Doudeville () is a commune in the

Seine-Maritime Seine-Maritime () is a department of France in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Inféri ...

department in the

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Geography

Called the

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...

capital, the town is situated at the centre of the

Pays de Caux The Pays de Caux (, , literally ''Land of Caux'') is an area in Normandy occupying the greater part of the French ''département'' of Seine Maritime in Normandy. It is a chalk plateau to the north of the Seine Estuary and extending to the cliffs o ...

, the

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ...

in High Normandy and one widely known for its fields of blue-flowered flax.

Demography

Since 1793, the population has varied between 3,792 and 1,993. In the early 21st century, it is 87% of that at the dawn of the nineteenth, when there was more demand for labour on the land.

History

At Doudeville, the General Assemblies of linen producers were held regularly - which is where the idea of Doudeville's claim to be linen capital arose. In the nineteenth century, there was a trade in linen cloth and canvas; enough to employ 8,000 people in ten businesses in the region.

Literary connection

Guy de Maupassant set a good number of his stories in this region. "The yard of the farm, enclosed by trees, seemed to sleep ... The shade of the apple trees gathered itself round their feet and the thatched roofs of the buildings at the summit of which grew irises ..." from The Story of a Farm Girl (''Histoire d'une fille de ferme)'' by

Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...

in his short story collection La Maison Tellier. For more, see

. In

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

's "

Madame Bovary ''Madame Bovary'' (; ), originally published as ''Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners'' ( ), is a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emp ...

" Charles' father dies in Doudeville following a dinner with old military friends.

Heraldry

Notable buildings

There are castles, manor houses with their dovecotes, majestic churches, little chapels and roadside calvaries carved from sandstone. * Seventeenth-century church. * Château de Galleville (1680). * In the villages around, imposing farms rub shoulders with the workers' and weaver's cottages. * In the main villages around are the masters' houses of the rich manufacturers and merchants of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who made their fortunes in the linen trade. * For manor houses (manoirs), see

Town hall

The ''Hôtel de Ville'' is a very large building in the Place du Général de Gaulle which was formerly la Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. It was built in about 1780 by François Louis Leseigneur; lord of Reuville and Galleville. Until the early nineteenth century, this was the trading centre for the linen cloth and siamoise, a cotton cloth which was common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1852, the building was bought by the town and refurbished. At that time, the ground floor was a grain market, a prison and the caretaker's lodging. The first floor housed the places in which the duties of the mayor and of the justices of the peace were carried out. At one time, as in many market halls, the ground floor was not fully enclosed. There were wide arched openings. The square in front of it held several small market buildings where traders such as pork butchers, butchers and shoemakers worked. It has undergone a major refurbishment which was due for completion in September 2007.

Events

* In June, in the season of the blue flowers, the town has its flax (linen) festival.

Sister Cities

Bad Nenndorf Bad Nenndorf (Northern Low Saxon: ''Nenndörpe'') is a small town in the district of Schaumburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Its population is 10,210 (2005). It is situated approximately 12 km east of Stadthagen, and 25 km west of Hanover, ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, since 1978 * Bourne in

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

since October 1989