Havre

Le Havre is a city in France. It is mentioned by Stevens briefly in "Of Hartord in a Purple Light", where Stevens writes: "A long time you have been making the trip/ From Havre to Hartford, Master Soliel,/ Bringing the light from Norway and all that" (ln 1-3).
==Le Havre==
The name "Le Havre" translates as "the harbor," a fitting name since the city nestles on the banks of the river Seine and sports the second most-trafficked port in France. The city and the port were founded in 1517, and enjoyed a period of accelerated growth in the 18th century; however, in the period following WWI, the city suffered an economic crisis, and during WWII it was heavily bombed by the Allies, while the Nazis destroyed much of the port infrastructure. Beginning in 1945, the city underwent a major reconstruction, which was not completed until the 1960s. Le Havre received the Legion of Honour from Charles de Gaul in 1949, and was named a World Heritage site in 2005. 
==What is Le Havre Doing in This Poem?==
In point of fact: very little. Le Havre seems to serve largely as one amongst a set of markers linking the character of the sun, "Master Soliel," with continental Europe. This move enables Stevens to characterize the sun's "purple light" as both effeminate and decadent, and thus at odds with the manly light of plain American industry which Stevens associates with Hartford in its 'natural' state. Still, the final stanza of the poem is somewhat ambiguous, as it takes real pleasure in the "ever-freshening" spray of the ocean--earlier associated quite closely with the Frenchified, effeminized, baroque figure of Master Soliel. Here as ever in Stevens, the negative and positive poles collapse, and the culture of Old World is revivified as it meets, transforms, and is transformed by, the culture of the New.