The crowd is out strolling along the Long Pier of Trouville, the first and premier of the French beach resorts south of the Seine River. The age has begun to awakened beyond Quaker and Victorian sensibilities, and bathing and sea-side resorts along the Normandy coast are in full fashion. The Long Pier was built from 1885 to 1889, straight out from the center of the city. Partially on the account that it is a 5-hour train ride from Paris, the first French coastal hotels established here in the mid-19th Century to success.

A charming work with a vast depth of field for its size, the view is from standing on the pier looking back at the city. The changing tents are of a more permanent sort, an evolutionary design from the original bathing wagons used by French society which allowed the women passengers to stay sheltered right up to the water's edge. The beach would have numerous changing tents of a temporary nature.

Narratives of people at leisure are widely enjoyed for the depictions of yesterday with the reminiscent charm each inspires. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that it was important to Loir to capture the changing face of modern France as the 20th Century approached, and to hold artistic witness to the everyday courtesies and actions of his national citizens.