The town is at present wholly supported by the fisheries, in which are
employed about fourteen hundred sailors[36]. The herrings of Fecamp have
always had the same high character in France, as those of Lowestoft and
Yarmouth in England. The armorial lion of our own town ends, as you
know, with the tail of a herring; and I really have been often inclined
to affix the same appendage to the rump of the lion of Normandy. You are
not much of an epicure, nor are you very likely to search in the
_Almanach des Gourmands_ for dainties; if you did, you would probably
find there the following proverb, which has existed since the thirteenth
century,--
"Aloses de Bourdeaux;
Esturgeons de Blaye;
Congres de la Rochelle;
Harengs de Fecamp;
Saumons de Loire;
Seches de Coutances."
The fortifications of Fecamp are destroyed; but, upon the cliffs which
command the town, there still remain some slight vestiges of a fort,
erected in the time of Henry IVth, when the inhabitants espoused the
party of the league.
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