TrÉport is an insignificant fishing-town, situated at the mouth of the small river, the Bresle, near the western extremity of Normandy. But, however unimportant its present state, most writers agree in regarding it as venerable for antiquity, assigning to it an existence coeval with the days of Julius CÆsar. That illustrious general speaks of a harbor, opening into the British Channel, under the denomination of Ulterior Portus; and by this name he is supposed to have intended to designate TrÉport. The modern Latin historians of France apply the title without scruple: it is even so used in the charter for the foundation of the abbey, dated in the middle of the eleventh century. The very sensible author of the Description of Upper Normandy, is, however, of opinion, that such application is not warranted; and, after discussing the subject at some length, he inclines to think it more probable that TrÉport may have been termed by the Romans, Citerior Portus; though he candidly admits that he finds no mention of a place so called among their writers. According to the same author, there is no reason to believe that TrÉport was a place of note, either during the period of the dominion of the Gauls, or of the Romans. From the beginning of the twelfth century, however, it has excited, at different times, a greater or less degree of interest. Various attempts have been made to raise it into commercial importance; and, sunk as it is at present, “it once could boast rows of handsome, well-built streets, a considerable number of inhabitants, and as many as a hundred vessels, fishing-boats included, belonging to the port.”—Henry I. one of the earliest Counts of Eu, turned in 1101, the course of the Bresle, so as to bring it more immediately under the walls of TrÉport: it was he also who dug the first harbor. Another of the same line of Counts, Charles of Artois, repaired this harbor in 1475, and undertook the greater work of cutting a navigable canal as far as Eu. The task, however, was suspended long before its completion; but the vestiges still remain, and even to the present day pass under the name of the Canal d'Artois. In 1154, a fresh attempt was made, and by a far greater man, to raise the prosperity of TrÉport. Henry, Duke of Guise, caused a basin to be formed here, capable of containing ships of three hundred tons burthen; and added to it a jetty, defended by strong palisades. The whole was shortly after swept away; nor did better But the sea is not the only enemy with which TrÉport has had to contend: its misfortunes have also been in great measure 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 TrÉport 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 TrÉport, 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, TrÉport 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. TrÉport 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 TrÉport:” 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. 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 flagrant sacrilege in the very abbey that he had sworn to protect. His crime and his penitence are together recorded in an instrument printed in the Neustria Pia. What is further known relative to the convent, is little and unimportant. The most remarkable circumstance, is the extreme poverty to which the monks were reduced in 1384; when, on being called upon to pay the sum of forty-six shillings and eight-pence, they pleaded their utter inability, and presented to the king the following piteous remonstrance:—“Cette AbbaÏe, Étant frontiere de l'Anglois, n'aÏant ni chÂteau ni dÉfense, a ÉtÉ arse et mise en un si chetif point, qu'il y a FOOTNOTES: |
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