The Somme Bay breaths the rhythm of the tides. She hosts the largest French seal colony, and is a sanctuary for thousands of migratory birds. Lambs roam her salt marsh meadows. Le Marquenterre - mare in terra - is the terrestrial part of the Bay of Somme nature reserve. One can walk her lands, bathe in her waters, taste her herbs.
The history of the land is ensouled by numerous literary and artistic personalities.
In 1849, the oldest french perfumer and chemist Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain bought this house, then popularly called ‘Le Petit Manoir’. He spent considerable time here with his family, developing plans for ‘Le Grand Hôtel’, a hydrotherapy flagship built on the neighbouring land.
During this same period, he composed ‘l’Eau de Cologne Impériale’ for the Empress Eugénie de Montijo, wife of Napoleon III. He hoped to receive the Empress at the hotel, but she never came. The name of the street, Rue de l’Impératrice, is dedicated to her.
‘The Tendrils of the Vine’, a collection of 18 novellas, are written as devotion to the Somme Bay by mime Colette, a woman of letters. Her stays in Le Crotoy were regular and extensive from 1906 until 1911. Colette’s life was a tribute to the liberation of the ‘new woman’, by being a living example, a new vision of what women’s lives could be.
The land was also the muse for the novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, written by author Jules Verne during his stay in Villa ‘La Solitude’ from 1865 until 1871.
“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite.”