The whole coast-line northeast from Havre to the borders of Picardy is a delightful succession of villages and towns where the salt smell of the sea mingles with the odours of wild flowers.
Along the fringe of the coast itself the watering-places crowd close one upon the other, from the more ambitious resorts of Dieppe, Fécamp, Etretat, and Tréport, with their casinos and conventional amusements, to the quiet and tranquil little villages such as Yport, Petites Dalles, St. Valery en Caux, and Berneval, which possess quite all the advantages of the larger and more frequented resorts, so far as the charm of prospect goes, with none of their drawbacks.
From Havre to Etretat one rises to a grass-grown, chalky height, which extends quite all the distance to the famous "picture-rocks" of the latter place.
[Illustration: _Song of the Pays de Caux_]
Just after leaving Havre, on the heights which seemingly hang so perilously above the city itself are the Phares de la Hève, two great quadrangular towers which were built in 1775. The larger of the towers has a flash-light in its lantern which is visible at sea a distance of fifty-one miles in clear weather. Between the two is situated one of those gaunt, long-armed semaphores, like Don Quixote's windmill, with which the coast of France is so plentifully supplied. They are the forerunners of the wire-less telegraphy of to-day, and certainly serve their purpose admirably.
To Montivilliers, somewhat back from the coast, one passes the modern Château of Colmoulins, built after the style of the Renaissance, whose chatelain possesses, it is said, many fine pictures by old masters and the canopied bed in which hath once slept France's great admiral, Jean Bart. Through the valley runs a charming little river called the Légarde.
The old-time pigeon-house attached to a great house or in a barn-yard is a frequent sight in Normandy. Usually it was a great, isolated round tower, large enough, one would think, to shelter thousands of pigeon families. That of the manor-house of Ango at Varengéville is one of the most curious of all, while St. Ouen at Rouen had, in the sixteenth century, one cruciform in shape, whose lower regions formed a cellar, the ground floor a poultry-house, and above was an open hanger or place for storing hay and grain.