of
them, leading to the sea, now serves as a military prison. It was the
Sieur des Marets[4], the first governor of the place, who began this
castle shortly after the year 1443, when Louis the XIth, then dauphin,
freed Dieppe from the dominion of the English, attacking in person, and
carrying by assault, the formidable fortress, constructed by Talbot, in
the suburb of Pollet. Of this, not a vestige now remains: the whole was
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 had been still
further fortified under Henry IVth, in whose reign the present castle
was completed; for it was not till this time that permission was given
to the inhabitants to add to it a keep. In its perfect state, whilst
defended by this keep, and still further protected by copious out-works
and bomb-proof casemates, its strength was great; but the period of its
power was of short duration; for the then perturbed state of France
naturally gave rise to anxiety on the part of the government, lest
fortresses should serve as rallying points to the faction of the league;
and the castle of Dieppe was consequently left with little more than
the semblance of its former greatness.

Of the churches here, that of St. Jaques is considerably the finest
building, and is indeed an excellent specimen of what has been called
the _decorated English style of architecture_, the style of this church
nearly coinciding in its principal lines with that which prevailed in
our own country during the reigns of the second and third Edward. 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, whilst that of the
transept is as recent as 1628[5]. The most ancient work is discernible
in the transepts, but the lines are obscured by later additions. A
cloister gallery fronted by delicate mullions runs round the nave and
choir, and the extent and arrangement of the exterior would induce a
stranger, unacquainted with the history of the building, to suppose that
he was entering a conventual or cathedral church. The parts long most
generally admired by the French, though they have always been miserable
judges of gothic architect