the city has to give.  Masters of the art of entering a drawing-room, the Parisians crowd seaward to get the sure foot of the mussel-gatherer upon the slimy granite of a bluff Norman headland; they bring their taste with them, and they get heartiness in the bracing air.  The salon of the casino, at the height of the season, is said to show at once the most animated and diverting assemblage of Somebodies to be seen in the world.’

DEAUVILLE, separated only by the river Touques, is a place of greater pretension even than Trouville.  It is, however, quite in its infancy; it was planned for a handsome and extensive watering-place, but the death of the Duc de Morny has stopped its growth,—­large tracts of land, in what should be the town, still lying waste.  It is quiet compared with Trouville, select and ‘aristocratic,’ and boasts the handsomest casino in France; it is built for the most part upon a sandy plain, but the houses are so tastefully designed, and so much has been made of the site, that (from some points of view) it presents, with its background of hills, a singularly picturesque appearance.

No matter how small or uninteresting the locality, if it is to be fashionable, il n’y aura point de difficulte.  If there are no natural attractions, the ingenious and enterprising speculator will provide them; if there are no trees, he will bring them,—­no rocks, he will manufacture them,—­no river, he will cut a winding canal,—­no town, he will build one,—­no casino, he will erect a wooden shed on the sands!

But of all the bathing-places on the north coast of Normandy the little fishing-village of ETRETAT will commend itself most to English people, for its bold coast and bracing air.  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.