Seine

“ I love my house in which I grew up. From my windows I can see the Seine which flows by the side of my garden, on the other side of the road, almost through my grounds, the great and wide Seine which goes to Rouen and Havre, and which is covered with boats passing to and fro. ”

“ The Seine, no humble stream amid the army of rivers, superb in its channel, throwing its two arms about the head, the heart, the very marrow of the city, forms an island. Two suburbs reach out to right and left, the less excellent, even, of which begets envy in envious cities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Paris spreads out beneath us, a dark bluish patch, cut by its streets, from which rise, here and there, domes, towers, steeples, then around it the plain, the country, traversed by long roads, thin and white, amidst green fields of a tender or dark green, and woods almost black.
The Seine appears like a coiled snake, asleep, of which we see neither head nor tail; it crosses Paris, and the entire field resembles an immense basin of prairies and forests dotted here and there by mountains, hardly visible in the horizon. ”

“ Beyond the cathedral square, over the bronze Charlemagne on his bronze horse, glints the untravelled narrower arm of the Seine; we turn our heads and look at its broader surface, all astir with little fidgetty bateaux-mouches and big, sedate barges. At both banks are anchored huge wash-houses and bathing establishments. From this island-centre all Paris spreads away to its low encircling slopes, to the brim of the shallow bowl in which it lies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the Seine bounding them on one side, the splendid uniform façade of the Rue Rivoli on the other, the palace stretching across the southern terrace, and the thick woods of the Champs Elysées at the opposite gate, where could one go in the world to give his taste or his eye a more costly or delightful satisfaction? ”

“ The immense plain spread out before him vast as the sea, green and studded with large villages, almost as populous as towns. The sun bathed the whole landscape in its full, warm light. The Seine wound like an endless serpent through the plain, flowed round the villages and along the slopes. ”

“ Saint Germain, the chateau, the town and the forest, possess a magnificent site. Behind is a wooded background, and before one are the meanderings of the Seine which in the summer sunlight is a panorama which is to be likened to no other on earth. Across the river bottom run the great tree-lined roadways, straight as the proverbial flight of the arrow, while on the horizon, looking from the celebrated terrace, one sees to-day the silhouetted outline of Paris with the Tour Eiffel and the dome of the Sacré Cœur as the culminating points. ”

“ In front of the Institute is the Pont des Arts. There the sight is an enchanting one; the Seine—the gayest, most lively of rivers—crowded with passenger-boats, tugs, barges, and barques. The grey or blue sky is reflected in the water, and the river flows majestically between two verdure-clad quays, surmounted by book-sellers' cases, and inhabited by the most picturesque of populations. ”

“ The gradual approach to Paris by gliding down the Seine was altogether a new sensation. By diligence, railway, or steamer, you have nothing like it—not certainly by walking into Paris along a dusty road.
For now we are smoothly carried on a wide and winding river, with nothing to do but to look and to listen while the splendid panorama majestically unfolds. Villas thicken, gardens get smaller as houses are closer, trees get fewer as walls increase. ”

“ Night comes, and we are hurried far away to wake beside the Seine, remembering, with a pang of jealous passion, that the flowers on Alpine meadows are still blooming, and the rivulets still flowing with a ceaseless song, while Paris shops are all we see, and all we hear is the dull clatter of a Paris crowd. ”

“ Ordinarily, nature seems here at a disadvantage, a pale, flat background for the intense artificiality of France. Her rivers seem to wind—the sluggish Seine with the rest—to show the architectural effect of her bridges, rather than to make the green banks blossom and to refresh the thirsty land. ”

“ I had again saved up enough money to carry my long longed-for journey to Paris into execution. The Seine's boiler got up its steam, the Seine's white awning was put up for me as well as others; and on a beautiful cloudless English morning I stood by the man at the wheel, and saw St. Paul's and London Bridge and the Tower fade out of sight; with what hope and joy I cannot describe. ”

“ The Tuileries are certainly very magnificent, and, to walk across from the Seine to the Rue Rivoli, and look up the endless walks and under the long perfect arches cut through the trees, may give one a very pretty surprise for once—but a winding lane is a better place to enjoy the loveliness of green leaves, and a single New England elm, letting down its slender branches to the ground in the inimitable grace of nature, has, to my eye, more beauty than all the clipped vistas from the king's palace to the Arc de l'Etoile, the Champs Elysées inclusive. ”

“ Around all are the embracing waters of the Seine breaking the light with their thousand facets. The island, when seen from the east as one sails down the river, is not less imposing, for the great mother church of Notre Dame, with the graceful buttresses of the apse like folded pinions, seems to brood over the whole Cité. ”

“ A long and purple fissure that cuts the city in twain marks the Seine, long before we reach it. The “Rolla” feels the cool current that rises above the waters. A few handfuls of sand thrown overboard, and we resume our former position. ”

“ Never was a great river so allied with the life of a royal capital; never a stream so in harmony with other civic beauties as is the Seine with Paris. When Henri II entered Paris after his Sacrament he contemplated a water-festival on the Seine, which was to extend from the walls of the Louvre to the towers of Notre Dame, a festival with such elaborate decorations as had never been known in the French capital. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI. The approach of spring is already visible here, and right glad am I to welcome its genial influence; for a Paris winter possesses in my opinion no superiority over a London one,—nay, though it would be deemed by the French little less than a heresy to say so, is even more damp and disagreeable.
The Seine has her fogs, as dense, raw, and chilling, as those of old Father Thames himself; and the river approximating closer to "the gay resorts" of the beau monde, they are more felt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The peasants are seen amongst the tops and chimneys of the houses, cultivating their fields on the sides, and upon the summits, of the hills, which are arrayed in tufts of woodland, hedges, and pasturage; and all the avenues leading to the town are beautifully overshaded with chestnuts and elms. The Seine, too, has its fairy islands and weeping willows on its banks, and winds along through the middle of the town; and now and then a steamboat comes up the valley, with a puffing and fuss that would have made stare even the iron features of old Rollo. ”

“ Down below are the warm chocolate-red roofs of the little town that has shared with the chateau its good and evil fortunes. The church with its slender spire occupies the central position, and it dates from precisely the same years as those which witnessed the advent of the fortress above. The little streets of the town are full of quaint timber-framed houses, and it is not surprising that this is one of the spots by the beautiful banks of the Seine that has attained a name for its picturesqueness. ”

“ On observing a large cavity or loop-hole, about half way up the outer wall, I gained it by means of a plentiful growth of ivy, and from thence surveyed the landscape before me. Here, having for some time past lost sight of the Seine, I caught a fine bold view of the sweep of that majestic river, now becoming broader and broader--while, to the left, softly tinted by distance, appeared the beautiful old church we had just quitted: the verdure of the hedges, shrubs, and forest trees, affording a rich variety to the ruddy blossoms of the apple, and the white bloom of the pear. ”

“ 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.
An Inn by the Seine
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. ”

“ As we move onward and into her streets we discover that the Rouen of to-day, while evidently a "member of one of our oldest families" is not a dead town. The Seine sweeping through her midst bears on its waters ships from all over the world as well as the quaint barges and puffing little steamers which come down from Paris. The old walls have vanished, giving place to wide boulevards, which encircle the ancient town and are in turn surrounded by far-spreading suburbs. Light and life is everywhere and the cafés over-flow far into the streets with their little tables and merry throngs. ”

“ There is but one Paris in the world,—and that is Paris! It would be difficult in any other part of the world to find such a crowd of public monuments and magnificent public buildings and fine specimens of architecture. It would be difficult to match her splendid Boulevards with spacious footpaths and fine rows of trees, and brilliantly lighted cafés on either side, thronged with people until midnight! The Bois de Boulogne is a perfect forest turned into a Park! The limpid Seine with her numerous bridges is a perfect picture, seen from any eminence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Seine-et-Marne (356) , a north-midland department of France lying E. of Seine; the Marne crosses the N. and the Seine the S.; has a fertile soil, which grows in abundance cereals, vegetables, and fruits; many fine woods, including Fontainebleau Forest, diversify its undulating surface. Melun (capital) and Fontainebleau are among its important towns.
Seine-et-Oise (628) , a department of NW. France, encloses the department of Seine; grain is grown in well-cultivated plains and the vine on pleasant hill slopes; is intersected by several tributaries of the Seine, and the N. is prettily wooded. ”

“ Yet the river itself is cribbed within far narrower bounds than when the first huts of savage fishermen were stuck upon the reed-beds of the marsh; for the town was first set upon islets that have long ago been absorbed into the mainland, and the waters of the Seine once washed the boatmen's landing stages at a spot that now bounds the Parvis of the Cathedral. Even now the Seine varies in breadth at this point from a hundred and thirty-five to two hundred and fifteen metres, with a depth of five metres on the quays at lowest tide. These tides are felt as far as twenty miles above the town. ”

“ Afterwards we visited Notre Dame together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight flickered. ”