Three great gateways to Paris, from England's shores, lie through Normandy: via Cherbourg and the Cotentin, via Dieppe and the Pays de Caux, and via Havre and the Seine valley, by the old Norman capital of Rouen.
All three routes traverse a lovely country, but it is probable that the one by the great silent highway of the Seine is the most picturesque and historically interesting of its length in the whole world.
If the Seine be truly a great highway--the main street--of that elongated metropolis which extends from the Ile de la Cité, at Paris, to Havre, it is equally true that the roadways along either bank become its footpaths or sidewalks, and that the parallel highroads, running along either side not far from the river-bank, are as busy with wheeled traffic as any other of the great national roads of France.
"The Seine," says Michelet, "is the most civilized and the most perfect of the rivers of France. It bears the spirit of Paris to Normandy, to the sea, to England, and to far-away America."
"The valley," say the geographers, "is monotonous up to Paris, varied to Rouen, and picturesque to Havre." Deep-sea navigation is possible from its mouth to Paris, and above all as far as to Rouen, to which point great ships come and go with the same regularity that would obtain in a seacoast port. The tide of the ocean rises and falls as high up as Pont de l'Arche, where the first dam and lock are built.
The affluents of the Seine below Paris are the Oise, its principal tributary, which has its birth in the distant Ardennes in Belgium; the Epte, a "pure water" stream which flows through a charming valley, from Forges-les-Eaux to Giverny near Vernon; the Andelle, less important, but a wonderfully picturesque little river, which joins the parent stream near Pont de l'Arche. The Eure also comes to its confluence with the Seine at the same point, and the Risle, which rises near La Perche, after 140 kilometres, finally reaches the sea through the Seine at Quillebeuf.
The populous and charmingly situated towns of the Seine valley, its wooded banks and forests, and the delightful roads along its banks, with here and there a château half-hidden by trees, to say nothing of the bosom of the stream itself, which forms a greatly travelled highway of another sort, all combine to present a continually changing scene, which is not excelled in all France.