Chapter IV: Part 4

It has been observed in a recent publication,[54] that "a finer specimen of the solid grandeur of Norman architecture, is scarcely to be found any where than in the west front of this church," (the subject of the _twenty-fourth plate_.) "The corresponding part of the rival abbey of St. Stephen, is poor when compared to it; and Jumieges and St. Georges equally fail in the comparison. In all these, there is some architectural anomaly: in the Trinity none, excepting indeed the balustrade at the top of the towers; and this is so obviously an addition of modern times, that no one can be misled by it.[55] This balustrade was erected towards the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the oval apertures and scrolls, seen in Ducarel's print,[56] were introduced."--It may be well to take the present opportunity of making a general observation, that though, in speaking of this and of other churches, the term, _west front_, may commonly be applied to the part containing the principal entrance; yet that this term must be received with a certain degree of latitude. The Norman religious edifices are far from being equally regular in their position as the English. With a general inclination to the west, they vary to every point of the compass.[57] The church of the abbey of the Trinity fronts the north-west--The architrave of the central door-way is composed of many surfaces of great depth: two-thirds of them are flat and plain, and recede so little, as to afford but small opportunity for light and shade. Its decorations are few and simple, consisting almost wholly of the billet and chevron moulding, the former occupying the exterior, the latter the interior, circles. In the outermost band, the billets form a single row, and take the curve of the arch; the succeeding circle exhibits them with an unusual arrangement, placed compound, and all pointing to the centre of the door. These, with the addition of quatrefoils, and of some grotesque heads, which serve as key-stones to the mouldings over the windows of the triforium, are the only ornaments which this front can boast. The capitals throughout it are of the simplest forms, being in general little more than inverted cones, slightly truncated, for the purpose of making them correspond with the columns below. Some few of them have the addition of small projecting knobs immediately below the angles of the impost; while those in the square towers are formed by a short cylinder, whose diameter exceeds that of the shaft, surmounted by a square block, by way of abacus. The towers and buttresses decrease in size upwards.--An architectural peculiarity deserving of notice in this front, lies in the triangular mouldings, observable in the spandrils of the arches of the clerestory. The same are occasionally, though rarely, found in other buildings of unquestionably Norman origin, as in the church at Falaise, and in Norwich Cathedral[58] in our own country. They are here more particularly noticed, as serving to illustrate what has been considered an anomaly in the architecture of some of the round-towered churches in Norfolk and Suffolk,[59] where the windows are formed with heads of this shape. Antiquaries, unwilling to admit that the _flat-sided arch_, as it has been called by a perversion of terms, was introduced into England prior to the fourteenth century, have labored to prove that such windows were alterations of that period, contrary to the evidence of every part of the building.

The east-end of the choir (_plate twenty-five_) presents a bold termination, pierced with ten spacious windows, that give light to the choir, each of them encircled with a broad band, composed of the same ornaments as are found in the rest of the exterior of the edifice. This part of the church is divided in its elevation into three compartments, the lower containing a row of small blank arches, while in each of the upper two is a window of an unusual size for a Norman building, but still without mullions or tracery. The windows ore separated by thick cylindrical pillars, which rise from immediately above a row of windows that give light to the crypt. The heads of these windows are level with the surface of the ground; and the wall, in this subterranean part of the building, is considerably thicker than it is above. The balustrade of quatrefoils above appears coeval with the rest, and may be regarded as tending to establish the originality of that in the nave of the abbey church of St. Stephen.[60]

The _twenty-sixth_ and _twenty-seventh plates_ shew the interior of the choir, as the _thirty-third_ does the most remarkable of its capitals. This part of the church, in its general arrangement, very much resembles the same portion in St. Georges and in Norwich Cathedral. The second, however, of these buildings, retains the original groinings of the roof, which in our English church have been sacrificed, to make room for large pointed windows; while in the church of the Trinity they have given place to a spacious dome, painted with a representation of the Assumption. In the foreground of this picture, is seen the royal foundress of the abbey; and, according to common tradition, the portrait of a female dressed in the habit of a nun, on the north side of the high altar, is also intended for her. But traditions of this nature are too vague for much reliance to be placed upon them. The altar-piece itself is an _Adoration of the Shepherds_, not devoid of merit.--The plain arches, with their truncated columns, seen in the upper part of _plate 26_, near the front on either side, and repeated in the following plate, are those which terminate the flat part of the choir. The wide unvaried extent of blank surface beneath them is attributable to modern masons, who have filled up and covered arches without mercy or discretion, and have pierced the walls anew with plain mean door-ways. The windows are lofty, and of fine proportions. Their glazing is probably of the time of Louis XIV. when the gorgeous splendor of painted glass gave way to the less beautiful and less appropriate ornaments, supplied by the fancy of the plumbers.[61] The narrow passage formed in the thickness of the wall, with its small arches variously decorated, surrounds the whole building; choir, nave, and transepts. In the architectural arrangement of this portion of the edifice, where every large arch of the windows is flanked by two lesser ones of the triforium, the church of the Trinity agrees with the cathedral at Oxford, as figured in Mr. Carter's work on ancient architecture[62] and there treated as a genuine Saxon building, erected by King Ethelred, after the destruction of the monastery by the Danes in 1004. But the capitals of the columns in the two churches bear only a slight resemblance to each other. Those at Oxford[63] are among the most beautiful left us by early architects, consisting chiefly of foliage; and, in one instance, of a very elegant imitation of a coronet. In the abbatial church at Caen, they display the same mixture of Grecian and barbarous taste, the same beauties, the same monstrosities, and the same apparent aim at fabulous or emblematic history, as has been previously remarked at St. Georges. On the angles of one, which contains four storks, arranged in pairs, will be found an obvious representation of the heraldic fleur-de-lys. In that, figured below it on the plate, is a head placed over two lions, commonly believed to be intended for a portrait of the Conqueror.

The _twenty-eighth_ and _twenty-ninth plates_ are devoted to the transepts: the first of them exhibits two of the arches which support the central tower. Finer specimens of the kind are scarcely to be seen in Normandy; and the decoration of them is very peculiar, consisting altogether of numerous bands of quatrefoils in bas-relief. The sculpture of the capitals is likewise remarkable: that of one of them represents entire rams; while the opposite one has only the heads of the same animal at its angles, accompanied with an ornament, which the writer of this article does not remember to have met with elsewhere. The arch that separates the tower from the nave,[64] rises higher than any of the rest, and is obtusely pointed; but its decorations correspond with those of the others, and it appears to be of the same date.[65] For the purpose of more effectually marking the connection of the _twenty-eighth plate_ with the preceding, it may be well to observe, that the string-course, seen in the former through the first arch and adjoining the base of the truncated column, is the same which, in _plate twenty-seven_, forms the base-line of the windows. The same string-course in the choir runs immediately below the gallery; but in the transepts, this gallery is upon a different line, being elevated by the interposition of a very beautiful range of small blank arches, between the larger arches below and the windows of the clerestory; and these latter, in conjunction with the small arches, only occupy the same space as the windows of the choir. The southern transept has been here selected for publication, as being the most perfect. Had the opposite one been equally so, it would have been preferable, from the curious character of its capitals, many of which are taken from scripture-history. But these are, unfortunately, much mutilated.

In the _thirtieth plate_ is given a general view of the upper half of the interior of the nave, shewing the western extremity, with the three compartments nearest to it on either side; and here, as in the two preceding plates, it is impossible not to regret the existence of the floor, which, by dividing the church into different stories, greatly injures the effect of the whole. Neither in this nor in any other part of the building, are there side-chapels or aisles. The architecture of the nave, in its general arrangement, resembles that of the transepts; except as to the arches of the second row, which are peculiar. Upon an attentive examination too, it will be found that, notwithstanding the apparent uniformity, no two compartments are precisely alike, while the capitals are infinitely varied. This playfulness of ornament is remarkable in a building, whose architect appears, at first view, to have contemplated only grandeur and solidity. At the farther end of the nave, are seen the five windows of the principal front, together with a portion of the great arch of entrance. The remaining part of this arch, as well as of the others of the lower tier, with the pillars that support them, are concealed by the floor. The gallery, it will be remarked, sinks at the western end, as in the choir, and is connected with the sides by a staircase. The roof is only of lath and plaster, painted in imitation of masonry.

The _thirty-first plate_ exhibits three of the eight compartments of the clerestory, on the south side of the nave, as seen externally. The cloisters and conventual buildings hide the whole of the opposite side of the church; and, perfect as is the part here represented, there is nothing to be seen below; for a range of work-shops and of sheds has obstructed the view of the exterior, as effectually as the floor has of the corresponding portion within. The corbel-table, with its monsters of all descriptions, affords a curious specimen of the sculpture of the age. The string-course above it is rich and beautiful. The same is also the case with the decorations of the windows, as well as of the blank arches with which they are flanked, while the intervening flat buttresses, edged by slender cylindrical pilasters, likewise indicate a degree of care and of taste which is very pleasing, and which is the more remarkable, when considered in union with the architecture of the exterior of the contemporary abbey of St. Stephen.

The crypt (_plate thirty-two_) occupies the space under the choir. The Abbé De la Rue, who terms it "_une jolie chapelle_," says that, in the fifteenth century, it was denominated the subterranean chapel of St. Nicholas; but previously to the revolution, had assumed the name of the chapel of the Holy Trinity. It was originally entered by two narrow staircases from the transepts. Its length from east to west is about thirty feet: its width, about twenty-seven. The simple vaulted roof is supported by thirty-two slender columns, sixteen of them half imbedded in the wall, and rising from a stone bench, with which this crypt is surrounded, in the same manner as that of the church of St. Gervais, at Rouen. This chapel was, till lately, paved with highly-polished vitrified bricks, each about two inches square, diversified with very vivid colors, but of a description altogether unlike those in the Conqueror's palace. It is lighted by narrow windows, which widen considerably inwards, the wall being here of great thickness; and, according to all probability, there were originally eleven of them, though the greater part are now closed. One of them was lately filled with bones, and bricked up. Upon the place it occupied is to be seen the following inscription, placed between a couple of vases of antique form:--"_Ossemens trouvés dans l'ancien chapitre des dames de la Trinité, et déposés dans ce lieu le IV. Mars, MDCCCXVIII._"

In the same year, at the time when these drawings were made, no tombs whatever existed in the church of the Trinity. There had formerly been many here; but the revolution had swept them all away.[66] Among the rest were those of the royal foundress, of her daughter Cæcilia, the first abbess, and of two other daughters of English kings, who likewise wore the ducal coronet of Normandy. The most celebrated of all was that of Matilda: according to Ordericus Vitalis, it was of exquisite workmanship, and richly ornamented with gold and precious stones. But the Calvinists demolished it in 1562; and, not content with plundering the monument of all that was valuable, tore open the Queen's coffin, and dispersed her remains. Towards the close of the same century, Anne de Montmorenci, then abbess, caused the royal bones to be collected, and again to be deposited in the original stone coffin; and things continued in this state till the year 1708, when the abbess, Gabrielle Françoise Fronlay de Tessé, raised a second altar-tomb of black marble, a representation of which has been preserved by Ducarel. In addition to this, she inclosed the bones of the princess for greater security in a leaden box, which she laid in the coffin; and these happily escaped violation in 1793, when the revolutionists destroyed the monument, because the arms of Normandy, with which it was ornamented, sinned against the doctrines of the liberty and equality of man. France being once more settled under a monarchical form of government, a fresh search was instituted in March, 1819, by the prefect of the department, in the presence of the bishop of the diocese and Mr. Spencer Smythe, for the discovery of Matilda's remains; and they were found and verified, and re-interred in their original situation.--Another tomb, similar to that which was destroyed at the revolution, is also raised over them. The engraved stone in _plate twenty-six_, marks the place which it occupies. Upon it is laid the original slab with the epitaph, which, by great good fortune, escaped unhurt from the hands both of democrats and Huguenots; and, as many of the subscribers to this work have expressed a desire that a fac-simile of it should be inserted, as illustrative of the form of the letters, as well as of the manner of writing in use at that period, Mr. Cotman has had a pleasure in meeting their wishes, at the same time, that he has not considered it as sufficiently belonging to the publication, to justify him in making it an object of charge. The inscription, divided into lines, and written in modern characters, is as follows:--

"Egregie pulchri tegit hec structura sepulcri
Moribus insigne germen regale Matildem
Dux Flandrita pater huic extitit Adala mater
Francor gentis Rotberti filia regis
Et soror Henrici regali sede potiti
Regi magnifico Wlllelmo juncta marito
Presentem sedem presente fecit et edem
Tam multis terris quam multis rebus honestis
A se ditatam se procurante dicatam
Hec consolatrix inopum pietatis amatrix
Gazis dispersis pauper sibi dives egenis
Sic infinite petiit consortia vite
In prima mensis post primam luce Novembris."

NOTES:

[51] The will of the Queen has been printed by the Abbé De la Rue, (_Essais Historiques_ II. p. 437) from a manuscript in the royal library at Paris; but the writer of the present article is not aware that it has ever yet appeared in any English publication; and he therefore considers it desirable here to reprint it, for the antiquaries of his own country.--"Ego Mathildis Regina do Sanctæ Trinitati Cadomi casulam quam apud Wintoniam [Winchester] operatur uxor Aldereti, et clamidem operatam ex auro quæ est in camera mea ad cappam faciendam, atque de duabus ligaturis meis aureis in quibus cruces sunt, illam quæ emblematibus est insculpta, ad lampadem suspendendam coram Sancto altare, candelabraque maxima quæ fabricantur apud Sanctum Laudum, coronam quoque et sceptrum, calicesque ac vestimentum, atque aliud vestimentum quod operatur in Anglia, et cum omnibus ornamentis equi, atque omnia vasa mea, exceptis illis quæ antea dedero alicubi in vita mea; et Chetehulmum [Quetehou en Cotentin] in Normannia, et duas mansiones in Anglia do Sanctæ Trinitati Cadomi. Hæc omnia concessu domini mei Regis facio.

"Ex cartulario Sanctæ Trin. Bibl. Reg. Paris. no. 5650."

[52] The annual income arising from these, is stated by Odon Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, in the _procés-verbal_ of his visit to this abbey in 1250, to have amounted to one hundred and sixty pounds sterling; a sum nearly equivalent to eighty thousand livres of the present day.

[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 Abbé De la Rue; and it is hoped some French antiquary will be found sufficiently patriotic to cause them to be engraved.

PLATES XXXIV.--XXXVI.

CASTLE AND CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, 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 principal 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 assistance 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 assign 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-assemble 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 passage upon the subject deserves attention, particularly as being decisive with regard to the state of Dieppe at that period:

"Haud procul hinc portus famâ celeberrimus atque
Villa potens opibus florebat nomine _Deppen_.
Hanc primùm Franci sub eodem tempore gazis
Omnibus expoliant, spoliatam denique totam
In cinerem redigunt; et sic ditatus abivit
Coetus ovans, quòd tot villâ 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 Château 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, Béhuchet, 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 assailants: 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 gratitude 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 instituted the Guild of the Assumption, 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 massacre 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 Médicis 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 assembly 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 Napoléon.

In this short outline of the principal 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, unassisted 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 pronounced them to be entitled 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 Marêts, 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.

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-shells, 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 buttresses, 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] _Mémoires Chronologiques pour servir à l'Histoire de Dieppe et à celle de la Navigation Française, 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 XXXVII.

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 Abbé De la Rue, receives confirmation from the circumstance 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.

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 XXXVIII.--XLI.

CHURCH OF ST. HILDEBERT, AT GOURNAY.

The town of Gournay is generally supposed to rival, in point of antiquity, almost any other in this part of France. Tradition refers its origin to the days of Julius Cæsar, during the latter part of whose government in Gaul, a dangerous conspiracy broke out among the Bellovaci, the Caletes, and the Velliocasses, assisted by the inhabitants of other neighboring districts. This confederacy is supposed to have given rise to Gournay.

The situation of the town is upon the frontiers of the territories of the two first tribes just mentioned, the present inhabitants of the Pays de Caux and of the Beauvaisis, in a marshy spot, subject to frequent inundations from two small rivers, the Epte and the St. Aubin, whose waters flow beneath the walls of the place. Hence, an inference has naturally arisen, that the necessity for communication between people so near in point of position, and yet so effectually separated, first suggested the advantages to be derived from a bridge over the Epte, in a place otherwise impassable; and that the bridge was shortly afterwards followed by a cause-way, which, in its turn, held out inducements to settlers, so that the town imperceptibly grew out of the traffic thus occasioned.

The historical celebrity acquired by Gournay, far exceeds what might have been expected from its size or importance, and has altogether arisen from the power and the high military character of its Norman lords. Rollo, at the time that he parcelled out the lands of his newly-acquired sovereignty, amongst his companions in arms, bestowed Gournay, together with the whole of the Norman division of the Pays de Brai, upon a chieftain of the name of Eudes, to be held as a fief of the duchy, under the usual military tenure; binding him and his successors to furnish to the prince, in times of war, twelve of their vassals, and to arm all their dependents for the defence of the adjacent frontier. Eudes had a son of the name of Hugh; and he it is who is reported to have first directed his attention towards making Gournay a place of strength. The ancient records ascribe to him the erection of a citadel in the immediate vicinity of the church of St. Hildebert, surrounded with a triple wall and double fosse; and farther secured by a tower, which was called after his name, _la Tour Hue_, and which continued in existence till the beginning of the seventeenth century. Such was the reported strength of this fortress, that Brito, a chronicler, but, it must be remembered, a poetical one, declares that it was able to resist an hostile attack, even without a single soldier within the walls! His whole account of the place, in the time of Philip-Augustus, and of its capture by that monarch, in the sixth book of his _Philippiad_, is curious and interesting.

A second Hugh de Gournay, born after a lapse of about a century from the death of the son of Eudes, is usually accounted the head of the family, because it is from him that the regular series of their descent is to be traced. He was a man of whose military prowess many instances are recorded: among his other exploits, he is supposed to have been the chieftain, who, carrying his arms into the district of Beauvais, made himself master of the four villages there, which, from their subjection to him, have retained the name of _Les Conquêts_ and which continued for many centuries under the administration of the lords of Gournay. He also attended the Conqueror to England, where he was rewarded for his services by a grant of land which he held from that prince _in capite_. Upon a former occasion, he had been employed by him in a place of high trust, having been appointed to command, in conjunction with Taillefer, half-brother to the duke, and three other Norman nobles, the fleet sent to the protection of Edward the Confessor, against the claims of Harold. His name is also found in 1059, among the leaders of the Norman army, which defeated the French forces at Couppegueule, near Mortimer. At last, disgusted with earthly affairs, he retired to the abbey of Bec, and there, in the monastic robe, ended a life which had been devoted to pursuits of the most opposite tendency.--This Hugh de Gournay had a son of the name of Girald, who married the sister of William, Earl Warren, and accompanied Robert, Duke of Normandy, to the Holy Land.--The third, and last Hugh de Gournay, grandson of Girald, was in the number of those who followed Richard Coeur-de-Lion in a similar expedition, and was appointed his commissioner to receive the English share of the spoil after the battle of Acre. He was also among the barons who rose against King John. But his attachment to the English cause ultimately lost him his possessions in Normandy; for no sooner was Philip-Augustus master of Gournay, than he declared him a traitor, and banished him from France.

Philip added to the fortifications a new castle, in the direction of Ferrieres. This, however, has been long since destroyed; and indeed the probability is, that the walls and towers of Gournay were neglected and suffered to fall into decay, shortly after the annexation of the duchy to France. There can be little doubt but that the town originally owed its importance, as a fortress, to its position upon the frontiers of France and Normandy; and the consequence would therefore naturally follow, that, as soon as the ducal and regal crowns were united on the same head, it would cease to be maintained as a place of strength.--About a hundred years after the capture of Gournay by Philip-Augustus, Philip the Bold, great grandson of that monarch, bestowed the town and lordship upon his youngest son, Charles of Valois, at whose death it became a part of the dower of his widow, Matilda of Chatillon. Again, in like manner, on the decease of Philip of Valois, in 1350, Gournay was separated from the Crown, and assigned to the widowed queen, Blanche of Navarre. By this princess it was held for forty-eight years, when it once more reverted to the royal domains. But early in the succeeding century, the town fell, together with the rest of France, under the victorious arms of our sovereign Henry V. and upon his demise, it was a third time selected as a portion of the dower of the royal widow, Catherine, daughter of the French monarch, Charles VI. Her death, in 1438, restored it to England: but only to be held for the short term of eleven years, at which time, the reverses sustained by the British troops, occasioned the expulsion of our monarchs from their continental dominions.--From that period to the revolution, the lordship of Gournay, with the title of count, was constantly added by the French kings to the dignities of some one of the principal families of the realm; and in this manner, it successively passed through different branches of the houses of Harcourt, Orléans, Longueville, and Montmorenci.

The church of St. Hildebert,[69] the subject of these plates, was, previously to the revolution, both parochial and collegiate. Its foundation is supposed to be of very high antiquity. There is, however, no proof of the precise period of the establishment of the chapter here. The earliest records upon the subject, bear date in the year 1180, and merely mention it as being then in existence; but, according to tradition, it was first fixed at the neighboring village of Brefmoutier, and was removed to Gournay by Hugh, the last of the Norman counts. The same Hugh is generally reported to have commenced the erection of the present church; but it is sufficiently known with how little accuracy the early historians are wont to express themselves on these subjects. The term, "to rebuild," often means no more than to repair; so that it is in many cases more safe to judge from the style of a building itself, than from the records preserved to us respecting it. The architecture of the church of St. Hildebert would lead to the supposition, that a considerable portion of it was standing in its present state, at least one hundred years anterior to the time of Hugh; and, even admitting such to have been the case, there is still sufficient discrepancy in the rest of the edifice to account for the well attested circumstance, that, at the close of the thirteenth century, the church yet remained incomplete. The imperfect state of the building did not prevent its receiving the honor of a dedication: this ceremony was performed in one of the last years of the twelfth century, by Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, in person, attended, as commonly happened, by a great concourse of the nobles and clergy of the province; and, in the first year of the following century, Herbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, passed over from England for the express purpose of doing honor by his presence to the translation of the reliques of St. Hildebert. The banishment of Hugh de Gournay and confiscation of his property, which took place shortly after these events, deprived the canons of their liberal and powerful benefactor. Poverty caused the progress of the building to be suspended; and it was only by the aid of repeated indulgences, granted by the popes and archbishops,[70] that it was finally brought to a state of completion. The two western towers are of a considerably more recent period: they were erected in their present state, of wood, roofed with slate, in the middle of the seventeenth century. The timber was supplied by the Duchess of Longueville, whose husband was at that time Count of Gournay; and the rest of the charge was defrayed by the sale of the materials of a ruined chapel, dedicated to St. Julian, and of a small central tower, the only one originally attached to the building.

The church is in the form of a cross; consisting of a nave with aisles, choir, and transepts. The west front (_plate thirty-eight_) is in the earliest style of pointed architecture, and evidently of the period of the same Hugh de Gournay, by whom the whole edifice is said to be raised. If compared with the same portion of the churches known to have been erected at a similar period in England, the closest resemblance will be traced between them. That of Salisbury cathedral, the most noble instance of the kind in Britain, is later, and infinitely more richly ornamented. But in this at Gournay, the windows are the only portion that have altogether escaped mutilation or alteration. The side portals were evidently, in their original state, fronted with porches, which have now disappeared. Such has likewise been the case with the arches of entrance; and mention has already been made of the posterior date of the tower.

The _thirty-ninth plate_ exhibits a portion of the older part of the interior of the church, and displays a style of architecture considerably prior to the period assigned for its rebuilding; so that no one can well doubt but that, as has been hinted above, though it may be said to owe its existence to Hugh de Gournay, this assertion is to be taken only in a qualified sense. This plate contains the last compartment of the north side of the nave, and also admits a portion of the transept. Flanking the nave, on either hand, is a row of seven columns, supporting six arches. It is scarcely possible for the most casual observer not to be struck, immediately upon entering the building, with the extreme massiveness and solidity of the piers. They are for the most part square, and only varied with a semi-cylindrical shaft attached to each of the four sides. Similar piers are to be found in many of the village churches upon the coasts of Sussex and Surrey, the part of our island which, from its situation nearest to Normandy, is most likely to retain genuine specimens of the earliest and purest Norman architecture. But the most remarkable character attending the piers at Gournay is, that the sculpture upon them, instead of being confined as usual to the capitals of the pillars, is also continued over the flat intermediate surface of the piers, extending to the same depth as the capitals, as if intended, by forming a band round the whole, to connect it more closely in a kind of architectural unity. The pattern, however, in general varies as applied to the flat or circular sides. The arches of the nave of the church are of a shape between what is generally termed the semi-circular and the horse-shoe arch; their centre being somewhat higher than the spring, but not remarkably so. The clerestory windows above are all Norman; and the same is the case with the great arches, originally intended to support the central tower; excepting, indeed, in that to the north, which has evidently undergone an alteration.

_Plates forty_ and _forty-one_[71] are devoted to the capitals, the most characteristic feature of the building. A more remarkable or a more interesting set, is not to be seen in any church throughout Normandy. Their character is by no means altogether the same as that of those at St. Georges, or in the abbatial church of the Trinity at Caen. There are indeed monsters among them, but they are of unfrequent occurrence; and, if the expression may be allowed, they are not equally monstrous. Nor are they of a description to appear to bear any reference to mythology, or to history. On the contrary, the sculpture on them is for the most part of great beauty; and the patterns display a fertile, and an elegant, if not a classical, taste on the part of the architects. The greatest peculiarity among them, and one that is believed to be wholly confined to this church, is, that seven or eight of the pillars have, by way of capitals, a narrow projecting rim, carved with undulating lines. So frequent a repetition of the same ornament, and of an ornament so very singular, removes the idea of accident. It has therefore been supposed, that the intention of the sculptor was to exhibit a kind of hieroglyphical representation of water. "Perhaps," as has been observed elsewhere,[72] "it is the chamber of Sagittarius; or, perhaps, it is a _fess-wavy_, to which the same signification has been assigned by heralds.--If this interpretation be correct, the symbol is allusive to the ancient situation of the town, built in a marsh, intersected by two streams."

The aisles of the church are in all parts ancient: their vaulting resembles that of Norwich cathedral, an arch springing from each capital.--Large windows of the decorated English style, and consequently comparatively modern, have been inserted, at the east end of the church, and at the extremity of the south transept; but, in both these parts, sufficient is left to shew the original design of the architect. In the latter, it is evident that there once were, as there still remain in the opposite transept, four semi-circular-headed windows, disposed, to speak in heraldic language, 1, 2, and 1; while, in the former, were seven, placed 1, 2, and 4. Of the four lowest of these, the two outermost gave light to the aisles. Each window was separated from the rest by a shallow undivided Norman buttress, built of squared freestone, and interrupting the herring-bone masonry, which occupies the rest of the east end, to the height of about five feet from the ground.

NOTES: