Henry Blackburn

'Trouville est une double extrait de Paris—la vie est une fÊte, et le costume une mascarade.'—Conty.

The watering-places of Normandy are so well known to English people that there is little that is new to be said respecting them; at the same time any description of this country would not be considered complete without some mention of the sea-coast.

The principal bathing places on the north coast are the following, commencing from the east:—Dieppe, FÉcamp, Étretat, Trouville and Deauville, Villers-sur-mer, Houlgate, Cabourg, and Cherbourg. We will say a few words about Trouville and Étretat (as representative places) and conclude with some statistics, in an Appendix, which may be useful to travellers.

Life at Trouville is the gayest of the gay: it is not so much to bathe that we come here, as because on this fine sandy shore near the mouth of the Seine, the world of fashion and delight has made its summer home; because here we can combine the refinements, pleasures, and 'distractions' of Paris with northern breezes, and indulge without restraint in those rampant follies that only a Frenchman, or a Frenchwoman, understands. It is a pretty, graceful, and rational idea, no doubt, to combine the ball room with the sanatorium, and the opera with any amount of ozone; and we may well be thankful to Dumas for inventing a seaside resort at once so pleasant and so gay.

Of the daily life at Trouville and Deauville there is literally nothing new to be told; they are the best, the most fashionable, and the most extravagant of French watering-places; and there is the usual round of bathing in the early morning, breakfast at half-past ten, donkey-riding, velocipede racing, and driving in the country until the afternoon, promenade concerts and in-door games at four, dinner at six or seven (table-d'hÔte, if you please, where new comers are stared at with that solid, stony stare, of which only the politest nation in the world, is capable)—casino afterwards, with pleasant, mixed society, concert again and 'la danse.'

Of the fashion and extravagance at Trouville a moralist might feel inclined to say much, but we are here for a summer holiday, and we must be gay both in manner and attire. It is our business to be delighted with the varied scene of summer costume, and with all the bizarre combinations of colour that the beautiful Parisians try upon us; but it is impossible altogether to ignore the aspect of anxiety which the majority of people bring with them from Paris. They come 'possessed,' (the demon is in those huge boxes, which have caused the death of so many poor facteurs, and which the railway pours out upon us, daily); they bring their burden of extravagance with them, they take it down to the beach, they plunge into the water with it, and come up burdened as before.

Dress is the one thing needful at Trouville—in the water, or on the sands. Look at that old French gentleman, with the cross of the Legion of Honour on his breast; he is neat and clean, his dress is, in all respects, perfection; and it is difficult to say whether it is the make of his boots, the fit of his gloves, or his hat, which is most on his mind—they furnish him with food for much thought, and sometimes trouble him not a little. Of the ladies' attire what shall we say? It is all described in the last number of 'Le Follet,' and we will not attempt to compete with that authority; we will rather quote two lines from the letter of a young English lady, who thus writes home to quiet friends,—'We are all delighted with Trouville; we have to make five toilettes daily, the gentlemen are so particular.'

Of the bathing at Trouville, a book might be written on the costumes alone—on the suits of motley, the harlequins, the mephistopheles, the spiders, the 'grasshoppers green,' and the other eccentric costumes de bain—culminating in a lady's dress trimmed with death's heads, and a gentleman's, of an indescribable colour, after the pattern of a trail of seaweed. Strange, costly creatures—popping in and out of little wooden houses, seated, solitary on artificial rocks, or pacing up and down within the limits prescribed by the keeper of the show—tell us, 'Monsieur l'administrateur,' something about their habits; stick some labels into the sand with their Latin names, tell us how they manage to feather their nests, whether they 'ruminate' over their food—and we shall have added to our store of knowledge at the seaside!

It is all admirably managed ('administered' is the word), as everything of the kind is in France. In order to bathe, as the French understand it, you must study costume, and to make a good appearance in the water you must move about with the dexterity and grace required in a ball room; you must remember that you are present at a bal de mer, and that you are not in a tub. There are water velocipedes, canoes for ladies, and floats for the unskilful; fresh water for the head before bathing, and tubs of hot water afterwards for the feet, on the sands; an appreciating and admiring audience on the shore; a lounge across the sands and through the 'Établissement,' in costumes more scanty than those of Neapolitan fish girls!

Yes, youth and beauty come to Trouville-by-the-sea; French beauty of the dresden china pattern, side by side and hand in hand, with the young English girl of the heavy Clapham type (which elderly Frenchmen adore)—all in the water together, in the prettiest dresses, 'sweetly trimmed' and daintily conceived; all joining hands, men and women having a 'merry go round' in the water—some swimming, some diving, shouting, and disporting themselves, and 'playing fantastic tricks before high heaven,'—to the admiration of a crowded beach.

'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' when English ladies join the party, and write home that 'it is delightful, that there is a refreshing disregard for what people may think at French watering-places, and a charming absence of self-consciousness that disarms criticism'! What does quiet paterfamilias think about his mermaid daughter, and of that touch about the 'absence of self-consciousness;' and would anything induce him to clothe himself in a light-green skin, to put on a pair of 'human fins,' or to perch himself on the rocks before a crowd of ladies on the beach, within a few yards of him? Yes, it is delightful—the prettiest sight and the brightest life imaginable; but is it quite the thing, we may ask, for English girls to take their tone (ever so little) from the Casino, and from the 'Guides Conty;' which they do as surely, as the caterpillar takes its colour from the leaf on which it feeds?

But the system of bathing in France is so sensible and good compared with our own; the facilities for learning to swim, the accommodation for bathers, and the accessories, are so superior to anything we know of in England, that we hardly like to hint at any drawbacks. We need not all go to Trouville (some of us cannot afford it), but we may live at most of these bathing places at less cost, and with more comfort and amusement than at home. They do manage some things better in France: at the seaside here the men dress in suits of flannel, and wear light canvas shoes habitually; the women swim, and take their children with them into the water,—floating them with gourds, which accustoms them to the water, and to the use of their limbs. At the hotels and restaurants, they provide cheap and appetizing little dinners; there is plenty of ice in hot weather, and cooling drinks are to be had everywhere: in short, in these matters the practical common sense of the French people strikes us anew, every time we set foot on their shores. Why it should be so, we cannot answer; but as long as it is so, our countrymen and countrywomen may well crowd to French watering-places.

The situation of Trouville is thus described by Blanchard Jerrold, who knows the district better than most Englishmen:—'Even the shore has been subdued to comfortable human uses; rocks have been picked out of the sand, until a carpet as smooth as Paris asphalte has been obtained for the fastidious feet of noble dames, who are the finishing bits of life and colour in the exquisite scene. Even the ribbed sand is not smooth enough; a boarded way has been fixed from the casino to the mussel banks, whither the dandy resorts to play at mussel gathering, in a nautical dress that costs a sailor's income. The great and rich have planted their Louis XIII. chateaux, their 'maisons mauresques' and 'pavillons À la renaissance,' so closely over the available slopes, round about the immense and gaudily-appointed Casino, and the Hotel of the Black Rocks, that it has been found necessary to protect them with masonry of more than Roman strength. From these works of startling force, and boldness of design, the view is a glorious one indeed. To the right stretches the white line of Havre, pointed with its electric phare; to the left, the shore swells and dimples, and the hills, in gentle curves, rise beyond. Deauville is below, and beyond—a flat, formal place of fashion, where ladies exhibit the genius of Worth to one another, and to the astonished fishermen.

Imagine a splendid court playing at seaside life; imagine such a place as Watteau would have designed, with inhabitants as elegantly rustic as his, and you imagine a Trouville. It is the village of the millionaire—the stage whereon the duchess plays the hoyden, and the princess seeks the exquisite relief of being natural for an hour or two. No wonder every inch of the rock is disputed; there are so many now in the world who have sipped all the pleasures the city has to give. Masters of the art of entering a drawing-room, the Parisians crowd seaward to get the sure foot of the mussel-gatherer upon the slimy granite of a bluff Norman headland; they bring their taste with them, and they get heartiness in the bracing air. The salon of the casino, at the height of the season, is said to show at once the most animated and diverting assemblage of Somebodies to be seen in the world.'

Deauville, separated only by the river Touques, is a place of greater pretension even than Trouville. It is, however, quite in its infancy; it was planned for a handsome and extensive watering-place, but the death of the Duc de Morny has stopped its growth,—large tracts of land, in what should be the town, still lying waste. It is quiet compared with Trouville, select and 'aristocratic,' and boasts the handsomest casino in France; it is built for the most part upon a sandy plain, but the houses are so tastefully designed, and so much has been made of the site, that (from some points of view) it presents, with its background of hills, a singularly picturesque appearance.

No matter how small or uninteresting the locality, if it is to be fashionable, il n'y aura point de difficultÉ. If there are no natural attractions, the ingenious and enterprising speculator will provide them; if there are no trees, he will bring them,—no rocks, he will manufacture them,—no river, he will cut a winding canal,—no town, he will build one,—no casino, he will erect a wooden shed on the sands!

But of all the bathing-places on the north coast of Normandy the little fishing-village of Étretat will commend itself most to English people, for its bold coast and bracing air. Situated about seventeen miles north-east of Havre, shut in on either side by rocks which form a natural arch over the sea, the little bay of Étretat—with its brilliant summer crowd of idlers and its little group of fishermen who stand by it in all weathers—is one of the quaintest of the nooks and corners of France.

There is a homelike snugness and retirement about the position of Étretat, and a mystery about the caves and caverns—extending for long distances under its cliffs—which form an attraction that we shall find nowhere else. Since Paris has found it out, and taken it by storm as it were, the little fishermen's village has been turned into a gay parterre; its shingly beach lined with chairs À volontÉ, and its shores smoothed and levelled for delicate feet. The Casino and the Établissement are all that can be desired; whilst pretty chÂlets and villas are scattered upon the hills that surround the town. There is scarcely any 'town' to speak of; a small straggling village, with the remains of a Norman church, once close to the sea (built on the spot where the people once watched the great flotilla of William the Conqueror drift eastward to St. Valery), and on the shore, old worn-out boats, thatched and turned into fishermen's huts and bathing retreats.

Étretat has its peculiar customs; the old fisher-women, who assume the more profitable occupation of washerwomen during the summer, go down to the shore as the tide is ebbing, and catch the spring water on its way to the sea; scooping out the stones, and making natural washing-tubs of fresh water close to the sea—a work of ten minutes or so, which is all washed away by the next tide. At Étretat almost everybody swims and wears a costume of blue serge, trimmed with scarlet, or other bright colour; and everybody sits in the afternoon in the gay little bay, purchases shell ornaments and useless souvenirs, sips coffee or ices, and listens to the band. For a very little place, without a railway, and with only two good hotels, Étretat is wonderfully lively and attractive; and the drives in the neighbourhood add to its natural attractions.

The show is nearly over for the season, at Étretat, by the time we leave it; the puppets are being packed up for Paris, and even the boxes that contained them will soon be carted away to more sheltered places. It is late in September, and the last few bathers are making the most of their time, and wandering about on the sands in their most brilliant attire; but their time is nearly over, Étretat will soon be given up to the fishermen again—like the bears in the high Pyrenees, that wait at the street corners of the mountain towns, and scramble for the best places after the visitors have left, the natives of Étretat are already preparing to return to their winter quarters.

It is the finest weather of the year, and the setting sun is brilliant upon the shore; a fishing-boat glides into the bay, and a little fisher-boy steps out upon the sands. He comes down towards us, facing the western sun, with such a glory of light about his head, such a halo of fresh youth, and health, as we have not seen once this summer, in the 'great world.' His feet are bare, and leave their tiny impress on the sand—a thousand times more expressive than any Parisian boot; his little bronzed hands are crystallized with the salt air; his dark-brown curls are flecked with sea-foam, and flutter in the evening breeze; his face is radiant—a reflection of the sun, a mystery of life and beauty half revealed.

After all we have seen and heard around us, it is like turning, with a thankful sense of rest, from the contemplation of some tricky effect of colour, to a painting by Titian or Velasquez; it is, in an artistic sense, transition from darkness to light—from the glare of the lamp to the glory of the true day.