Normandy, as a powerful independent state in the middle ages, was greatly helped by its natural advantages.
Its great spread of territory, along the Channel coast between the Bresle and the Couesnon, for a matter of six hundred kilometres, has its shore lined with numerous creeks and valleys and marked by jutting fangs of rock, with here and there a sand-spread shore lying beneath a chalky cliff.
Upper Normandy was the name given to that portion of the province lying to the eastward, and Lower Normandy to that lying to the westward; the dividing line being the Pays d’Auge, lying between the valleys of the Touques and the Dives.
Upper Normandy is a series of plateaus, not unlike Picardy and Artois. The streams run through deep valleys which divide these plateaus into distinct blocks, each with a striking individuality.
To the west is the Pays de Caux, which has for a subdivision a restricted region between the Bresle and Dieppe known as the Petit-Caux.
Dieppe, Havre, and Rouen are the three angles of this elevated plain, which, on its western boundary, is bordered by the Seine, where a great promontory known as the Nez de Tancarville juts out into the river.
To a great extent these plateaus are deprived of water, but the valleys have a super-abundance.
Along the coast of Upper Normandy are the famous seaside resorts of Tréport-Mers, Dieppe, Veules, St. Valery-en-Caux, Petites Dalles, Fécamp, Yport, and Etretat.
In the interior is the curious Pays de Bray, between the valleys of the Ept and the Andelle. This is a part of the ancient Vexin, of which the Isle of France also held a portion as well as Normandy; the old divisions being known as “Vexin Français,” and “Vexin Normand.”
Westward of the Seine is the Plain of St. André, and between the Eure, the Avre, and the Iton is the Campagne du Neubourg.
The Roumois lies between the Eure, the Iton, and the Risle, and the Pays d’Ouche between the Iton and the Charentonne, while the Lieuvin borders on the Risle and the Touques.
The Pays d’Auge, between the Touques and the Dives, is also a fragment cut from the same plateau which lies to the eastward.
Throughout Upper Normandy are innumerable forests, preserved to-day from reservations of a former time and guarded carefully by a solicitous government.
These are principally the forests of Eu, Arques, Bray, Lyons (an enormous tract), Les Andelys, Vernon, Bizy, Louviers, Pont de l’Arche, Londe, Roumare, and Rouvray (opposite Rouen), Jumièges, Trait-St. Wandrille, Beaumont, Ivry, Evreux, and Touques.
In Lower Normandy the topography and configuration change completely. It contains innumerable little streams and rivers, and it is more uniformly elevated than in the east; the plateaus averaging between one and two hundred metres above sea-level.
The Orne and the Vire are the chief waterways among this multitude of rivulets, very few of which, except the two former, are navigable to any extent.
The chief districts here are: The Campagne de Caen, the Pays du Bessin, the Bocage, the Cotentin, and the Collines de La Perche—whence come the Percherons.
The whole region is most delightful, abounding in charming river scenery, valleys, and wooded tracts of oak, beech, and pine.
The coast of these parts is more sombre and austere than that to the eastward, though none the less delightful, the Nez de Jobourg and Cape de la Hague being as unpeopled and as little known to tourists as if they were in Labrador.
For the most part the climate of Normandy is the same as that which prevails throughout the lower Seine valley; in general moderate and without extremes of heat or cold, and yet quite different from the climate of America, which Reclus, the geographer, has apportioned to Brittany.
Frequently, in the valley of the Orne, the early mornings are thick with mist which makes those charming views which artists love; while, in the valley of the Auge, and in Bessin, there is undoubtedly too much rain, as there is in some parts of the Seine valley, while at Les Andelys, thirty miles away, there is a notable absence of it.
Generally speaking, it rains more frequently on the coast than in the interior of Normandy. The Cotentin peninsula possesses the mildest climate of all, favouring that of Brittany to a great extent, owing to the proximity of the Gulf Stream. So mild is it here that myrtle, camellias, and fuchsias grow in the open air, which they do not in other parts of the province, unless well sheltered and cared for.
Properly speaking, France has no northern frontier, though the coast which borders the Strait of Calais and the Channel is quite as vulnerable and open to attack as it has been in times past, and as is the German frontier of Alsace and Lorraine.
The mementos of war along the shores of the English Channel are numerous indeed. From St. Malo to Dieppe, the corsairs frequently attacked. At Dives the fleet of William the Conqueror set sail for the shores of England, and Harfleur was the place of landing of Edward III. of England in 1346. The English occupied Cherbourg for a long period, and in 1415 Henry V. disembarked at Harfleur, near the mouth of the Seine, at the beginning of that campaign which terminated at Agincourt.
At the mouth of the Seine, François I. founded Françoisville, later Havre de Grâce, which for a time was in the hands of the English, and was three times bombarded during the wars of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. St. Malo, Cherbourg, and Dieppe also suffered in the same way.
The dividing of the old historical provinces of France into administrative departments, after the Revolution, was a most ingenious work. The idea was then, and always has been, to foster local pride and love of country, province, and district, and for this reason the nomenclature of the new departments, carved out of the old provinces, was most convenient and suitable.
It could not have been better done, for the names of local, physical, and topographical features, such as rivers, mountains, and plateaus were used to distinguish them.
Thus, whilst he is a Breton, and a Frenchman, the native of the Morbihan may have quite different emotions and sentiments from one of Finistère; and the peasant of the Pays de Caux, known as a Cauchois, is quite a different person from the peasant of the Cotentin.
These political divisions are now as familiarly impressed upon the French mind as were the old names of the provinces, and a son of the Aube or the Eure will fraternize to-day with none of those jealousies which formerly rankled between the Bourguignon and the Norman.
After the division into the old provinces, of which the residents of Normandy and Brittany were as proud as any, came the kneading together after the Revolution of those widely divergent influences which go to make up modern France.
The affairs of the departments—of which the ancient Normandy, as we have seen, made five—are administered by a Préfet appointed by the President on the suggestion of the Minister of the Interior.
Each department is made up of many districts, of which the smallest number is four, if one excepts the poor, rent fragment known as the Territory of Belfort—all that is left of the former Department of the Upper Rhine.
The district, of which there are 362 in France, has its affairs administered by a Sous-Préfet. He is nominated by the President of the Republic and is subordinate to the Préfet of the department.
The district is made up of many cantons, the smallest number being eight. The canton comprehends, usually, many communes, the smallest number being twelve. It forms a group, which, popularly speaking, enjoys a certain form of self-government, under a commissioner, who is, of course, directly responsible to the Sous-Préfet of his district. There are, throughout France, 2,865 cantons.
The commune represents the smallest territorial division recognized in the economic conduct of the French governmental affairs. There are in the neighbourhood of 36,000 in France, and they usually comprise a city or large town, with its surrounding villages, hamlets, isolated dwellings, and farms.
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