e is to Paris,--a high hill at the
foot of which the city lies; with this difference, that the hill and the
city are surrounded by the sea and the Seine, that Havre is helplessly
circumscribed by enclosing fortifications, and, in short, that the mouth
of the river, the harbor, and the docks present a very different aspect
from the fifty thousand houses of Paris. At the foot of Montmartre an
ocean of slate roofs lies in motionless blue billows; at Ingouville the
sea is like the same roofs stirred by the wind. This eminence, or line
of hills, which coasts the Seine from Rouen to the seashore, leaving a
margin of valley land more or less narrow between itself and the river,
and containing in its cities, its ravines, its vales, its meadows,
veritable treasures of the picturesque, became of enormous value in
and about Ingouville, after the year 1816, the period at which the
prosperity of Havre began. This township has become since that time
the Auteuil, the Ville-d'Avray, the Montmorency, in short, the suburban
residence of the merchants of Havre. Here they build their houses on
terraces around its ampitheatre of hills, and breathe the sea air
laden with the fragrance of their splendid gardens. Here these bold
speculators cast off the burden of their counting-rooms and the
atmosphere of their city houses, which are built closely together
without open spaces, often without court-yards,--a vice of construction
with the increasing population of Havre, the inflexible line of the
fortifications, and the enlargement of the docks has forced upon them.
The result is, weariness of heart in Havre, cheerfulness and joy at
Ingouville. The law of social development has forced up the suburb of
Graville like a mushroom. It is to-day more extensive than Havre itself,
which lies at the foot of its slopes like a serpent.

At the crest of the hill Ingouville has but one street, and (as in all
such situations) the houses which overlook the river have an immense
advantage over those on the other side of the road, whose view they
obstruct, and which present the effect of standing on tip-toe to look
over the opposing roofs. However, there exist here, as elsewhere,
certain servitudes. Some houses standing at the summit have a finer
position or possess legal rights of view which compel their opposite
neighbors to keep their buildings down to a required height. Moreover,
the openings cut in the capricious rock by roads which follow its
declensions an