CHAPTER II.

THE LIGHTHOUSES OF CAPE LA HEVE.

A.D. 1774.

Doux feux qui protégez et Thétis et la Seine, Sûrs et brillants rivaux des deux frères d’Hélène, Phares, je vous salue; assurez à jamais Le commerce opulent de l’heureuse Neustrie; Fixez dans ma patrie L’abondance, les arts, tous les fruits de la paix.

Casimir Delavigne.

Ye fires which guard both Thetis and the Seine, Bright shining compeers of the brothers twain— Castor and Pollux—vigilant fires, all hail! O gentle lights, I pray ye, never fail To guide secure each wealthy Neustrian keel, And to my country all the fruits reveal Of blessèd peace, and guard the common weal!

No one can have visited Havre without devoting at least an hour to the Cape La Hève, and to the two lighthouses which have extorted from Casimir Delavigne his poetical homage. A pilgrimage to this point is made all the more willingly that the pilgrim who accomplishes it must necessarily pass through Sainte-Adresse, and Sainte-Adresse—need we remind the reader?—is one of the marvels of Normandy.

“The delicious vale of Tempe, which the poets of all time have pleased themselves with investing in the riches of their imagination, possesses no attraction which the valley of Sainte-Adresse need envy: its limpid waters, the gently sloping hills which enclose it, the little gardens where for once the hand of Art has not defaced and desecrated the work of Nature; the pure ethereal freshness which it inhales from the breath of its myriad flowers, and which the wind of the plain never respires;—all charms, all seduces, and we exclaim, Happy he who can spend his life in an abode which Flora and Pomona embellish! The goddess Hygeia resides there throughout the year, and, by a happy alliance with Boreas, both contend for the pleasure of protecting this new Eden against the hideous host of human infirmities. Painters, seize your brushes, and let its image revive on your imitative canvas; poets, come hither in quest of inspiration!”

It is thus that Morlent expresses himself in his “Monographie du Havre.” It is true that Morlent—as the reader will conjecture—wrote in 1825. Since that date many things have greatly changed—the descriptive style as well as the valley of Sainte-Adresse, which is no longer anything else than a suburb of Havre, covered with edifices of a more or less picturesque character.

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The most curious thing which Sainte-Adresse has preserved is the story of the origin of its name. Namely: that a vessel driven by the currents into the immediate vicinity of the promontory of La Hève, which then extended a greater distance into the sea, was on the point of perishing. Already the despairing sailors had given up further efforts; the pilot, having abandoned the rudder, imitated the rest of the crew, and commended his soul to St. Denis, patron-saint of Caux,[53] whose spire was at intervals visible through the haze. “My friends,” said the captain, who in these circumstances had retained his presence of mind, “it is not St. Denis we must invoke, but _Sainte-Adresse_ (St. Skill), for it is only she who at this crisis can carry us safely into port.” The sailors regained courage; the ship entered Havre; and the phrase “Sainte-Adresse” became everywhere popular.

[53] Saint-Denys-Chef-de-Caux was formerly the port of the town now called Sainte-Adresse. Here Henry V. disembarked, in 1415, when he laid siege to Harfleur. But the sea, gradually encroaching on the Cape, has destroyed the village, the port, and the church where St. Denys was worshipped.

In reference to La Hève, the great writer, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, a native of Havre, relates a fantastic legend:—

“The Seine”—it is Cephas, one of the personages of _the Arcadia_, who speaks—“the daughter of Bacchus and nymph of Ceres, had pursued into the land of the Gauls the goddess of wheat, when she was seeking all the earth over for her daughter Proserpine. When Ceres had terminated her wanderings, the Seine begged of her, as a reward for her services, the meadows through which the river at present flows. The goddess consented, and granted, moreover, that wine should grow wherever the daughter of Bacchus planted her feet. She left then the Seine upon these shores, and gave her as her companion and follower the nymph Héva, who was bidden to watch beside her, for fear she might be carried away by some god of the sea, as her daughter Proserpine had been by the god of Hades. One day while the Seine was amusing herself on the sands in quest of shells, and when she fled, with loud cries, before the blue sea-waves which sometimes wetted her feet, Héva, her companion, discovered under the waters the white locks, the empurpled visage, and azure robe of Neptune. This god had come from the Orcades after a great earthquake, and was traversing the shores of Ocean, examining with his trident whether their foundations had been shattered. On seeing him, Héva shrieked loudly, and at her warning cry the Seine immediately fled towards the meadows. But the sea-god had also descried the nymph of Ceres, and moved by her brightness and charming mien, he drove his sea-horses in swift pursuit. Just as he was on the point of overtaking her, she cried upon Bacchus her father, and Ceres her mistress. Both heard her; and as Neptune stretched forth his arms to seize her, all the body of the Seine dissolved into water; her green veil and vestments, which the winds fluttered before her, were changed into emerald waves; she was transformed into a river of the same colour, which still finds a pleasure in winding through the scenes she had loved in her days of nymph-hood: but what is best worthy of notice is, that Neptune, despite the metamorphosis, has never ceased to love her, as is also said of the river Alpheus with regard to the fountain of Arethusa. But if the god of ocean has preserved his passion for the Seine, the Seine still cherishes her antipathy to him. Twice a day he pursues her with awful roar; and each time the Seine flies from him into the green inlands, ascending towards her source, contrary to the natural course of rivers.[54] And ever she separates her green waters from the cerulean billows of ocean.

[54] It is almost unnecessary to say that Saint-Pierre here refers to the _mascaret_, or “bore,” of the Seine.

“Héva died of sorrow for the loss of her mistress. But the Nereids, to reward her for her fidelity, raised to her memory on the shore a tomb of black and white stones, which are visible from a great distance. By a celestial artifice, they also enclosed in them an echo, that Héva, after her death, might both by sight and hearing forewarn the sailor of the dangers of the sea. This tomb is yonder precipitous mountain, composed of funereal strata of white and black stones. It still bears the name of Héva.”

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Cape La Hève, the ancient promontory of the Caletes, is one of the jetties, or breakwaters, of the great embouchure of the Seine; in the tenth century, it extended far into the sea, and made an integral part of the bank of l’Eclat, which is now separated from it by a channel upwards of 2000 yards in width. The bank, as its name indicates, has been broken up by a sudden eruption of the currents, or by an earthquake. Nor has ocean ceased its ravages, for it is calculated that its waters encroach seven feet upon the land every year.

If we may credit an old chronicle, the origin of the two lighthouses of La Hève is very ancient. They date back to the epoch when Harfleur was the rendezvous of Spanish fleets. The tower which then surmounted the groyne (_groing_) of Caux had been constructed in 1364; a fire was kindled on its summit in all weathers, and it was called the _Tour des Castillans_. Not a vestige was extant when the incessant representations of merchants and seamen determined the Government of Louis XV. to comply with the instance of the Chamber of Normandy by constructing the lighthouses which now illuminate the port of Havre.

The buildings represented in the accompanying illustration were erected in 1774. Surmounted at first by _chauffers_ in which coal was burned, each of them was crowned in 1781 by a lantern containing an illuminating apparatus of sixteen spherical reflectors, some lit up by three, and the others by two broad wicks. There were forty burners in the apparatus. The double paraboloidal reflectors of Bordier-Marceat, six to each lighthouse, were substituted for these faulty appliances in 1811 and 1814, and their number increased to ten in 1819. Finally, in 1845, the towers were restored and modified in their superstructure, so as to fit them for receiving the lenticular apparatus, and lanterns of 12 feet in diameter.[55] In the meantime, suitable dwellings for the light-keepers were erected between the two towers. Each keeper has two apartments, a closet, a store-room, and a wood-shed, which stands in an enclosed court. He is not, therefore, indifferently accommodated.

[55] These towers have recently undergone another alteration, and are now lit by the electrical apparatus; giving a light equal to 5000 Carcel burners, and visible for upwards of 27 miles.

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The elevations of the La Hève lighthouses present a very imposing appearance. The view from their summit is singularly impressive, and has even been compared by travellers to that of Corinth and Constantinople. When the air is clear, and the sky unclouded, the spectator can see as far as Barfleur on the south-west; on the west, Honfleur, Trouville, and the little picturesque bathing places on the Normandy coast: Villers, Houlgate, Cabourg, Beuzeval; and finally, in the remote distance, La Hogue, the scene of Admiral Russel’s celebrated victory. To the north, he discerns the Cape of Antifer, and the rent and sombre rocks of Etretat.