[53] Saint-Denys-Chef-de-Caux was formerly the port of the town now called Sainte-Adresse. Here Henry V. disembarked, in 1415, when he laid siege to Harfleur. But the sea, gradually encroaching on the Cape, has destroyed the village, the port, and the church where St. Denys was worshipped. In reference to La Hève, the great writer, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, a native of Havre, relates a fantastic legend:— “The Seine”—it is Cephas, one of the personages of _the Arcadia_, who speaks—“the daughter of Bacchus and nymph of Ceres, had pursued into the land of the Gauls the goddess of wheat, when she was seeking all the earth over for her daughter Proserpine. When Ceres had terminated her wanderings, the Seine begged of her, as a reward for her services, the meadows through which the river at present flows. The goddess consented, and granted, moreover, that wine should grow wherever the daughter of Bacchus planted her feet. She left then the Seine upon these shores, and gave her as her companion and follower the nymph Héva, who was bidden to watch beside her, for fear she might be carried away by some god of the sea, as her daughter Proserpine had been by the god of Hades. One day while the Seine was amusing herself on the sands in quest of shells, and when she fled, with loud cries, before the blue sea-waves which sometimes wetted her feet, Héva, her companion, discovered under the waters the white locks, the empurpled visage, and azure robe of Neptune. This god had come from the Orcades after a great earthquake, and was traversing the shores of Ocean, examining with his trident whether their foundations had been shattered. On seeing him, Héva shrieked loudly, and at her warning cry the Seine immediately fled towards the meadows. But the sea-god had also descried the nymph of Ceres, and moved by her brightness and charming mien, he drove his sea-horses in swift pursuit. Just as he was on the point of overtaking her, she cried upon Bacchus her father, and Ceres her mistress. Both heard her; and as Neptune stretched forth his arms to seize her, all the body of the Seine dissolved into water; her green veil and vestments, which the winds fluttered before her, were changed into emerald waves; she was transformed into a river of the same colour, which still finds a pleasure in winding through the scenes she had loved in her days of nymph-hood: but what is best worthy of notice is, that Neptune, despite the metamorphosis, has never ceased to love her, as is also said of the river Alpheus with regard to the fountain of Arethusa. But if the god of ocean has preserved his passion for the Seine, the Seine still cherishes her antipathy to him. Twice a day he pursues her with awful roar; and each time the Seine flies from him into the green inlands, ascending towards her source, contrary to the natural course of rivers.[54] And ever she separates her green waters from the cerulean billows of ocean.