Architectural Antiquities of Normandy Part 7

[53] _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, p. 75, t. 7.--In this figure, which represents the south side of the building, a striking resemblance will be observed with the architecture of the church of Than, figured in this work, _pl. 16_.--Ducarel, in speaking of the pillars in the inside of the chapel, says they are of a peculiar construction, and widely different from all others that have fallen under his consideration; but he has unfortunately furnished no engraving of them, and has even omitted to mention wherein their peculiarity lay.

[54] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 184.

[55] Still less can any one be so by the alteration of the arches of entrance into modern windows, which Mr. Turner did not think it worth while to mention.

[56] _Anglo-Norman Antiquities_, plate 5.

[57] See _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 171.

[58] See _Britton's Norwich Cathedral_, plate 4, F. p. 32.

[59] Hadisco church, figured in _Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk_, plate 38, affords an excellent specimen of these windows.

[60] See plate 23.

[61] See _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 252, under the head of Bayeux Cathedral, the windows of which are remarkable for the complicated patterns of the lead-work.--See also _Carter's Ancient Architecture_, I. plate 79, p. 54, where this laborious author states himself to have collected nearly all the remains of this description of art in England. He is inclined to refer it to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.--In the second volume of the same work, plate 27, fig. F. 2, is represented one of the borders of the west window of the nave in York Cathedral, which almost exactly resembles one of these at Caen.

[62] I. plate 28, fig. A.

[63] See _Britton's Oxford Cathedral_, plate 4.

[64] In Mr. Turner's _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 186, this arch is, by a _lapsus calami_, called the _eastern_, instead of the _western_.

[65] Mr. Cotman thought that he could discover visible traces of its having been originally semi-circular, and subsequently raised and pointed: and it is certainly most probable that such has been the case.

[66] Drawings of them all are fortunately preserved by the Abbe De la Rue; and it is hoped some French antiquary will be found sufficiently patriotic to cause them to be engraved.

PLATES x.x.xIV.--x.x.xVI.

CASTLE AND CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, AT DIEPPE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 34. CASTLE AT DIEPPE.]

The anonymous author of the _History of Dieppe_,[67] published towards the close of the last century, traces the origin of the town as high as the year 809, when Charlemagne visited this part of the coast of his empire, and, observing how much it was exposed to hostile attacks, ordered the construction of a fort upon the beach. The fort was honored with the name of the emperor's daughter, Bertha; and as the protection thus afforded, joined to the advantageous nature of the position, caused the fortress, within a short time, to be surrounded by the cottages of the neighboring fishermen, an establishment insensibly grew up, which acquired the appellation of Bertheville.

But the irruptions of the Normans, towards the close of the same, or the commencement of the succeeding, century, gave a new color to affairs in Neustria: places changed their names with their masters; and, no respect being paid to the emperor or his descendants, Bertheville ceased to be known under any other denomination than that of _Dyppe_, a Norman word, expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told that Dieppe became the princ.i.p.al port in the duchy. That politic sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the improving of it. It was at Dieppe that he embarked the troops, which he dispatched, in 913, for the a.s.sistance of his countrymen, the Danes, in their attempts to conquer England; and the town flourished under his sway, and then laid the foundation for that maritime greatness to which it has subsequently risen.

From this time forward, Dieppe is frequently mentioned in history: William the Conqueror honored it with his presence in 1047, and received in person the homage of its inhabitants, on his return from Arques, when the surrender of that important fortress by his uncle, Telo, put an end to the troubles occasioned by the illegitimacy of his birth. The same monarch, during the preparations for his descent upon Britain, made a particular call on the people of Dieppe, to arm their vessels for the transport of his troops. They obeyed the summons; and they boast that their ships were the first that arrived at the place of rendezvous. No port in Normandy derived equal advantage from the conquest: the intercourse between the sister countries was naturally conducted through this channel; and such continued the case till 1194, when Richard Coeur-de-Lion, defeated under the walls of Arques, was compelled to leave this part of the province a prey to the victorious arms of Philip-Augustus. Upon this occasion, the French monarch appears to have singled out Dieppe as an object of particular vengeance, and he conducted himself towards it with a cruelty for which it would be difficult to a.s.sign an adequate reason. Not content with burning the town and its shipping, he transported the inhabitants into the ulterior parts of France, that they might never re-a.s.semble and raise it from its ashes. Brito, at the same time that he glosses over the more flagrant part of the transaction, tells enough to leave no doubt of its truth; and his pa.s.sage upon the subject deserves attention, particularly as being decisive with regard to the state of Dieppe at that period:

"Haud procul hinc portus fama celeberrimus atque Villa potens opibus florebat nomine _Deppen_.

Hanc primum Franci sub eodem tempore gazis Omnibus expoliant, spoliatam denique totam In cinerem redigunt; et sic ditatus abivit Coetus ovans, qud tot villa non esse vel urbe Divitias aut tam pretiosas diceret unquam."--

In the course of the succeeding year, the treaty of Gaillon restored Dieppe and Arques, with their dependencies, to Richard, who almost immediately afterwards surrendered the former town to Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, as one of the articles of compensation for the injury done to that prelate, by the erection of Chateau Gaillard upon his territory.

Dieppe appears to have recovered itself with surprising rapidity: a new church, under the invocation of St. James, was erected in 1250, that of St. Remi being no longer sufficient for the accommodation of its inhabitants; and these, however cruelly they had been injured by Philip-Augustus, were among the foremost in their demonstrations of loyalty to him as their sovereign, when the cold-blooded tyranny of John had bereft him of the Norman diadem. In one of the first years of the succeeding century, John Baliol, more properly called De Bailleul, a fugitive from Scotland, sought refuge in Dieppe, and finally retired to his paternal domain in the valley of the Yaulne, five leagues distant from the port. The remainder of his days were spent here in the village that bears his name; and the parochial church, which still contains his ashes, was, till lately, ornamented with his tomb, charged with an inscription, reciting the various events of his life.

During the wars of Edward III. the ships from Dieppe took the lead in the great naval engagement in 1337; and their admiral, Behuchet, so distinguished himself, as to draw down upon him the marked resentment of that prince. He was himself made prisoner and hanged; and a detachment of English and Flemings was dispatched to destroy the harbor. The injuries, however, now sustained, were repaired with the same rapidity as before: Philip shewed himself no less ready to reward services, than his opponent had been to resent offences. His letters patent, bearing date in February, 1345, exempted the inhabitants from the payment of all taxes and dues, for the purpose of enabling them to rebuild their walls.--Dieppe, in 1412, was again attacked by the English, and, on this occasion, both by land and sea; but the inhabitants made a gallant and an effectual resistance.

Their opposition, though unavailing, was not at all less spirited in the following reign, when they were compelled, in common with the rest of France, to acknowledge the power of the fifth Henry. But they again disengaged themselves from the English crown in 1431, after having remained in subjugation to it for eleven years; and the subsequent siege, conducted by Talbot himself in person, in 1442, only added to their military character. During this siege, which was of great length, the English general erected the formidable fortress, known by the name of the Bastille, in the suburb of Pollet. The following year saw the French become in their turn the a.s.sailants: Louis II. then dauphin, joined the troops of the Comte de Dunois in Dieppe, and the Bastille fell, after a most murderous attack. It was afterwards levelled with the ground in 1689, though, at a period of one hundred and twenty years after it was originally taken and dismantled, it had again been made a place of strength by the Huguenots, and was still farther fortified under Henry IV. The pious dauphin, who ascribed the capture of this almost impregnable castle to the especial grace of the Virgin Mary, would not quit Dieppe without leaving behind him an equally signal mark of grat.i.tude on his part. He accordingly repaired in person to the church of St. James, there to place the town under her especial protection; and, not content with this, he inst.i.tuted the Guild of the a.s.sumption, charging the members annually to commemorate the day of their deliverance by a solemn festival.[68]

After this time, Dieppe appears to have been exposed to no farther calamities from warfare, except what it suffered, in common with a great part of France, during the religious troubles, and also excepting the bombardment by the English fleet in 1694. From the earliest rise of Calvinism in France, the inhabitants of Dieppe had distinguished themselves in favor of the reformation; and they were already prepared to go to the utmost lengths in its support, when John Knox, one of the most devoted apostles of the new faith, landed there in 1560, on his way from Scotland to Geneva. The presence of such a man produced the effect which might naturally be expected, of kindling the spark into a flame; and Dieppe continued for two years in open rebellion to the court. The inhabitants, in 1562, alarmed by the capture of Rouen, consented to receive a garrison from our Queen Elizabeth, rather than submit to renounce their creed; but they were obliged, in the course of the same year, to surrender to the royal troops. Notwithstanding all this, the Protestants of Dieppe, through the wisdom and moderation of the governor, escaped unhurt from the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew. The town was nevertheless one of the first in France to declare, in 1589, for Henry IV. when, pursued by the victorious forces of the league, he sought shelter in these walls, and here collected the handful of troops, with which he almost immediately afterwards gained the important victory of Arques. The same prince also retired hither three years subsequently, and remained ten days in the midst of _ses bons Dieppois_, as he was in the habit of styling them, to be cured of the wounds received in the battle of Aumale.

Among the various royal personages, with whose presence Dieppe has been honored on different occasions, were Mary of Guise, widow of James V. of Scotland, and mother to the unfortunate princess of the same name, who succeeded her on the Scottish throne. She landed here in 1549, and was immediately joined by Henry II. who was at that time at Rouen. In 1564, Catherine of Medicis came hither, attended by her son, Charles IX. with a view of healing the wounds occasioned by the religious dissentions; and, in 1618, Louis XIII. after holding an a.s.sembly of the states of Normandy at the capital of the duchy, repaired to Dieppe, to visit one of the most important sea-ports of his kingdom. The same attention was shewn to the town twenty-nine years subsequently, by Louis XIV. then in his minority, accompanied by the Queen Regent; and, in our own days, it has been equally distinguished by Napoleon.

In this short outline of the princ.i.p.al events connected with the history of Dieppe, no notice has been taken of the honor acquired by its sailors, who have, however, on all occasions, distinguished themselves.

They did so particularly in the year 1555, when, una.s.sisted by their king, or by any other part of France, they armed their merchant vessels, and attacked and defeated, and nearly destroyed, the Flemish fleet, consisting of twenty-four sail of ships of war. At all times they have been considered as supplying some of the best men to the French navy, so that the President de Thou p.r.o.nounced them to be ent.i.tled to the highest glory in nautical affairs. They lay claim to the honor of having first planted the standard of Christianity upon the coast of Guinea, where they established a settlement in the fourteenth century; of having been the first who discovered the great river of the Amazons; and also the first who sailed up that of St. Lawrence. Even to the present day, they carry on a considerable traffic in small ornaments made of ivory, a humiliating memento of their connection with Senegal: but all the rest of their commerce is dwindled into the fishery, and a small portion of coasting-trade.

The castle, (the subject of _plate thirty-four_,) stands upon a steep hill; and, on approaching the town from the sea, has a grand and imposing appearance. Its walls, flanked with towers and bastions, cause it to retain the look of strength, the reality of which has long since departed. The earliest portion of the building is probably a high quadrangular tower, with lofty pointed pannels, in the four walls. Even this, however, cannot have been erected anterior to the year 1443; for it is upon record that the Sieur des Marets, the first governor of the place, then began to build a castle here, to protect the town from any farther attacks on the part of the English army. The inhabitants, during the reign of Henry IV. obtained permission to add to it a citadel; but the whole was suffered almost immediately afterwards to fell into decay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 35. CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, AT DIEPPE.

_West front._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 36. CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, AT DIEPPE.

_East end._]

The church of St. Jacques, figured in the _thirty-fifth_ and _thirty-sixth plates_, is the largest, and considerably the most interesting of the two parochial churches of the place. It had the singular good fortune of escaping, together with the castle, nearly uninjured from the bombardment, during the reign of our third William, which laid the town in ashes. It was begun about the year 1260, but was little advanced at the commencement of the following century; nor were its nineteen chapels, the works of the piety of individuals, completed before 1350. The roof of the choir remained imperfect till ninety years afterwards; while that of the transept is as recent as 1628. Thus it is a valuable specimen of the ecclesiastical architecture of successive ages. In the lines of the transepts are traces of the early pointed style, apparently coeval with the church at Eu: the friezes are ornamented with small pierced quatrefoils, as in that building; and the portals, now mutilated, are in the same style.--The nave is of much later date; and the vaulting, though Gothic, is intermixed with Grecian members and scrolls.--The triforium in the choir is filled with elegant perpendicular tracery. The Lady-Chapel is perhaps one of the last specimens of Gothic art, but still very pure, except in some of the smaller members, such as the niches in the tabernacles, which end in scallop-sh.e.l.ls, instead of terminating with a groined canopy. The bosses of the groined roof are of the most delicate filagree work, and the vaulting is also ornamented with knots pendant from the ribs.--The pannel-work round the chapel takes circular terminations in each pannel; but filled within with an elegant tracery, terminating with the acanthus.--The windows of the chapel are acutely pointed.--The horizontal mullions, (an unusual feature in French architecture,) are ornamented on the outside with the ovolo. The nave is supported by flying b.u.t.tresses, each filled with tracery of eight mullions.--The tower at the south angle of the west front is lofty, and in the _perpendicular style_. In the north aisle of the choir is an elegant screen, which probably incloses a chantry-chapel, and, like the lady-chapel, exhibits a singular mixture of pointed forms, interspersed with Roman members: parts of it resemble the tomb of Bishop Fox, at Winchester.

NOTES:

[67] _Memoires Chronologiques pour servir a l'Histoire de Dieppe et a celle de la Navigation Francaise, Paris, 1785._--(2 vols. 8vo.)

[68] This festival was attended with ceremonies of the most absurd description, which were continued till the time of the revolution. They are detailed at length in the _Histoire de Dieppe_ I. p. 68; and a brief account has lately been given of them in English, in _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 24.

PLATE x.x.xVII.

TOWER OF THE CHURCH AT HAUTE ALLEMAGNE, NEAR CAEN.

The village of Haute Allemagne is situated at the distance of about a league to the south of Caen. Mention of it is to be found in the latin charters of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, under the appellation of _Alamannia_, or _Alemannia_; and the older historians contend that it derived this name from having been the site of a colony of the _Alani_, a Scythian tribe, who ravaged a portion of Gaul in the early years of the fifth century, and afterwards, with the consent of the Roman emperors, established themselves in various parts of the country. This opinion, in the judgment of the Abbe De la Rue, receives confirmation from the circ.u.mstance of there being another village called _Allemagne_, in the vicinity of Valence, where it is known that a body of the same people was fixed; and it may perhaps be adduced as a still farther proof of its correctness, that the village of Allemagne, near Caen, formerly embraced a considerably greater extent of country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 37. TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF HAUTE ALLEMAGNE NEAR CAEN.]

Allemagne was one of the domains granted by the Conqueror to his abbey of St. Stephen; and in the charter, he states that he cedes it "with its dependencies." The meaning of this latter term is explained in the subsequent charter from his son Henry, in which four neighboring villages are expressly said to be _dependent upon Allemagne_. Allemagne was itself also divided into two parishes, the _upper_ and _lower_.

At present it is only remarkable for its quarries, from which the stones are dug, known in France by the name of _Carreaux d'Allemagne_, and commonly used for floors to rooms, not only in the province of Normandy, but throughout the whole kingdom. There is also a considerable export of them for the same purpose. It was in these quarries that the fossil crocodile was discovered in 1817; which, as being extraordinarily perfect, and the first specimen ever found with scales, has excited an uncommon degree of interest among naturalists.

Of the history of the parish of Allemagne, nothing is known. The portion of its church here figured, has been selected for engraving, as an instance of a Norman tower of unquestionable antiquity, and in the highest preservation. The pyramidal stone roof, similar to that of the church of St. Michel de Vaucelles, at Caen, appears to be quite in its original state. Even the small lucarne window in it looks coeval with the rest. The row of intersecting arches below is beautiful and peculiar.

PLATES x.x.xVIII.--XLI.