OK- here goes. Dauphine (and R8 and R10 and R4 GTL engines) all have the gearbox in front of the engine. When you are at the back of the car facing forward, the crankshaft turns clockwise. You then (for 4CVs, dauphs, etc) have a regular urge to turn a crank handle because they have crummy 6 volt electrical equipment. You want the crankhandle to turn clockwise because cranking in the opposite direction is a very strange, counter-intuitive experience and even back then Renault knew there was only so far they could go in being different! The crank handle dog on those engines poked through a seal in the rear timing case. When they made the 5 bearing engine they kept everything the same.
The direction of rotation is physically determined by two things: the relationship of the cam lobes to each other and the crank, and the direction in which the skew drive to the distributor turns. The distributor is (usually) set up to turn clockwise (looking down on it), and it allows distributor manufacturers to make a variety of units based on a single base design for advance/retard gear etc. It also allows you to play around with different distributors to some extent if you ever wanted to.
To reverse the engine direction a la dauphine to R4 you have to:
-have a "mirror image" cam shaft profile which looks the same but is made "opposite hand",
-reverse the lead on the pair of skew gears so that a cam rotating in the opposite direction doesn'yt change the direction of the dizzie.
-reverse the pitch of any oil return threads on seals on cam, crank etc.
-it isn't practical to change the affected parts, they would be replaced.
Re the R4 engine in a dauphine:
You are pretty much stuck with using the same gearbox because of the gear shift and also the mounting onto the chassis subframe and the method of attachment of the half-shafts. People have put R8/10 gearboxes in but its not simple.
With the engine, I think you probably could replace it with a GTL motor (I don't have one and I'm in Melbourne-sorry!) , there would most likely be some messing about with clutch throws, linkage, thrust bearing etc as well as locating the radiator, fan, engine mounts etc.
You could also rebuild the existing motor with dauphine crank, cam and starter motor but not really worth it unless you are really keen on originality (and hand cranking!).
Honestly, I think swapping the crown and pinion around in the gearbox is going to be the quickest and easiest way to do it.
Hope this helps