The Seine is gentle and cuddly and knows how to make people love her. Yet she also knows how to get angry, or rather she knew how, back in the days of the mascarets. Let the Seine tell you its story. Let it whisper in your ear what its past was, what its present is and what we can hope for its future. Come and visit it at MuséoSeine in Caudebec-en-Caux.
But the Seine is also a muse. That of the painters who came to capture its changing reflections in the early days of a still shy Impressionism, under the brush of Eugène Boudin. But the Seine can also be a source of sorrow. Victor Hugo’s daughter Léopoldine drowned one fine day in September 1843. She lived just around the corner, in the small village of Villequier. Just where the Victor Hugo Museum awaits you today.
The Seine has shaped this area and is still shaping it. It is the main player in the great book of Norman history. The Normans, in fact, who sailed up its waters to the depths of its torments. The Romans before them made Juliobona, the future Lillebonne, the capital of the Calettes (hence the name “Pays de Caux”), and finally in the year 1494, with this jewel of the fledgling Renaissance overlooking one of its meanders from the top of Ételan.
The Seine is alive, active, mostly wise, sometimes unreasonable… But always fascinating.
