easure attributable to its
defenceless state, situated as it is, in the immediate vicinity of
England. The British fleet effected a landing in 1330, and destroyed the
town with fire and the sword. In the course of the succeeding year, they
returned with the same design; and again in 1413; on which last
occasion, not content with burning Treport itself, they likewise set
fire to many neighboring villages. The religious wars during the
following century were the source of almost equal calamities; but
neither the sea nor warfare have inflicted such fatal wounds upon
Treport, as causes emanating immediately from the prosperity of France.
Its proximity to the flourishing harbor of Dieppe, has naturally
diverted its trade to that quarter: the restoration of Calais to the
French monarchy, caused it a yet more irreparable injury; for,
previously to that time, Treport was the principal place in the channel,
for the baking of biscuit, and for the landing and curing of the
herrings caught by the fishermen of France in the German Ocean.

Treport was one of the first French towns that afforded a residence for
the Knights Templars. A colony of them established themselves here in
1141. In the middle of the preceding century, its abbey of Benedictines,
dedicated to the Archangel Michael, had been founded by Robert, Earl of
Eu. The foundation-charter is preserved, both in the _Neustria Pia_ and
_Gallia Christiana_; and a very curious document it is, as illustrative
of the manners of the times. Robert appears in it in the light of a most
liberal, and a most wealthy, benefactor. Not the least extraordinary of
his donations, is the permission which he bestows upon the monks, of
"getting whatever they can in the towns of Eu and of Treport:"
immediately after this, succeed particular grants relative to sturgeons
and grampuses, fish that are now of extremely rare occurrence in the
channel, but which would scarcely have there been noticed, had not the
case in those times been far different; and had they not also been held
in high estimation.[139]

Just one hundred years subsequently to the foundation of the monastery,
John, Count of Eu, confirmed to it whatever donations it had previously
received; in doing which, he makes use of this singular expression,
"that he places them all with his own hands upon the altar." His piety,
however, appears to have been but short-lived. A few years only elapsed
before the same nobleman was guilty of flagran