Situated about seventeen
miles north-east of Havre, shut in on either side by rocks which form a
natural arch over the sea, the little bay of Etretat--with its brilliant
summer crowd of idlers and its little group of fishermen who stand by it
in all weathers--is one of the quaintest of the nooks and corners of
France.
There is a homelike snugness and retirement about the position of
Etretat, and a mystery about the caves and caverns--extending for long
distances under its cliffs--which form an attraction that we shall find
nowhere else. Since Paris has found it out, and taken it by storm as it
were, the little fishermen's village has been turned into a gay
_parterre_; its shingly beach lined with chairs _a volonte_, and its
shores smoothed and levelled for delicate feet. The _Casino_ and the
_Etablissement_ are all that can be desired; whilst pretty chalets and
villas are scattered upon the hills that surround the town. There is
scarcely any 'town' to speak of; a small straggling village, with the
remains of a Norman church, once close to the sea (built on the spot
where the people once watched the great flotilla of William the
Conqueror drift eastward to St. Valery), and on the shore, old worn-out
boats, thatched and turned into fishermen's huts and bathing retreats.
Etretat has its peculiar customs; the old fisher-women, who assume the
more profitable occupation of washerwomen during the summer, go down to
the shore as the tide is ebbing, and catch the spring water on its way
to the sea; scooping out the stones, and making natural washing-tubs of
fresh water close to the sea--a work of ten minutes or so, which is all
washed away by the next tide.
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