Certainly when one is before his birthplace at Gruchy, it is not difficult to realize that at least there were no foppish or foolish influences at work in his youth, and that it was natural perhaps for him to carve out his future from the bald truth, as he saw it, in such pictures as "The Angelus" and "The Man with the Hoe."
There is a neglected corner of France in the extreme northwest of the Cotentin peninsula, beyond Cherbourg even, and known locally as the Hague. Cape Hague, the Hague lighthouse, and the Nez de Jobourg form a trinity of attractions for the traveller jaded with the stock sights of conventional watering-places.
It is but a short thirty kilometres from Cherbourg, _en route_ to nowhere, unless one is heading for America, and is known to Frenchmen as the most isolated spot of all the mainland of France. "One must not look there," they say, "for the wonders of art or civilization, for vegetation, the life of the casino, or the _tables d'hôte_ of the towns."
Instead all is rock and sand and cliffs and zigzag paths cut in the steep escarpment, against which the sea batters tumultuously throughout the year.
The landlords have not spoilt this region with Restaurants de Paris or Hôtels d'Angleterre, and, accordingly, it is one of the few accessible and delightful spots where the lover of nature sees it as God made it. What accommodation there is in the neighbourhood does not rise above the dignity of modest tavern; but one will get such repasts of sea foods as would make the fortune of the proprietor of a Parisian restaurant could he but serve them as well and as cheaply.
Habitations of all sorts are rare, and roads and railways less prolific here, perhaps, than in any other part of France. No railways, post-offices, or telegraphs, save the line that runs to the signal-station at the Hague lighthouse. But it has its advantages as a place of resort, nevertheless.
The beautiful meadows of Urville and St. Martin are brilliant with their carpets of flowers in spring-time, as green and fresh as if they were in the south, and the hills between which tiny rivers flow into the Atlantic or the Manche are as shady with leaves as Vallombrosa. Suddenly all this changes as if by magic. The little river valleys become shelving red and brown rock and yellow sand; and the prairies end in a sheer fall of chalk-white cliff, tremendous to contemplate.