HAVRE, LE, the second seaport of France and capital of an arrondissement in the department of Seine-Inf erieure, on the estuary of the Seine, 143 m. W.N.W. of Paris and 55 m. W. of Rouen. Pop. (1931) 165,076. Until 1516 Havre was only a fish ing village possessing a chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame de Grace, to which it owes the name, Havre (harbour) de Grace, given to it by Francis I. when he began the construction of its harbour. The town in 1562 was delivered over to the keeping of Queen Elizabeth by Louis I., prince de Conde, leader of the Huguenots, but the English were expelled in 1563 by Charles IX. and his mother, Catherine de Medici, in person. Defences and harbour works were continued by Richelieu and completed by Vauban. The English bombarded it in and 1795. It was a port of considerable importance as early as 15 7 2, and despatched vessels to the whale and cod-fishing at Spitsbergen and New foundland. In 1672 it became the entrepot of the French East India company, and afterwards of the Senegal and Guinea com panies. Napoleon I. raised it to a war harbour of the first rank, and under Napoleon III. works begun by Louis XVI. were com pleted. During the World War Britain and America used Havre as a base and point of landing for troops and stores. Also after the fall of Antwerp and Ostend the Belgian Government was transferred here and housed in the Hotel des Regales at St. Adresse to the northwest. After the armistice it formed one of the American embarkation points. Trade has again reached its highest pre-war point.
The greater part of the town stands on the level strip of ground but on the north rises an eminence, la Cote the richer quarter. The central point of the town is the Place de l'hotel de ville in which are the public gardens. The church of Notre-Dame, dating from the i 6th and 17th centuries is a mixture of late Gothic and Renaissance styles of architecture but the tower is older. The carved oak organ case was the gift of Cardinal Richelieu. The chief buildings of Havre, including the hotel de ville, the law courts, and the exchange, are all of modern erection. The museum contains a collection of antiquities and paintings. Havre is the seat of a sub-prefect, and a tribunal of first instance, a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade arbitrators, a tribunal of maritime commerce, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. There are 14 basins (the oldest of which dates back to 1669) with more than 8 m. of quays. Work has been continued on the 1909 programme of port improvements, which includes a large graving dock and wharfage in tidal basin, a floating dock and pontoons, a basin for large oil tankers and reservoirs in the outer harbour, and a wharf and mole for goods storage in the north part of the port. A petroleum pipe line to Paris has been built. The chief docks are the Bassin Bellot and the Bassin de l'Eure. In the latter the mail-steamers of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique are berthed; and the Tancarville canal, by which river-boats unable to attempt the estuary of the Seine can make the port direct, enters the harbour by this basin. The port, which is an important point of emigration, has regular steam communication with New York and with many of the other chief ports of Europe, North, South and Central America, the West Indies and Africa. Havre is the great French port for cotton and coffee and also imports copper and other metals, wool, rum, foreign wines, oil seeds and dyewoods. Its industries are rope making, timber for building, wire drawing, machinery making, flour-milling, oils, dye extracting from woods, spinning and weav ing, toy and chemical works.