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A hasty view from the gallery concluded my visit to the Notre Dame. Leaving the old church I strayed off in a direction towards the Seine, and passed by an old looking building of stately appearance, and recognised, among a throng passing in and out, a number of the members of the Peace Congress.
We might have gone by omnibus or by fiacre, but if we had we should never have known what a street the Seine is, sliding through Paris, brown in the open sun, dark under the shadowing arches of the bridges, full of hastening comers and goers from landing-place to landing-place, up and down.
These were friendly and familiar at first, often coming to the ships; and so much confidence was at last placed in them, that the boats' crews neglected to take their arms with them when they went for water, or to haul the seine; but this was soon found to be perilous confidence.
On the rock at Les Andelys he built a huge castle, to hang there like a thunder-cloud scowling over the flats of the Seine. 'Let me see Chastel-Gaillard stand ready in a year, he said. 'Put on every living man in Normandy if need be. He planned it all himself; rock of the rock it was to be, making the sheer yet more sheer. He called it again his daughter, daughter of his conception of Death.
"A nice school, Joe, if they got it all," he said, "a nice school of 'em." And after a pause, "I think I'll stand down and have a look." He ran down, luffed, and hailed, "Hi skipper, what's it like?" From the row of figures that were seen to be crowding gunnel and thwarts and hauling on the seine, one shadow straightened up beside the smoky torch and spoke.
It was "He-yew!" "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and "Drive her!" all along the line until we had on deck what the skipper thought was a hundred barrels. Then the bag was put around the seine to protect the rest of the mackerel from dogfish and sharks, and we were ready to dress.
It wasn't bad enough that we came near losing a few men and our boat, and our seine altogether, but it must come on to breeze up on top of that and drive us off the grounds. After putting everything to rights, we were having a mug-up forward and wondering if the skipper would take sail off her or what, when we heard the call that settled it. "On deck everybody!" we heard.
If Italy and Spain clung blindly to the Papacy, elsewhere, alike on the Danube or the Rhine, on the Elbe or the Seine, the nations of Europe seemed to have risen in irreconcileable revolt against Rome. But the prospect of such a triumph had long since disappeared.
From more than one point of view Lillebonne makes beautiful pictures, its roofs dominated by the great tower of the parish church as well as by the ruins of the castle. We have lost sight of the Seine since we left Tancarville, but a ten-mile run brings us to the summit of a hill overlooking Caudebec and a great sweep of the beautiful river.
The green line that divides them will never give you the answer: it changes hour by hour, day by day; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and straight; and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, tying together the blue of the great ocean and the silver of the Seine. Close to the lips of the mighty mouth lie the two shores.
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