Havre with its great docks, its busy streets, and fast electric tramcars
that frighten away foot passengers with noisy motor horns does not compel a
very long stay, although one may chance to find much interest among the
shipping, when such vessels as Mr Vanderbilt's magnificent steam yacht,
without a mark on its spotless paint, is lying in one of the inner basins.
If you wander up and down some of the old streets by the harbour you will
find more than one many-storied house with shutters brightly painted, and
dormers on its ancient roof. The church of Notre Dame in the Rue de Paris
has a tower that was in earlier times a beacon, and it was here that three
brothers named Raoulin who had been murdered by the governor Villars in
1599, are buried.
On the opposite side of the estuary of the Seine, lies Honfleur with its
extraordinary church tower that stands in the market-place quite detached
from the church of St Catherine to which it belongs. It is entirely
constructed of timber and has great struts supporting the angles of its
walls. The houses along the quay have a most paintable appearance, their
overhanging floors and innumerable windows forming a picturesque background
to the fishing-boats.
Harfleur, on the same side of the river as Havre, is on the road to
Tancarville. We pass through it on our way to Caudebec. The great spire of
the church, dating from the fifteenth century, rears itself above this
ancient port where the black-sailed ships of the Northmen often appeared in
the early days before Rollo had forced Charles the Simple (he should have
been called "The Straightforward") to grant him the great tract of French
territory that we are now about to explore.
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