Neuilly-sur-Seine

“ Why the king particularly wanted to visit the fair of Neuilly on that particular day of that particular spring-time, none of those that were in the secret of the adventure professed to know or even were curious to inquire. It was enough for them that the king, in spite of his ill-health, looked now with a favorable eye upon frivolity, and that a sport was toward with which their palates for pleasure were not already jaded, and they were as gleeful as children at the prospect of the coming fun.
Neuilly knew nothing of the honor that was awaiting it. ”

“ Regaining the route de Paris, we passed once more into the normal Seine landscape, with smiling towns close-set on its shores, with lilac and28 wistaria pouring over high walls, with bright little cafés on sunny village squares, with flotillas of pleasure-boats moored under willow-shaded banks.
Never more vividly than in this Seine country does one feel the amenity of French manners, the long process of social adaptation which has produced so profound and general an intelligence of life. ”

“ The keep cannot be ascended without difficulty. We ventured to scale it; and we were fully repaid for our labor by the prospect which we gained. The Seine, full of green willowy islands, flows beneath the rock in large lazy windings: the peninsula below is flat, fertile, and well wooded: on the opposite shores, the fantastic chalky cliffs rise boldly, crowned with dark forests.
I have already once had occasion to allude to the memorable strife occasioned by the erection of Château Gaillard, which its royal founder is reported to have so named by way of mockery. ”

“ Two years were spent in the little garden at Neuilly, which was full of horrible dahlias, growing close together and coloured like woollen balls. My aunts never came there. My mother used to send money, bonbons, and toys. The foster-father died, and my nurse married a concierge, who used to pull open the door at 65, Rue de Provence. ”

“ Here the Seine was as bright as a new button, its banks properly lined with gray, but not dull-looking, walls, the two streets which parallel it on each side alive with traffic; at every few blocks a handsome bridge; every block a row of very habitable, if not imposing, apartment-houses; at various points views of Notre-Dame, the Tuileries, the Cours-la-Reine, of the Trocadéro, and the Eiffel Tower. I followed the Seine from city wall to city wall one day, from Charenton to Issy, and found every inch of it delightful. ”

“ Making our way back to the highway, we pass through beautiful scenery, and once more reach the banks of the Seine at the town of Duclair which stands below the escarpment of chalk hills. There are wharves by the river-side which give the place a thriving aspect, for a considerable export trade is carried on in dairy produce. ”

“ SEINE, the department of northern France which has Paris as its chief town, formed in 1790 of part of the province of Ile-de-France. It is entirely surrounded by the department of Seine-et-Oise, from which it is separated at certain parts by the Seine, the Marne and the Bièvre. The area of the department is only 185 sq. m., and of this surface about a sixth is occupied by Paris; the suburban towns also are close together and very populous. In actual population (3,848,618 in 1906) as well as in density (23.7 persons per acre) it holds the first place. ”

“ THE SEINE FROM PONT DE L’ARCHE TO LA ROCHE-GUYON
UP the river from Pont de l’Arche the beauties of the Seine are truly irresistible to the true traveller of artistic proclivities. At every kilometre stone along its banks the view has that charm of majestic simplicity that might be expected of a great inland waterway.
Not that it has no variety at all. It is an ever-changing panorama of a silvery sheet, reflecting the sky and clouds and the green and white of the chalk and tree clad river banks, in truly mystical fashion.
Just above Pont de l’Arche, the Eure and the Andelle join the Seine. ”

“ And she gave him Madame de Cintré’s address.
He walked across the Seine, late in the summer afternoon, and made his way through those gray and silent streets of the Faubourg St. Germain whose houses present to the outer world a face as impassive and as suggestive of the concentration of privacy within as the blank walls of Eastern seraglios. Newman thought it a queer way for rich people to live; his ideal of grandeur was a splendid façade diffusing its brilliancy outward too, irradiating hospitality. ”

“ It was a very humble style of entertainment, but the most ambitious pursuit of pleasure can do no more than succeed, and this was a success. The Seine at Auteuil is wide, and is spanned by a stately viaduct of two tiers of arches, which stands up against the sky in a picturesque and monumental manner. Your table is spread under a trellis which scratches your head—spread chiefly with fried fish—and an old man who looks like a political exile comes and stands before it and sings a doleful ditty on the respect due to white hairs. ”

“ Later in the Middle Ages, this small species of Hanseatic League had a commercial station at Marsons-sur-Seine, and its maritime jurisdiction extended as far as the city of Mantes, situated on the western limits of the territory of the Parisii. The sources of the Seine, near the farm of the Vergerots in the commune of Saint-Germain-la-Feuille, were held in great veneration in Gallo-Roman times, and a temple, the remains of which have been found, was erected in their honor. ”

“ Seine-Inférieure (839) , a maritime department of North-West France, in Normandy, facing the English Channel; is for the most part a fertile plain, watered by the Seine and smaller streams, and diversified by fine woods and the hills of Caux; is a fruit and cider producing district; has flourishing manufactures. Rouen is the capital, and Havre and Dieppe are important trading centres. ”

“ The Seine flashes with light. Upholstered with its long, slim quays, it looks more than ever gilt and gracious. Yes, it is cold. The darting bâteaux-mouche are icicle-fringed, and the guardians of the few book-bins that are open are muffled to the ears. I wear no coat, because, except for my old mackintosh, I do not possess one. I have, however, bought a long muffler which I wind around my throat, and allow to flutter behind. People look oddly at me; because, where the world wears a coat, the coatless man becomes a mark. ”

“ WESTWARD of the mouth of the Seine is a little strip of coast-line which in a restricted sense may be said to be the resort of the Parisian world of fashion during the summer months. Trouville-Deauville, Beuzeval-Houlgate, Dives-Cabourg, and Arromanches have their own especial attractions and their own clientèles; but they are all much alike, and it is only in the old towns, such as Honfleur, Pont l’Evêque, Ouistreham, Ruys, or Port-en-Bessin, that one sees anything at all characteristically Norman. ”

“ With visitors to Normandy, the case is in no wise different, in spite of the fact that the well-known roads from Havre or Dieppe to Paris, via the Seine valley, are a little better known than any other part of France.
There are still but two wholly unspoiled spots in all the Seine valley, Les Andelys and La Roche-Guyon; and it is doubtful if they ever will become spoiled by tourists within the lives of the present generation. ”

“ The keeper lives in the house beyond. The tiny infant stream issues forth under the protection of a recumbent statue of the river divinity. Coach there and back 10 frs., or guide 5 frs. It is not necessary to return to Verrey. Those who please can go back by the Dijon road to St. Seine, on the Cressonne, 5 miles south, pop. 1000. Inns: Mack; Soleil d’Or. With a 14th cent, church. A diligence runs between it and Dijon. The railway station for St. Seine is Blaizy-Bas, 71⁄2 m. distant. ”

“ One of the most curious characteristics of Old Paris was the absence of any view of the river, for a man might traverse its streets and bridges without catching a glimpse of the Seine.{146}
The portal of the Petit Châtelet at the end of the Petit Pont opened on the university and learned district on the south bank of the Seine, with its fifty colleges and many churches clustering about the slopes of the mount of St. Genevieve, which was crowned by the great Augustine abbey and church founded by Clovis. ”

“ As the mist drove away, a mass rose like a glittering beacon, beyond the nearest hill, proclaiming Paris. It was the dome of the Hotel of the Invalids!
Though Paris possesses better points of view from its immediate vicinity than most capitals, it is little seen from any of its ordinary approaches until fairly entered. We descended to the river by a gentle declivity. The chateau and grounds of Neuilly, a private possession of the Duke of Orleans, lay on our left; the Bois de Boulogne, the carriage promenade of the capital, on our right. ”

“ The waters of all the rivers which fall into the Seine seem to be of the same colour; all bring with them chalk and clay. The soil of the whole basin, or valley of the Seine, is generally uniform.
Paris is hidden, from those who approach it by the road of St. Denis, by the interposition of Montmartre, a bare hill of no pleasing form. No increasing populousness or bustle, or passage of exits and entrances, announces the vicinity of a great town: Paris is all within its own walls. ”

“ Neuville is a common French name, and it is not clear whether all the Nevills who occur in the 12th and 13th centuries were of the same stock as the lords of Raby. The baronial line of Nevill of “Essex” was founded by the marriage, temp. Richard I., of a Hugh de Nevill to the heiress of Henry de Cornhill, a wealthy Londoner. ”

“ The magnificent terrace on the left bank of the winding Seine commands perhaps as enchanting a view as can be found any where in this world. The domes and towers of Paris appear far away in the north. The wide, luxuriant valley of the Seine, studded with villages and imposing castles, lies spread out in beautiful panorama before the eye. The king had expended between one and two millions of dollars in embellishing the royal residences here. But as the conscience of the king became more sensitive, and repeated deaths forced upon him the conviction that he too must eventually die, St. ”

“ The Seine itself, though it flows for so long through Normandy, does not belong to it, but to France; the people who live on its banks are more French than Norman, and we have to go farther westward to find more typical scenery. The country lying about Gisors, and between that town and the Seine, was called the Vexin, and formed a debatable ground on which many a contest was fought, and which was held by France and Normandy in turn. ”

“ As you cross the Seine by the old Pont Neuf and lean a moment on its broad balustrade, kindly thoughts go out to the garrets that may now be sheltering those pathetic stooping figures that bend all day [348] above the long lines of book-shelves along the quays, and never buy, and you wish “good luck” to the good-natured book-sellers who never annoy them with importunities, but sit indulgently oblivious on the benches opposite and smoke their pipes and read their papers. ”

“ A little crowd of men, women, and children were gathered round the door of the chateau, and a man appeared to be seated on a high-backed chair upon the threshold.
"You know my father," said the young man with a shrug of his shoulders. "He will have it that he has never left his Norman castle, and that he is still the Seigneur de la Noue, the greatest man within a day's ride of Rouen, and of the richest blood of Normandy. ”

“ Seine are an exact contrast, most of them being so deserted, that in viewing the long lines of tall arched elms, with scarcely an individual moving beneath them, one could imagine that they were a hundred miles from any capital ”

“ There are numberless small towns and villages throughout the length of the Seine which are nameless to the majority of summer travellers to Normandy. Caudebec they know, but Elbeuf, Pont de l’Arche, Les Andelys, St. Pierre de Vouvray, Bonniers, Giverny, and La Roche-Guy on are unknown ground to most of them.
Just above Rouen are innumerable riverside villages, many of which have their chief source of income from catering to those who like to dine al fresco in the country, in a garden overlooking the Seine. ”

“ Amiable alliance! what a disgrace to the character of Wellington! Ney was a brave soldier, and to execute such a man, under such circumstances, was the height of treachery and baseness. Talk of keeping faith, indeed! This is another proof that tyrants never keep their faith with God or man, any longer than they think it their interest to do so. My opinion is, that Ney deserted and betrayed Napoleon, after the battle of Waterloo, by not doing his duty when he returned to the French capital; but that was no excuse for the gross and cowardly violation of the terms of the capitulation of Paris. ”

“ Châtillon-sur-Seine was—though all the world seems to have forgotten or ignored it—the seat of a convention in 1814 which proposed leaving France its original territorial limits of 1792, a proposition of the ambassadors which was utterly rejected by Napoleon.
Albeit that Châtillon lies on the banks of the Seine it is well within the confines of Burgundy. Roundabout is a most fascinating and little exploited region.
Thirty kilometres to the north is Bar-sur-Seine and to the northwest Brienne-le-Chateau, where the Corsican first learned the rudiments of the art of war. ”

“ On all the French marches are droves of outcasts, rievers, spoilers, and draw-latches, of whom I judge that these are some, though I marvel that they should dare to come so nigh to the castle of the Seneschal. All seems very quiet now,' he added, peering out of the window.
'They are in the further wood,' said Alleyne.
'And there they may bide. Back to rest, mon petit; for, by my hilt! each day now will bring its own work. Yet it would be well to shoot the bolt in yonder door when one is in strange quarters. ”