THE SEINE FROM PONT DE L’ARCHE TO LA ROCHE-GUYON
Up the river from Pont de l’Arche the beauties of the Seine are truly
irresistible to the true traveller of artistic proclivities. At every
kilometre stone along its banks the view has that charm of majestic
simplicity that might be expected of a great inland waterway.
Not that it has no variety at all. It is an ever-changing panorama of a
silvery sheet, reflecting the sky and clouds and the green and white of
the chalk and tree clad river banks, in truly mystical fashion.
Just above Pont de l’Arche, the Eure and the Andelle join the Seine. The
former is given a chapter by itself in this book, but the Andelle is
merely one of those winsome little streams which in many other lands
would hardly have arrived at the dignity of being called a river. Not
every traveller in France knows the little river Andelle which rises in
the district of Bray and flows southwesterly fifty kilometres or more
until it mingles with the Seine at Pitres, near Pont de l’Arche, and
almost exactly opposite the mouth of the Eure.
Forges-les-Eaux, near which the Andelle rises, first became celebrated
for its chalybeate springs in the time of Anne of Austria, mother of
Louis XIV., who, with many other celebrities of royal and noble birth,
went there to take the waters.
To-day its fame has not wholly departed; but those who go to such places
usually find that they are the more beneficial, the more fashionable
they are, and the more alluring its amusements. Forges-les-Eaux is not
one of the most fashionable, hence the virtues of its waters are now
somewhat negatived. This is a pity, for it is in the midst of a charming
country, and the sylvan attractions round about are doubtless as good an
antidote to the excessive imbibing of water as “_Petits Chevaux_” or
“_Trente et Quarante_.”
There are, however, no very splendid architectural remains in the town
itself. A few old houses, some far more interesting ones in the country
near by, a conventional “_Etablissement_” and a modern Gothic church,
after the old-time manner, complete the list of attractions of
Forges-les-Eaux, in addition to the springs themselves.
Southwesterly until one reaches the forest of Lyons, nearly four hundred
square miles in extent, there is naught in this beautiful river valley
but a succession of typical French villages, with high stone walls
enclosing farms, red-roofed cottages, and outbuildings; and an
occasional _pigeonnier_, and wayside cross.
At Lyons-le-Forêt, the little forest town of perhaps half a thousand
inhabitants, one comes immediately into touch with a civilization
strangely out of keeping with its idyllic setting. There is a hotel
there with all the improvements of our own time: enamelled baths,
running water, an automobile omnibus to the station, seven kilometres
distant, ice for cold drinks, Scotch whisky, and many other luxuries
which discount one’s enjoyment of real country travel.
It is pleasant enough, however, on a hot summer’s day; and the town
itself is delightfully unspoiled, with its crooked, winding streets, its
picturesque though not beautiful market-house, its pretty little church,
and the tiny river Lieure, a tributary of the Andelle, where one may
take fish if he likes.
Being in the midst of this great forest, it is but natural that the
church of Lyons-le-Forêt should have a shrine to St. Hubert, the patron
of the hunt. It is there on the north wall of the single nave of the
church, with all its well-recognized symbolism; though, truth to tell,
it is rather a tawdry shrine of no great artistic merit, and horribly
desecrated by a coat of dirty yellow paint.
Menesqueville is the station for Lyons-le-Forêt, and from here to the
Seine the banks of the Andelle are settled with little
cloth-manufacturing villages and towns which form a curious contrast to
their more peaceful wooded backgrounds.
Near by are Rosy, with its Renaissance château; Charleval, with its
towering chimney-stacks; Fleury-sur-Andelle, with its steep hill, so
dreaded by automobilists; Radepont, with its eighteenth-century ruined
château, abbey, and tower; Pont St. Pierre, which is simply a
picturesque, paintable, and lovable little town; and, finally, as one
draws even nearer the Seine, Pitres, known formerly as Pistes, where
archæologists have told us was an ancient Gallo-Romain city which came
to great prosperity under the first and second races of kings.
The emperors after Charlemagne had their houses here, as one learns from
the fragments of buildings which remain and the scraps of history which
have come down to us. Charles the Bald ordered the principal feudal
lords to build, each in his fief, citadels strong enough to arrest the
Normans. A formidable one is known to have been built here, though but
scanty remains exist to-day.
It is a curious, and contradicting history that is to be evolved from
the topography of the river Andelle. Throughout the valley one receives
emotions varying from those of sylvan and idyllic surroundings on the
upper river, to those aroused by the busy little towns peopled with
yarn-spinners and cloth-weavers of both sexes, who are supremely happy
at their work, which lasts for a dozen hours each day.
The middle ages covered this contented valley of to-day with numberless
fortresses, which are now scarcely recognizable even as ruins. The tower
of Jean-Sans-Terre which remains at Radepont, together with the earlier
work of Richard Cœur de Lion, is the exception. These sit on the side
of a profound and luxuriant gorge environed with the remains of the
Abbey of Fontaine-Guerard, and should be searched out if one has the
time.
At Douville, between Radepont and Pont St. Pierre, are the ruined walls
of the Château of Talbot. South of the Andelle was what is known as
Norman Vexin, one of those little districts of the olden time which even
unto to-day has kept its name.
At Ecouis, not far from the banks of the Andelle, is a magnificent
church built at the highest point of Vexin, amid a country wholly given
over to wheat-fields. The church was founded by Enguerrand de Marigny
and consecrated in 1313. In the interior is a magnificent mausoleum of
Jean de Marigny, a former Archbishop of Rouen, the brother of the
founder. It is a wayside shrine of quite the first rank, though seldom
visited or seen except by travellers through Normandy by road.
Near the juncture of the Andelle is St. Etienne du Vauvray, the chief
and only attraction of which is its curiously _outré_ church, with a
conventional central tower, slated, and capped with a singularly light
and graceful iron cross, which in turn is surmounted by a representation
of a cock, dear to the French as a symbol of the ancient Gauls.
The really great and most curious feature of this ancient church is the
peculiar round tower which rises on the south side midway along the nave
and is joined to its more modern neighbour by a ligature which is, in a
way, inexplicable. One can understand the desire to preserve so ancient
and curious a relic, and even evolve for himself its original use,
though it looks for all the world like the round towers of Ireland,
which many a savant has declared were pagan.
The easterly portion of this curious church--the more ancient
part--extending from this flanking round tower is a wonderfully massive
structure considering its size. Its portal is bare and gaunt and devoid
of ornament; but it is typically Norman, with that strength of
proportion which even in the best of Gothic often fell short of the
earlier style. The western end is modern, shockingly so, with pepper-box
exaggerated apse and no transepts.
There is elaborate glass throughout, though apparently of no great
value. It is a charming ensemble of reds, greens, and browns that
composes the view of this tiny church which one gets from before the
astonishingly ample _mairie_, on the road to St. Pierre-du-Vauvray, the
railway junction for Louviers and Les Andelys.
Muids, _en route_ from St. Pierre to Les Andelys, is ordinary enough
looking, at first glance, to justify travellers by road--automobilists
and cyclists--to rush by without stopping, in spite of its beautiful
situation on the banks of the Seine. Travellers by train will hardly
give it a glance, for the outlook therefrom is not inspiring. It has,
however, a church which dates from the twelfth century, and in its
churchyard is a sixteenth-century memorial cross which is indeed an
admirable art treasure.
An artist will fall in love with the ancient mill, picturesquely planted
on the river’s bank; and, if it were not that the proudly set Château
Gaillard, to be seen in the distance, draws one to it in a magnetic and
inexpressible fashion, many pages of his sketch-book would undoubtedly
reproduce some of the charm of the environment of this otherwise
unattractive village, which it may be said possesses no accommodation
for the traveller save the roadside tavern.
The road to Les Andelys runs from St. Pierre, by the left bank of the
Seine, for nearly a dozen kilometres.
Above are the great towering crags of chalk, cut in fantastic forms; and
beside one, almost upon the same level, is the great boat and barge
traffic of the Seine. One sees great barges, some coal-laden from
Belgium and others with cargoes of wine, cotton, or lumber from Havre
and Rouen, all bound for Paris.
The twin towns of Les Andelys are famed--if famed they are in the minds
of the casual travellers--for the “Saucy Castle” of Richard Cœur de
Lion,--the Château Gaillard, his “daughter of a year,” as he himself
called it.
The great Continental strength of the Kings of England--the Angevin
kings, not English kings, mark well--who were the Ducs de Normandie,
gave to the France of Philippe-Auguste no little concern. They held
nearly, if not quite all, the coast of ancient Gaul, from the
northernmost limits of Normandy to the Pyrenees; and were virtually
masters of Bretagne, Anjou, Maine, and Aquitaine, which encircled the
France of Philippe-Auguste like a vast belt and struck to the heart the
new empire.
The great Philippe-Auguste, who hoped to do so much toward welding new
France, had professed a great fondness for Richard Cœur de Lion, and
had even undertaken the Third Crusade in company with him. This did not
prevent him, however, from assailing the English possessions in France,
ultimately occupying Normandy, Maine, and Poitou.
Among the heritages which had come down to Richard Cœur de Lion from
the Angevin Henry II. was the desire, as far as possible, to protect
his fair province of Normandy from the political outbreaks and warlike
invasions which might happen at any time.
Richard was not as great a political power as Philippe-Auguste; but he
was more than his equal in military skill. He cared not so much to
possess the sceptre of his brother king as his sword. Accordingly he
erected the redoubtable fortress at Les Andelys, which to-day, ruin
though it is, charms the thousands that have appreciated its majesty and
its all dominant situation high above the cobble-paved main street of
Petit Andelys; so distant from the surface of the river which washes its
very haunches that the river boats and barges look like crawling,
creeping things endowed with crude animal forces rather than steam or
manpower.
When the historian writes of Château Gaillard and the siege which it
withstood against Philippe-Auguste he writes of one of the most decisive
and memorable events in the annals of French history; and for this
reason it is not recounted here. All histories give it in full.
As a monument of military architecture Château Gaillard, putting aside
the interest in the events of its history, holds, without contradiction,
the premier place among all structures of the same class which to-day
exist throughout Europe.
Whoever wishes to know what a mediæval château--in this case a fortified
castle of great size, and as near as possible, perhaps, to
invulnerability--was really like, should study the Château Gaillard of
Richard Cœur de Lion in detail.
[Illustration: _Ancient Plan of_ CHATEAU GAILLARD]
It was Richard Cœur de Lion, an English king, who built this
stronghold to guard his dominions on the Seine, but the whole fabric, as
is the case with English history of the period, was built upon a
foundation manifestly not English.
Artists have often limned the outlines of this great fortress both in
detail and in conjunction with its charming environment; but justice has
hardly been done. Perhaps it was not possible, for certainly Château
Gaillard must be seen to be appreciated.
Cotman, Turner, and, in more recent times, Alfred East, R. A., have all
painted it and its proud position; and scores of lesser artists have
tried their hand. Certainly no mediæval monument existing in modern
times has a more commanding or magnificently picturesque situation.
The Seine at Petit Andelys amplifies itself at the bend across which the
lion-hearted Richard spread his chains in defence of his château. Above,
scarce five hundred yards, the river is narrower than at any other part
along its length between Paris and the sea.
The tiny islands just below the bridge dot the stream quite in the
manner of the wooded islets elsewhere, but the background, the
château-crowned height, the winding river road to Vernon, flanked by
forest-clad hills, the woods above Vacherie, and the chalky stratified
formation off toward Muids,--all combine to make an ensemble which can
only be seen in Normandy, along the valley of the Seine.
[Illustration: _The Seine at Petit Andelys_]
The twin towns of Les Andelys are quite the most delightful and charming
towns in all the Seine valley. None are so beautifully situated, so
characteristically unworldly, and yet so gay with local life and
colour on a national holiday.
Petit Andelys, on the river bank, is a sort of watering-place suburb for
the larger town, which lies “_un bon kilometre_” away, the native tells
you, up a long, straight, tree-shaded boulevard, which would add glory
to a much greater city.
Each of the towns possess a magnificent and delightful mediæval church.
That of Grand Andelys is the more elaborate and is truly a grand affair,
with very good late Gothic, some good fifteenth-century glass, curious
aisle vaultings and arches in its interior; and, finally, a north façade
in the ugliest of Renaissance workmanship which ever disgraced an
otherwise beautiful Gothic fabric.
The Hotel du Grand Cerf, a sixteenth-century tavern, which has come down
to the present day still possessed of some of its ancient furnishings of
old oak, stone, and plaster, is another great attraction in Grand
Andelys.
The present café shows most of these: a great Renaissance fireplace with
its accessories, an overhanging mantel, and a couple of corner cupboards
which are delightful. The entrance from the courtyard is also
elaborately carved. Walter Scott and Victor Hugo have both sung the
praises of the house and graced its board, and it should be seen by
travellers.
St. Sauveur’s at Petit Andelys is in quite a different class from its
sister church at Grand Andelys. It is smaller, and a thoroughly
consistent twelfth-century fabric, wholly delightful in its plan and
execution. In short, it is one of the most perfectly designed and
preserved edifices of its kind in all France.
The fêtes of the patron saints of Les Andelys, Ste. Clotilde at Grand
Andelys (June) and St. Sauveur at Petit Andelys (August), are events
which draw great crowds from round about, and are the cause of much
gaiety of a truly local nature.
Grand Andelys has, moreover, a miraculous fountain dedicated to Ste.
Clotilde. It is the centre for a pilgrimage on the second of June of
each year, the date on which the saint, who was the wife of Clovis,
caused the water to be turned to wine. The same thing has not happened
since; but the fountain is still a venerated shrine.
The national fête on the fourteenth of July brings out crowds of people
from the inland towns and villages, to bathe and go boating in the
river, and eat and drink in the gardens of Petit Andelys’s two charming
riverside hotels.
The Anglo-Saxon tourist will not want for company here at Petit Andelys,
though it is not a very popular tourist resort. But if he drifts into
the garden courtyard of the Hôtel Bellevue, in mid-July or August, or
indeed at most any time between May and November, he will find a joyous
crowd of artists gathered about a long table set beneath the trees. At
night the electric lights--the one worldly note of it all--twinkle out
from among the trees, and the talk on art, literature, _and automobiles_
which goes from mouth to mouth, would fill any one with interest, and
hold his attention no matter how blasé he may think himself.
In the ancient district of Vexin lying back of Les Andelys, in the
valley of the Gambon, and beyond, are many little farming villages and
towns which are a delight to the artist and the traveller who is also a
seeker after local colour: Ecouis, with its great collegiate church;
Etrepagny, with a fourteenth-century church and a fine hotel in the
style of Louis XIII.; Gamaches, with some underground remains and other
traces of an old fortress-château; Thilliers-en-Vexin, with the Château
de Boisdenemetz, built under Louis XIII., the building and grounds
having been laid out by Mansard; and Fontenay, with the Château of
Beauregard, where was born the Abbé de Chaulieu, celebrated as much by
his Anacreontic poems as by his churchly qualifications.
As one draws near to Gisors one passes the ruined donjon of
Neufles-St.-Martin (1182), built by Henry II. of England, and the
ancient Château de Vaux, built also on the plans of Mansard, but now
forming the manor-house of a great farm.
Gisors is not often visited by casual travellers in Normandy. They
usually make for Evreux, when they leave the Seine valley, in order to
visit its cathedral, they will tell you; certainly not for anything
else, for Evreux does not possess many tourist attractions.
As a matter of fact, they would do better to leave Evreux out of their
itinerary and visit Gisors, which has a great mediæval Gothic and
Renaissance church, quite as grand and bizarre as Evreux Cathedral. The
Church of St. Gervais at Gisors dates from the year 1240, and is called
by the native, with unwarranted pride, “_la cathédrale_.”
[Illustration: _Collegiate Church, Ecouis_]
To a great extent its foundation was due to Blanche of Castile; and it
is one of those highly interesting works occasionally to be found in
France, which has no architectural style in particular and is
accordingly, in the eyes of the critical experts, an ungainly thing.
But St. Gervais de Gisors is a remarkable work. It possesses two
elaborate late Gothic portals, though for the most part its details are
frankly Renaissance. Again, the still earlier period of its foundation
crops out bare and unadorned. In the sacristy is a rare bibliographical
treasure, a register on parchment of the brothers and sisters of the
_Confrérie de l’Assomption Notre Dame_. Heading the list are the names
of Charles V., his queen, and his suite, the Duc de Bourgogne, the Duc
de Berri, the Duc d’Orleans, the Duchess d’Orleans, the Comte d’Etampes,
etc. This fine piece of work is admirably ornamented with miniature and
armorial blazonings and continues the roll of names up to 1776.
Altogether it is a manuscript of great interest and worth.
Gisors itself is rather a smug town with a characteristically good hotel
(l’Ecu de France) and the usual collection of country shops.
The Ept and two smaller branches run through the town; and here and
there the picturesque wash-houses on their banks group themselves most
picturesquely, with the roof tops of the houses round about and the
church steeple or the donjon of the old château rising high above.
The history of Gisors has been most vivid, and there are many remains of
its past activities and glories in warfare and strategy. Before the
tenth century, Gisors was but the site of a small château held as a fief
from the Church of Rouen. Ultimately it was acquired by
Guillaume-le-Roux, who made Gisors the key of the eastern frontier
between Normandy and the royal domain of the Kings of France.
The remains of the fortress-chateau, built by Guillaume-le-Roux in 1097,
show plainly that it was one of the wonders of the military architecture
of its time. Additions and reinforcements were made in turn by Henri I.
and II.; and, from the conquest of Normandy by Philippe-Auguste until
to-day, its ruins, though fragmentary and widely separated, form one of
the greatest collections of details of a mediæval fortress to be seen in
the north of France. It does not form a unit as does the château at Les
Andelys, nor is it a mere tower or donjon, as at Arques, Falaise, or
Conches, but it presents a convincing indication of its former strength
and magnitude.
Within its confines are the remains of a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas
of Canterbury; but the chief feature is the great Tour des Prisonniers,
some sixty odd feet in height.
[Illustration: _Gisors_]
This great cylindrical tower was erected by Philippe-Auguste, and for a
long time served as a prison of state. Many will remember an old steel
engraving of a painting called “The Prisoner of Gisors,” which depicts
the interior of this great tower.
In 1527 François I. gave the domain of Gisors to Renée de France, on the
occasion of her marriage to the Duke of Ferrara.
In 1718 it was given to Fouquet, in exchange for Belle-Ile-en-Mer, and
later, in turn, to the Comte d’Eu, and the Duc de Penthièvre.
On the little bridge which crosses the Ept, between the station and the
church, is a statue of the Virgin, which perpetuates the thanks of
Philippe-Auguste at having been saved from drowning in the stream below,
when he had fallen with his mounted escort through the rotting timbers
of an old-time bridge. The inscription thereon tells the story in
detail.
At Dangu is still a splendid château, and at St.-Clair-sur-Ept are the
remains of a fortified castle, where, in 911, was signed the treaty by
which Charles the Simple ceded Neustria to the pirate Rollon, whom
Normans to-day so proudly revere.
At this time the Norman territory was bounded by the Manche, the extreme
limits of the Cotentin, and, probably, by the rivers Mayenne, Sarthe,
Eure, Andelle, and Bresle; leaving Vexin, in the southeast, a debatable
land which was to be the scene of future struggles between
Philippe-Auguste and Richard Cœur de Lion and Jean-Sans-Terre.
Rollon at this time embraced Christianity, and the Archbishop Françon,
who baptized him, obtained from his new convert large donations in
favour of many monasteries and churches; among others the cathedrals of
Rouen, Bayeux, and Evreux, and the abbeys of St. Ouen, Jumièges, and
Mont St. Michel.
From this time on the fierce pirates, the former companions of Rollon’s
dangers and glories, were so tractable under his will and the new laws
which were promulgated, that they soon became rich and opulent. Thieving
and brigandage disappeared, and in their place law and order reigned in
these parts for the first time.
The “Echiquier” was only permanently established at Rouen in 1499,
however, and took the name of the Parliament of Normandy.
Chaumont-en-Vexin, on the national road to Pontoise, is a delightfully
picturesque hillside town, once a residence of the French kings who
built a castle here to aid them in their struggles for the possession
of Normandy. There is also a fifteenth-century church.
Down the river valley, below St. Clair, are Berthenouville, with the
remains of a mediæval château; Dampsmesnil, to be classed in the same
category; and Bray, the nearest railway station to Ecos, which has a
fine Renaissance château of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
[Illustration: _A Seine Hamlet_]
Some of these small towns have a remarkably busy appearance on account
of the manufacture of zinc, which appears to be the principal industry
of a neighbourhood otherwise given over solely to farming and grazing.
On the Seine above Les Andelys, until one reaches Vernon, are a
succession of tiny villages and hamlets, each with its weather-worn
church, smoking-room, and tobacco shop, with an occasional large estate
on its outskirts. Vezillon, with its bare, tumble-down, and deserted
church; Bouafles, on the flank of the hillside running up to the Forêt
des Andelys; Courcelles, with its church-spire and pigeon-loft
inextricably mixed; and Port Mort, with its great _menhir_ of untold age
and uncertain origin, all surrounded by straight-furrowed wheat-fields,
form one of the most delightful parts of the Seine valley.
Opposite Les Andelys is Tosny, a riverside market-garden town on a hill,
with a remarkably picturesque little aisleless church bearing a date
over its front portal of 1817; but which in its framework, as one can
see from an occasional uncovered arch and pillar, is distinctly Norman
of many centuries ago.
Just beyond Tosny, on the same bank, is the military prison-town of
Gaillon, with its long steep hill, one of the most terrible in France to
travellers by road; while still further to the westward is Louviers,
with its beautiful flamboyant church, and rival hotels of more than
ordinary provincial excellence. One is the “show place” of the town,
with its old timbered front and its polished kitchen utensils. The
other, the hotel of the travelling salesman, in the Grande Rue, is less
picturesque, but no less comfortable.
There is little enough of interest at Gaillon to-day, though the origin
of the town dates from the foundation of the Gallo-Romain fortress here.
Gaillon was given to the Archbishop of Rouen by Philippe-Auguste after
the conquest of Normandy. In 1500 Cardinal d’Amboise, the minister of
Louis XII., laid the foundations of a great country-house here upon the
foundation of the earlier fortress-château. It was one of the most
splendid examples of the Renaissance in France, with a beautiful extent
of sculptured decorations and furnishings, before it fell at the
Revolution. Little remains to-day except a small part now built into the
military prison. Its admirable entrance façade was preserved, and has
now been reërected in the courtyard of the Ecole des Beaux Arts at
Paris.
One great event Gaillon has in the course of each year, and that is the
now famous “Courses de Gaillon” for the hill-climbing championship of
the automobile world. The great annual event excites more interest than
any other similar affair. It is solely for racing machines, unlike the
Château Thierry event or the international motor-cycle race at Dourdan.
Even more so than the great Gordon-Bennett race itself, do the races at
Gaillon hold the attention of the leaders in automobile sport; for it is
there that the real test of power and reliability takes place among
makers and drivers alike.
The hill of Gaillon is tremendously steep, almost like the side of a
house. It is not of great length compared to some of the mountain roads
of Dauphiné and Savoie. It is not even a poor, rough, winding road, as
is Ventoux, where a competitive affair was held during the present
summer; but it is by far the stiffest climb of three kilometres, or a
trifle more, on any of the great national roads of France. Usually such
abrupt ascents or descents in France have been avoided, or at least
lengthened and made less steep.
The Gaillon hill has come to be accepted as the severest test an
automobile can be put to on the main roads of France; but the rest of
the twenty kilometres from Vernon to Pont de l’Arche is a superbly
levelled highway.
The roadways of France may not have that dainty picturesqueness of those
of the southern counties of England, but their vistas are much more
sublime and grand, and there is really nothing at all monotonous in
long stretches of tree-lined, straightaway highways, such as abound in
all the departments which go to make up modern France.
The Frenchman when he visits England, as a party of automobilists did
during the present year, puts it more strongly even and, of course, more
picturesquely, when he writes:
“_Des routes bien indiquées, mais qui, par leur peu de largeur en
certains points et leurs virages brusques et à angle droit nous
faisaient encore parfois regretter nos belles routes françaises droites
et larges._
“_L’aspect du pays n’en est cependant pas moins fort attrayant,
rappelant avec ses verts cottages, ses delicieuses prairies, et les
nombreux troupeaux de moutons qui sillonnent les routes, certains coins
de notre Normandie._”
It is always “our beautiful France” with a Frenchman, and rightly, too.
The real hill of Gaillon begins in the town itself, which is not very
attractive, with its huge military establishment and its not very
well-kept main street. Half-way up this main street, which is about as
bad a bit of paving while it lasts as one is likely to meet in France,
past the curiously ugly Renaissance church, and the one or two
picturesque timbered houses which the town possesses, winds the first
stages of this famous hill.
Singularly enough, there is no way of going around Gaillon, which is
often the case in a French town which has narrow, tortuous streets; and,
incidentally, the observation is here set forth that, without doubt, the
next question with regard to civic improvements, which ought to occupy
the attention of the authorities in all lands, is the consideration of
some system of encircling roads or boulevards, which shall enable
automobilists to go around a town. Automobilists are unquestionably the
coming road-users, for whom legislation should be made.
Continuing through the town, this great national highway flattens itself
out for a space, on a little plateau from which the hill takes a fresh
start. For something over a kilometre it rises straight and bold; then
dips, as if to give one an opportunity to take breath. Finally it rises
for a short, straight length in an ascent which must be dangerously near
a twenty-five per cent. grade, something really astonishing when
achieved by an automobile; for few railway lines in the world are laid
out to accomplish more than one in ten.
On the occasion of this great event last year the start from the Hôtel
Bellevue at Les Andelys was something in the nature of a pious
pilgrimage to the shrine of this comparatively new force--the gas
achieved from the carburation of _essence à pétrole_. It was an early
hour,--all tried and true automobilists know, like fishermen, the value
of the hours just after daybreak,--the hotel garage was all astir, and
empty _bidons_, old rags, and greasy oil-tins littered the very
dining-tables of the inn’s pretty garden.
It is but a short ten kilometres to Gaillon, and one thence to the hill;
but garage accommodation is limited, and the first start is at seven in
the morning. Hence it is necessary to “Speed! speed! with the wings of
the morning,” as Henley puts it.
Out by the back entrance, along the quay, thence to the highroad and
across the bridge to Port Morin, which the Prussians destroyed in ’71;
and, climbing the slope toward Tosny, with nothing remarkable about it
but its grand view of the Seine and its church with the Norman doorway
and pillars,--which even the natives don’t know are Norman, because the
restored façade bears the date of 1817,--one soon leaves the sight of
Petit Andelys behind, though the quaint but beautiful shell of the
Château Gaillard can be seen long afterward.
Soon there is a drop down a long gentle slope, another flight of that
same great hill on whose crown is St. Barbe, only reached by the direct
road known as the big hill, and one comes at once to the little group of
ordinary, mean little road-houses, dignified with the pretentious name
of hotels, known to all travellers by the highroad.
A piercing hoot and an ominous rumble--an automobile, of course--is
heard; and the roadway is magically cleared, awaiting what is naturally
supposed to be one of the participants of the races. But it proves to be
only the local station omnibus, whose conductor has adopted this
up-to-date and efficacious but misleading means of making himself heard.
As for the great hill climb itself, a report of it here would not--could
not--differ greatly from those one has read of similar affairs
elsewhere, save to recall that it is all up-hill work, and when a
hundred and twenty odd kilometres per hour are recorded it means a speed
of between seventy-five and eighty miles an hour, which on the level
might be almost any believable rate of speed.
The day of the hill climb is Gaillon’s great day of the year, and when
the crowd departs it again subsides into its usual somnolence.
“_Gaillon! elle est morte_,” is a saying which one hears in the
neighbouring towns, and it is not hard to believe. From here to Vernon,
by either bank, one passes nothing of note.
United with the pretty little town of Vernon, with its tree-bordered
quays and cafés and a certain restaurant famous for its _matelote_, is
Vernonnet, interesting only for the relic of an old-time,
twelfth-century château with two great coiffed towers.
Vernon is not amply endowed. Its situation is nearly all it has to
recommend it; but its church is fine, and there is a cylindrical,
ivy-hung tower that will prompt a question. It is the “_tour des
archives_,” the only remains of a fortified château built here by that
Duke of Normandy who was Henry I. of England.
The Château de Bizy, one of the most imposing Renaissance châteaux of
Normandy, was built by the Maréchal de Belisle; and ultimately passed to
the Comte d’Eu and the Duc de Penthièvre. It was mutilated during the
Revolution, as were most of the other monuments of France; but General
Suir restored it, when it was presented to the Duchess d’Orleans.
Through the forest of Bizy, on the way to Evreux, one comes upon one of
those bits of forest-road which lend so much variety to travel by road
in France. Literally as smooth as if sandpapered, almost free from dust,
and lined on either side by trees, which shelter one from the sun, they
form a pleasant interlude in the day’s journey.
Crossing the Seine, one comes to Giverny, a not very attractive little
village of itself, but greatly affected by the school of impressionist
painters who have foregathered under the banner of Claud Monet, who
lives there. This influx of artist life has made the prosperity of the
natives who dwell in this little waterside town. It is really upon the
Ept, a tributary of the Seine, distant half a mile. A hotel of more than
ordinary pretensions has sprung up; and its dining-room and café are
amply decorated with sketches by many whose names are already great in
the world of art.
From Vernon, the metropolis of the Seine between Paris and Rouen, it is
but four kilometres to Giverny, and even here one may see the effect of
the influx of Englishmen and Americans who annually spend the four
summer months here.
La Roche-Guyon forms a sort of boundary sentinel between the ancient
domain of the Dukes of Normandy and that of the Kings of France. Here
the Seine leaves Normandy, and the ruined donjon tower of the old
château, and the Renaissance edifice at its base, the home of the La
Rochefoucauld family, is the first of Normandy’s châteaux on the way to
the sea. It sits proudly upon the chalky promontory in quite an idyllic
castled-crag fashion.
The donjon of the ancient château was built in 998 by a seigneur named
Guy or Gyon. This curious structure is approximately triangular on the
outside, and cylindrical in its interior. There are also vast
subterranean passages, cut into the rock upon which the donjon is built.
In 1419 the English, under the Earl of Warwick, besieged the ancient
Château of Roche-Guyon and obtained its capitulation, after having
undermined a portion of its walls.
“_Guy le Bouteiller lui conseilla s’avancer jusqu’à sous les
ramparts..... de faire miner sécrétement ces grottes pour faire écrouler
toutes les constructions qui les surplombaient, et écraser les habitants
sous un monceau de ruines._” (Chron. du Religieux de St. Denis.)
One may visit the new château in the absence of the La Rochefoucauld
family, and truly it is worth seeing, though it has none of the really
gorgeous appointments of its Loire compeers.
At the entrance one reads on an iron plaque, which dates from 1597, and
is surmounted by the armorial bearings of the Dukes of Roche-Guyon,
certain articles concerning “_Les droits d’acquit et plage deubs aux
seigneurs de Roche-Guyon_,” and beside a doorway a little further on, as
if it were a voice of welcome, an inscription which reads “_C’est mon
plaisir_.”
Near La Roche-Guyon is Haute Lisle, with a curious rock-cut church or
chapel, like that of St. Adrien near Rouen, but rather more elaborate.
This completes a list of the chief sights and scenes of the Seine valley
as it crosses Normandy on its way from its source in the Côte d’Or to
its juncture with salt water at Havre.
Dumas, in “The Vicomte de Bragelonne,” describes the Seine as “the
beautiful river which encloses France a thousand times in its loving
embraces, before deciding upon joining its waters with the ocean.”
This is a true enough description, particularly with respect to its
convolutions between Vernon and Caudebec, where the stream sweeps in
long untrammelled curves of a radius which makes the barge traffickers
wish for an occasional portage of a mile or two which would cut off a
score by river.
[Illustration: _The Two Châteaux of La Roche-Guyon_]
Let us pray nothing will ever happen which will enable the river
trafficker to cut the corners. It has been estimated that an exceedingly
moderate amount of canalization would reduce the distance, from Paris to
the sea through Normandy, one-half; but by the process the charm of the
Seine would be despoiled. Instead, the long, sinuous tows of many-hued
barges would be supplanted by high-speed express-boats, perhaps run by
an overhead trolley from an electrical current transmitted from the
shore.
Where, then, would be the recollection of the vast river-borne traffic
of days gone by, when kings and princes made their way to the coast
cities by galleys and sailing boat, or travelled in carriages along its
pleasant banks? Instead of châteaux to crown its hilltops, we would have
towering chimney-stacks of the “power stations,” and everything would be
regulated by clockwork and machinery.