The feminine tranquil birth of the river Le Seine was named after the goddess, Sequana. The Seine has a 483-mile journey from Burgundy to the sea. She begins at 1,540 feet above sea level. The Gallo-Roman goddess Sequana’s name comes from the Celtic squan meaning serpentine. Its source has been owned by the where votive offerings were made to the goddess Sequana. Nearby is an archaeological museum at Dijon. Far downstream sits Monet’s railway bridge at Argenteuil.
Napoleon said “Le Havre, Rouen, and Paris are one city, of which the Seine is the main street.” And this River reached its zenith of importance city of Paris since 1864.
A short way from her beginning is a ruin of a Roman Temple. As such it was the shrine whose water had healing properties. It is in the 19th Century to both “Impressionist painters and coal-bargees alike.” At her first town, Chatillon-sur–Seine, she is little more than a stream.
A legend has it that the Protestant Huguenots invaded the city of Troyes planning to capture the 11-year-old Catholic governor, Claude de Guise. The governor had taken refuge in a cathedral tower. Waylaid by the delicious aroma of sausages in the quarter by the cathedral, the soldiers began to feast as such that they forgot about capturing the governor. Yes, Catholic forces surprised them and massacred them. My kingdom for a sausage!
The seemingly lazy river winds through open countryside of prairie farming where wheat is grown for the mills.
There can be much flooding here. With the waters rising, it swirls around the trees in eddies. There are popular forests near the confluence of the Seine and Aube. This is a marshy area with petrified trees, titled and interlaced, like a jungle of spillikins. Saron-sur-Aube is a lovely village with church, barn, manor houses that have roofs slanting this way and that, together all packed tightly in a happy accident of non-planning. And the River Seine winds its way in both dazzling sunlight and evening shadows.
All along the valley of the upper Seine, artifacts have been discovered at the locations of ancient settlements. At the village of Vix, a bronze Grecian vase for wine-making, was found that had been a wedding gift from a Greek to a Gallic princess. A field turned out to be a Gallo-Romanburial ground. Lamps, pots, and glass were found because the rich were buried with glass, and the poor with pottery. Buried, they were, with things in their mouths to pay for their passage to the other side, as in crossing the river.
There is a nuclear power station at Nogent-sun-Seine. Strings of colored lights showed turbo alternators and nuclear heaters. This center produces 52 million kilowatts of electricity in20 hours. This location was chosen because the Seine’s water would provide the closed-circuit cooling system. Some radio-active algae have been found among the river weed. The burghers of Nogent, however, “see no pollution and hear no warnings.”
Moret has been host to famous names such as Napoleon spent a night there on his way back from Elba, and Clemenceau had a house there. Paris has 37 bridges across the Seine. It is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen 75 miles from the sea. Until the French Revolution of 1789, there were two Seines in Paris, The Royal and the Popular as in downstream and upstream.