The first breaks in the monotony of the valley scenery are the approaches to, and the immediate suburbs about, Rouen. The river banks just below are particularly picturesque. The river between Rouen and La Bouille assumes a character different from that which marks it above a city. It was my special good fortune to traverse this portion sometime before sunrise. We left the city behind us masked in grey mist, only the iron _flèche_ of the cathedral piercing the cottony wrappings. On the motionless Seine not a ripple was astir, and the morning fog held leaves and trees in a close, breathless embrace. But at Croisset, with the shooting of the sun above the horizon came the melting hues and freshening breath of morning. As the clouds, slowly rolled apart, gave us glimpses of the magnificent panorama of Rouen set in its circlet of hills, the effect was that of the gradual lifting of a drop-curtain upon some fine scenic landscape. The river itself was a jewel of colour, reflecting the faintly tinted shipping along the wharves, the rich emerald of the trees, and the shadowy grasses along the shore. The steamer on its way steers in and out among a hundred little islands which give a magical effect of enchantment, so fairy-like and exquisite are their shapes and forms. With Croisset, Hautot, Loquence, and Sahurs, the majesty of the Rouen quays, wharves, spires, and cathedral towers gives place to the richer, softer beauty of rural village loveliness. But the most beautiful picture greeted our eyes as we approached La Bouille, which is picturesquely set against the greenery of a hilly back-ground, its bright, light-coloured houses so close to the water’s edge that the river was like a broken rainbow of colour, reflecting their tints in its ripples. Across the river was a magnificent expanse of meadow and tilled field, with a poplar now and then to serve as a sentinel guarding the bursting grain. The banks of the river are delightfully diversified by clusters of old thatched farm-houses, spreading fishing-nets, and old boats moored in tiny creeks. As we passed the last of the village houses, there were some wonderful effects of light and colour; all the confused indecision of light scurrying clouds piled above the meadows; the uncertain vagueness of a mist rolling still, like the skirts of a fleecy robe, over the distant river bends; and immediately above us the warmth, brilliance, and goldenness of sunrise in its early splendour. Couched amidst the mysterious shade of some dense foliage was the bending form of an old woman, filling her pitcher at the river-side, scarlet kerchiefed and dun skirted. Off in the grey distance was the figure of a peasant woman carrying her child upon her back, her tall, straight form magnified into strange attitude by the misty atmosphere. A brush capable of strong handling, and an eye trained to seize the more fleeting beauties of nature, would have found in this La Bouille picture a poem of colour and tenderness.
I have already mentioned the naturalness of the rustic life of the Seine fields and farm-houses. The sturdy simplicity of the Normandy peasant is his well-known characteristic. The farmers at the plough, the fishermen mending their nets, the shepherd tending his flocks, are not the least poetic of the elements which make the charm of this river scenery. There reigns here an Arcadian calm, a certain patriarchal simplicity. The complicated ingenuities and labour-saving machines of modern invention have not as yet become the fashion among the Normandy peasant-farmers, and thus every agricultural implement, seen out-of-doors, seems available for an artist’s purpose. The ploughs are marvels of ancient construction; oxen and horses are harnessed in ways known only to those who have learned the science as a secret handed down from sire to son; and carts, threshing-machines, rakes, and hoes have an air of venerability that matches well with the old gabled houses and worn rustic dress of the farmers. It is this aspect of age which imparts such beautiful low tones of colour to the pictures of human life along these shores. There are no flaring, flashing hues, no brilliant dashes of colour; instead, the tones of landscape, sky, atmosphere, and the human life blend in a beautiful harmony of soft low tints. In matters of toilet, the Normandy peasant’s taste is perfect. The farmers wear blouses of dark, sober blues; the women short skirts of dull green, brown or home-spun grey; their aprons are snuff-colour or lilac, and their close-fitting embroidered cap, or the coloured kerchief tied over their heads, brings into admirable relief their brilliant complexions, strong prominent features, and flaxen tresses.
In that morning’s journey from Rouen to Havre we enjoyed a delightful variety of out-door life. In the early sunrise hours there were visible the first symptoms of the farm-house in early rising. The farmer was seen striding over the dew-wet meadows to open barns or to drive forth the cattle; women were busy milking, and the children trudging to the river with pails and pitchers to be filled. Later, the fields were alive with the ploughmen’s cries, and men and women were starting out, rakes and scythes in hand, for their day’s work; children stood up to their chins in the yellow grain, in the midst of the scarlet _coquelicots_ and the star-eyed daisies. Towards noon there was a pretty picture of a farmer wheeling along the river bank a huge load of green grass, atop of which were seated two round, moon-faced children whose laps and hands were full of the brilliant field-flowers. Behind them walked the mother with a rake slung over her shoulder, her short skirts and scant draperies permitting a noble freedom of step and movement, her head poised as only the head of a woman used to the balancing of heavy burdens is ever held. Hers was altogether a striking figure, and the brush of Vollen or of Breton would have seized upon her to embody the type of one of his rustic beauties, whose mingled fierceness and grace make their peasants the rude goddesses of the plough.
One of the chief charms of the Seine scenery is the variety and contrast its shores present. One passes directly from the calm and the rural naturalness of sloping meadows fringed with osiers, willows, and poplars, to the walled quays of Caudebec, with its spires, broad avenues, and garden-enclosed houses. Caudebec is characterized by an imposing _château_ crowning its hillside, by beautiful gardens, terraces, its long row of “striped” houses stretching along its quays, and the beauty of its cathedral spire rising above the tree-trops.
Perhaps Villequier may be said to be the culminating point of beauty upon the Seine. Here the river seems only like a large lake, a fact which invests the landscape with its noble uprising hills and the beautiful, thickly wooded spurs of the hillocks, with something of the rounded finished aspect which belongs to lake scenery. The lovely village of Villequier itself peeps in and out of its encompassing trees as if with a conscious air of coquetry. The bright, gaily coloured houses grouped upon the water’s edge give a touch of Italian brilliancy to the scene, while its fine _château_ of Villequier and the old Gothic spire of the village church add the noble lines to the _ensemble_.
This bay of Villequier is the beginning of the bolder beauty of the Seine scenery. Its quieter aspects lie above Villequier. The artist in search of striking scenes and a rich variety of contrasts will find this part of the river afford fine material. On the way to Quillebœuf and Tancarville the shores of the river assume a hundred different aspects. There is the forest of Bretonne, the lovely valley of the Bolbec, the beautiful _château_ of Etalan, and the ruins of the Twelfth Century church. Quillebœuf itself stands boldly out into the river, perched upon a spur of rising ground, and is, perhaps, the most pretentious town upon the Seine. After Quillebœuf and Tancarville the loftier hills and thickly wooded shores of the river give place to wide, flat marshes and open valleys. The marshes just beyond Quillebœuf are, to our taste, its most distinguishing beauty; they run directly out to the most distant points of the horizon, and the rich yellow-green grass, with its brilliant bouquets of wild flowers scattered profusely over the flat treeless surface, makes a kaleidoscope of colour under the broad unbroken splendour of the noon-day sun. Cattle in large herds, horses, and sheep, pasture upon the rich meadows, so that the animal-painter finds here a superb landscape for the setting of his ruminating cows, fleecy sheep, or wild unbridled colts.
Just beyond these meadows the Seine loses all the character of a river. It has assumed, before its final plunge into the ocean, the turbulent, tumultuous aspect of a small sea, and like a lover wearing his lady’s colours, the river turns to the deeper greys and colder blues of the sea’s dark tint. The boat stops long enough at the wonderful old seaport town of Honfleur for one to catch a glimpse of its quaint turreted houses, its crooked narrow streets, its wharves with their picturesque assemblage of lateen-shaped sails. Then Havre is reached, and with those swarming quays and bright pebbly shores the Seine is lost in the great Atlantic.