THE  CHURCH  OF  ST.  JACQUES,  DIEPPE.

Of  all  the  monuments  which  command  the  town,  the  most  ancient,  and  the
most  interesting  as  a  work  of  art,  is  St.  James’s  Church.  It  is  a  large  edifice,  the
proportions  of  which  are  very  fine,  and  the  plan  simple  and  noble.  The  exterior
has  some  fine  parts  well  sculptured,  and  in  the  interior  there  are  remains  of  rich
and  splendid  decorations.  But  we  see  also  the  traces  of  the  spoliation  and  profanation ­
  which  the  edifice  has  suffered:  nevertheless,  it  is  still  in  a  sufficiently  good
state  of  preservation  to  give  pleasure  and  advantage  on  studying  it  minutely.
The  greater  part  of  the  building  is  of  the  fourteenth  century  ;  but  some  of  its
parts  are  still  more  ancient.  In  fact,  there  is  no  doubt  that  there  was  an  abbey  of
St.  Catherine  on  the  very  site  now  occupied  by  St.  Jacques.  No  record  is  to  be
found  of  the  precise  time  of  the  building  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Catherine;  but  we
know  that  it  had  fallen  into  ruin  in  1250,  “  with  the  exception  of  two  of  its  chapels,”
say  the  rolls  of  the  Viscounty,  “  which  were  made  use  of  to  commence  the  building  of
St.  Jacques  in  1250.”  Now  those  two  chapels  are  the  two  transepts,  or,  at  least,
the  two  bays  next  the  transepts.  It  must  be  confessed  that  this  is  but  a  supposition  ;
but  it  accounts  for  the  singular  incongruity  between  the  two  extremities  of  the  cross
aisles  and  the  other  parts  of  the  building;  and  though  the  project  for  building
St.  Jacques  seems  to  have  been  decided  on  in  1250,  it  had  not  made  much  progress
in  1300,  and  the  whole  was  not  completed  till  1443.
To  judge,  at  one  glance,  of  St.  Jacques  as  a  whole,  you  should  enter  by  the
great  door,  whence  you  have  a  view  of  the  entire  length  of  the  building.  It  is  about
300  feet  long  from  the  entrance  of  the  nave  to  the  extremity  of  the  chancel,  or
Chapel  of  the  Virgin.  The  breadth  of  the  body  of  the  Church  is  from  00  to  75
feet.  The  nave  is  divided  into  six  bays  of  a  good  height,  and  which  are  in  perfect
harmony  with  the  upper  gallery,  some  arcades  of  which  have  been  decorated  at  a
period  subsequent  to  their  original  erection.  The  choir,  as  far  as  its  semicircular
end,  is  only  half  as  long  as  the  nave  :  it  is  composed  of  three  bays  or  arcades;  five
others,  which  are  narrower,  form  the  semicircular  end.  The  galleries  of  the  choir,
like  those  of  the  nave,  were  ornamented  at  a  period  subsequent  to  their  erection.
Round  the  choir  and  the  nave  there  is  a  suite  of  nineteen  chapels,  each  of  which
corresponds  with  one  of  the  bays.  Of  all  these  chapels,  formerly  so  richly  adorned,
now  so  naked,  so  poor,  and  abandoned  to  the  dust,  that  of  the  Virgin  was  the
pride  of  the  Church;  and,  even  now,  no  other  part  of  the  edifice  is  comparable
to  it  as  a  work  of  art.