, and salad; but that is surely better than the eternal
bacon and eggs and cold boiled mutton of the English country inn.
The roadside inns are not becoming spoiled, either. On the beaten track
where tourists throng they still possess the sentiment of good cheer in
a more substantial manner than is implied by a few churchwardens and
Brummagem pewter plates stuck up over the mantel; and if they lack
“visitors’ books,” with sorry verses and weak platitudes about being
“home from home,” they make up for it in good food and clean beds; and
for what else does one go to a hotel?
Once and again, in the larger towns where there is an English quarter,
and tea-and-bun-shops exist, there also may be found a “_Hôtel des Iles
Brittaniques_” which caters, apparently, solely to _milords_ and
millionaires; and, is quite different from the _Hôtel du Pays_, around
the corner on the market-place, where you may drink your bock, or dine,
or play dominoes with a smock-frocked peasant from the country-side.
The following incident happened in one of these great hotels situated in
the principal city of a Norman department. At least, a righteously
indignant Frenchman assured us that it did happen; and there was no
reason to doubt his word:
He was touring in an automobile of modest size, not loaded down with
luggage, four people in the tonneau, a mechanic, and the driver. The
hotel _clientèle_, for the time at any rate, was composed of what the
French call “_Milliardairs Americains_.” This is the universal name
given those who make a vulgar show of money, others are merely “_Les
Anglais_.”
Upon applying at the desk for a room, our Frenchman was met with an
astonished stare and a curt reply that they had none such; and that the
house was full except for a “_chambre à mécanicien_” over the scullery.
Our friend bowed his apologies and regrets, and departed, but with true
Gallic ingenuity brought up within an hour at a small town twenty
kilometres away, and telephoned the before mentioned hotel in this wise:
“_Allô! allô! je souis lord Whisky, oune cliente anglèse, auriez-vous
cinq chambres confortébles pour môa et mon souite et garage pour mes
deux automobiles?_”
The reply came back over the wire satisfactorily enough:
“_Mais comment donc, Excellence, tout ce que son Excellence voudra!_”
Then our friend had his turn.
“_Non, cher monsieur, je me contenterai de la chambre à mécanicien que
vous avez offerte il y a quelques heures à un français!_”
In the main the inns of the Seine valley are no better or no worse than
in other parts of France. They may not rival the Hôtel de Metz at St.
Menehould, the fame of which was in part made by Victor Hugo’s charming
description in “_Le Rhin_”; and in Normandy they have not the same
splendid abundance of good things of the table as in Burgundy, where the
wine and the blood is rich; but they are amply endowed with creature
comforts, and since the Touring Club of France and the Automobile Club
have taken it upon themselves to counsel more care in sanitation, the
inns of all France are infinitely to be preferred to those of any other
country.
Of all the near-by towns more or less intimately associated with Rouen,
the most prominent and attractive of all is the little town of Pont de
l’Arche. It is known to most travellers as a railway junction with
little or nothing of attractiveness about it. There is the usual
warehouse for freight, signal-house, and the “_Bifur à Gisors_,” a
station hotel, and an unpretentious café or two; but that is all, if we
except a long, tree-lined avenue which leads to a more ambitious group
of houses, a mile or so away.
This is Pont de l’Arche. Its church and its few hundred houses lie
mostly hidden from the railway by the screen of poplars on the long
avenue leading from the station. Incidentally this adds additional
attraction; and to-day there is nothing save the distant shriek of a
locomotive to remind one its inhabitants are not living in another age.
The river glides by as in olden times, and there is much boat and barge
traffic. The town is not so especially decrepit, nor dirty, nor
unwholesome; but it has a certain lackaday air of aversion to modernity
which a town of its size seldom lacks in this part of France.
Those who know this charming little town admire it the more because of
its somnolent air. It sits high on the escarpment of the river bank, one
roughly paved street running indirectly to the water, which is crossed
by the usual conventionally designed bridge. On the very brink is its
stately, dignified Church of Notre Dame des Arts; and something more
than scanty remains of the town’s ancient ramparts are still visible,
notably in what is known as the Citadel.
[Illustration: _Pont de l’Arche_]
It is from this citadel that the etymologists derive the name of Pont de
l’Arche, from Pontarcy, which evolved itself from _Pont arcis meæ_
(_pont de ma citadelle_), given to it by Charles the Bald, who had
sojourned there.
Pont de l’Arche was one of the first towns of Normandy to open its gates
to Henri IV. during his strife to reconquer his kingdom. At this time
the ramparts were an effective protection against outside interference.
Doubly so, in that its machicolated walls and towers were ably supported
by the natural escarpment of the river bank.
The Church of Notre Dame des Arts is doubtless the only one of its name
in Christendom. The reason for this singularly appropriate nomenclature
will be obvious; and already, though the fabric is an unfinished one,
and in still other parts has suffered the decay of time, the edifice
itself proudly proclaims its right to the name. As a species of
architectural art itself, Notre Dame des Arts comes well within the
third ogival period (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), with some good
carvings in wood of the seventeenth century, and some acceptable glass
of the same century or possibly of that preceding.
The restoration of this fine church has been most lovingly undertaken;
and a most difficult piece of work it has proved not to debase the
florid ornament beyond its original conception, which among neighbouring
churches ranks it with the collegiate church at Eu, and St. Vincent’s at
Rouen, if not actually with St. Maclou itself, the richest and most
florid of all the Gothic churches previous to the Renaissance.
Though contracted, the interior likewise displays that profusion of
ornament which characterizes the flamboyant style, notably in the keys
of the vaulting, which show a remarkable strength. Its fenestration is
good, as well as the glass, and such auxiliary features and furnishings
as the _retable_ and the organ _buffet_, which are acceptable, if
somewhat debased from Gothic forms. Indeed, these features are seldom
seen in anything but the more or less heavy Renaissance treatment of
large masses.
Pont de l’Arche is the birthplace of Hyacinthe Langlois, architect and
antiquary. His monument, erected through the beneficence of a little
group of Norman archæologists, is on the little public square before the
house in which the accomplished and versatile man was born. The fact is
mentioned here in order to emphasize the regard which all French towns
hold for the memory of any deserving person and his work. Langlois, the
Norman antiquary, was perhaps not so very great a personage, but in the
eyes of his fellow townsmen his was at least a fame which deserved a
memorial which should outlive man.
The name Notre Dame des Arts is singularly appropriate to a finely
planned church. One defines art as “the realization of a conception,”
which in most cases is God-given, so far as the individual effort is
concerned. Art is truth, therefore art is elevating, and it is chosen as
the instrument that shall echo the grand truths which ennoble and purify
mankind.
An eloquent plea is made to the artists of France to contribute their
aid in glorifying the fabric of Notre Dame des Arts by the Abbé
Philippe, vicar-dean of Pont de l’Arche.
The dean makes a most convincing plea, which is printed in a little book
and presented to visitors. It is all very dogmatic, but still its object
is commendable enough, one must admit. It smacks, too, of personal pride
in the possession of this beautiful church, which again is surely
pardonable. Most of us will admit that it is altogether a charming idea
that a church should be built and beautified and dedicated to art,
leaving others to cavil at dogma.
The plea of the devoted dean of the church ends with the intimation that
it is proposed to erect mural tablets which shall emblazon in letters of
gold the names of all who may contribute to the preservation and
enrichment of the fabric. Future generations will then see that in the
early years of the twentieth century the friends of art were not
oblivious to its higher expression, and were devoted enough to further
it in this noble monument.
The dean’s garden, just before the westerly end of the church, is
charming in its unworldliness. From it one enters the sanctuary in a
roundabout way along gravelled walks, box-covered hedges,
bright-flowered beds and small garden trees loaded with plums, apricots,
and pears. Nothing here is suggestive of the onrush of time; there is no
hum of the electric-car to be heard; no rush of the automobile, no smell
of gasoline, and no grime of the workaday world. The church itself
towers above to the eastward, and opposite is the modest house of the
dean, all suggestive of peacefulness and content.
Next to the Church of Notre Dame des Arts, the _Pons Arcis_ of the days
of Charles the Bald has its chief historical and artistic shrine in the
old Abbey of Bon Port, now scarcely more than a riverside ruin.
It belonged originally to the monks of the order of Citeaux, and was
founded by the Lion-hearted Richard in 1190 as the outcome of a vow made
while pursuing a _cerf_ across the river, to the effect that if his
horse ever reached the other bank--“_un bon port_”--he would erect a
monastery on the spot.
To-day the ruins belong to a M. Lenoble, who has spent much care and
expense in preserving what is left of this interesting relic. Of the
abbatial church nothing remains but the foundations. The refectory is in
a fine state of preservation, with an admirably designed series of
windows.
The cloistral buildings still exist in something more than mere ruins.
The capitulary hall has been reëstablished after its original lines, and
its library, with its high wood ceiling of the time of Louis XVI., is
admirable.
The remains of the old abbey are reflected in the Seine, which winds
about its feet and forms cool, shadowy pools now frequented by fishermen
from Rouen, as they doubtless were by monkish anglers in days gone past.
After this contemplative trip about Pont de l’Arche one is quite ready
to resort to the charming hotel of Guennord’s--“La Normandie”--near the
bridge and partake of the unusually good luncheon served in a room
overlooking the river. This dining-room, like those of many another spot
in France beloved of artists, is panelled with sketches donated by
them.