The weather kept faith with our sailors' promise: the sea was calm, the wind in the right quarter and, after a delightful three hours' crossing--following that picturesque coast, on the cliffs of which, sixteen years later, King Louis-Philippe, against whom we were to wage so rude a war, was to stand anxiously scanning the sea for a ship, if it were but a rough barque like that Xerxes found upon which to cross the Hellespont--our sailors pointed out Trouville. It was then composed of a few fishing huts grouped along the right bank of the Touque, at the mouth of that river, between two low ranges of hills enclosing a charming valley as a casket encloses a set of jewels. Along the left bank were great stretches of pasture-land which promised me magnificent snipe-shooting. The tide was out and the sands, as smooth and shining as glass, were dry. Our sailors hoisted us on their backs and we were put down upon the sand. The sight of the sea, with its bitter smell, its eternal moaning, has an immense fascination for me. When I have not seen it for a long time I long for it as for a beloved mistress, and, no matter what stands in the way, I have to return to it, to breathe in its breath and taste its kisses for the twentieth time. The three happiest months of my life, or at any rate the most pleasing to the senses, were those I spent with my Sicilian sailors in a _speronare_, during my Odyssey in the Tyrrhenian Sea. But, in this instance, I began my maritime career, and it must be conceded that it was not a bad beginning to discover a seaport like Trouville. The beach, moreover, was alive and animated as though on a fair day. Upon our left, in the middle of an archipelago of rocks, a whole collection of children were gathering baskets full of mussels; upon our right, women were digging in the sand with vigorous plying of spades, to extract a small kind of eel which resembled the fibres of the salad called _barbe de capucin_ (_i.e._ wild chicory); and all round our little barque, which, although still afloat, looked as though it would soon be left dry, a crowd of fishermen and fisher-women were shrimping, walking with athletic strides, with the water up to their waists and pushing in front of them long-handled nets into which they reaped their teeming harvest. We stopped at every step; everything on that unknown seashore was a novelty to us. Cook, landing on the Friendly Isles, was not more absorbed or happy than was I. The sailors, noticing our enjoyment, told us they would carry our luggage to the inn and tell them of our coming. "To the inn! But which inn?" I asked. "There is no fear of mistake," replied the wag of the company, "for there is but one." "What is its name?" "It has none. Ask for Mother Oseraie and the first person you meet will direct you to her house."