noon
But we got aboard the train and rode during the long lovely morning down the wide rich valley of the Seine , past Rouen , through Normandy with its steep hills which seem reflected in the sharp peaked roofs of its chateaux , and through musty mediaeval towns , in which it was hard to realize that modern industry was hiving . The hum of industry seemed badly out of key in a town with a cathedral whose architectural roots are a thousand years old , and whose streets have not yet been veined with sewers , and whose walls are gay with the facades of the fifteenth century . The whole face of the landscape , town and country side , seemed to us like the back drop of the first act in a comic opera , and we were forever listening for `` The Chimes of Normandy ! '' Instead we heard the noon whistle . It was tremendously incongruous . How American humour cracks into sardonic ribaldry at the spectacle . The French are the least bit unhappy about this American humour .