the ducal throne to England: the annexation of Normandy to the crown of
France, completed the ruin of the town; and the great change in the
habits of mankind, from warlike to commercial, leaves no hopes for the
restoration of the importance of a place, whose situation holds out no
advantages for trade. Hence, Fecamp at present appears desolate and
decayed; and, though the official account of the population of France
still allows the number of its inhabitants to amount to seven thousand,
the great quantity of deserted houses, calculated to amount to more than
a third of all those in the town, impress the beholder with a strong
feeling of depopulation and ruin.[160]

But, in the earliest periods of French history, long before the
foundation of the Norman throne, Fecamp was honored as a regal
residence. The palace is said to have been rebuilt by William
Longue-Epee, with extraordinary magnificence. That prince took great
pleasure in the chace; and he and his immediate successors frequently
lived here. He also selected the castle as a place of retirement for his
duchess, during her pregnancy with Richard. His choice, in this respect,
was probably not altogether guided by his partiality for the place; but,
threatened at that time with a dangerous war, he was desirous of fixing
his wife and infant heir in a situation, whence they might, in case of
necessity, be with ease removed to the friendly shores of
England.--Richard, born at Fecamp, preserved through life an attachment
to the town, and omitted no opportunity of benefiting it. He rebuilt,
endowed, and enriched the abbatial church at vast expense; and he
finally ordered it to be the resting-place for his bones, which,
however, he would not permit to be interred in any spot whatever within
the structure, but, with his dying breath, expressly enjoined his son to
deposit them on the outside, immediately beneath the eaves, in order
that, to use the words put by the monastic historians into his mouth
upon the occasion, "stillantium guttarum sacro tecto diffluens infusio
abluat jacentis ossa, quae omnium peccatorum tabe foedavit et maculavit
negligens et neglecta vita mea."--A curious question might be raised,
whether the monarch, in this injunction, was solely impressed with the
feeling of his own unworthiness, or whether he had also in view, the
mystic doctrine of the efficacy of water towards the ablution of sins.

Richard II. and the succeeding dukes, appear to have regarde