IVne the 30th at six of the clock in the morning we landed at Diepe , one of the Haven Towns of Normandy , seated on an arm of the Sea , between two hils which imbrace it in the nature of a bag : this secureth the Haven from the violence of the weather , and is a great strength to the Town against the attempts of any forces , which should assault it by Sea , the Town lying within these Mountains a quarter of a mile up the channel . The Town it self is not uncomely , the streets large and well paved , the houses of an indifferent height , and built upright without any juttings out of one part over the other . The Fortifications ( as they say , for we were not permitted to see them ) are very good and modern , without , stones , within , earth . On the top of the hill a Castle finely seated , both to defend the Town , and on occasions to command it . The Garrison consisteth of sixty men , in pay no more , but when need requireth the Captain hath authority to arm the Inhabitants : The present Governour is the Duke of Longueville , who also is the Governour of the Province , intrusted with both those charges by Lewis the thirteenth , 1619. An action wherein he swarved somewhat from the ensample of his Father , who never committed the military command of a Country ( which is the Office of a Governour ) and the custody of a Town of war or a Fortress unto one man . The Duke of Biron might have as great a courtesie from that King , as the most deserving of his subjects : he had stuck close to him in all his adversities , received many an honourable fear in his service , and indeed was Fabius and Scipio , both the sword and buckler of the French Empire . In a word , he might have said to this Henry , what Silius in Tacitus did to Tiberius . Suum militem in obsequio mans●sse , cum alii ad sedetiones prolaberentur , neque daraturum Tiberii imperium , si iis quoque Legionibus cupido novandi fuisset ; yet when he became petitioner to the King for the Cittadel of Bourg , seated on the confines of his Government of Burgogne , the King denied it . The reason was , because Governours of Provinces which commanded in chief ought not to have the command of places and fortresses within their Government : there was also another reason , and more enforcing , which was , that the petitioner was suspected to hold intelligence with the Duke of Savoy whose Town it was . The same Henry though he loved the Duke Espernon even to the envy of the Court , yet even to him also used he the same caution . Therefore when he had made him Governour of Xanictoigne and Angoulmois , he put also into his hands the Towns of Mets and Boullogne , places so remote from his seat of Government , and so distant one from the other , that they did rather distract his power than encrease it .

The Kings of England have been well , and for a long time , versed in this Maxime of State . Let Kent be one of our ensamples and Hampshire the other . In Kent at this time the Lieutenant ( or as the French would call him ) the Governour is the Earl of Montgomery ; yet is Dover Castle in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham , and yet Quinborough in the custody of Sir Edward Hobby . Of which the one commandeth the Sea , and the other the Thames and the Medway . In Hampshire the Lieutenant is the Earl of Southampton , but the Government of the Town and Garrison of Portsmouth is intrusted to the Earl of Pembroke . Neither is there any of the best Sconces or Block-houses on the shore side of the Country which is commanded by the Lieutenant .

But King Lewis now raigning in France , minded not his Fathers actions , when at the same time also he made his Confident M. Luines Governour of Picardy , and of the Town and Cittadel of Amiens . The time ensuing gave him an insight of that state-breach ; for when the Dukes of Espernon , Vendosme , Longueville , Magenne and Nemours , the Count of Soisons and others sided with the Queen Mother against the King ; the Duke of Longueville strengthened this Dieppe , and had not peace suddenly followed , would have made good , maugre the Kings forces . A town it is of great importance , King Henry the fourth using it as his Asylum , or City of Refuge , when that League was hottest against him . For had he been further distressed , from hence might he have made an escape into England , and at this door was the entrance made for the English forces , which gave him the first step to his Throne . The Town hath been pillaged and taken by our Richard the first , in his warrs against Philip Augustus , and in the declining of our affairs in France , it was a moneth together besieged by the Duke of York , but with that success which commonly attendeth a falling Empire .

The number of the Inhabitants is about 30000. whereof 9000. and upwards are of the Religion , and have allowed them for the exercise of their Religion the Church of Argues , a Village some two miles distant . The Remainder are Papists . In this Town I met with the first Idolatry which ever I yet saw , more than in my books . Quas antea audiebam hodi● , video Deos , as a barbarous German in Velleius said to Tiberius . The Gods of Rome which before I onely heard of I now see , and might have worshipped , it was the Hoast , as they call it , or the Sacrament reserved , carried by a couple of Priests under a Canopy ; ushered by two or three torches , and attended by a company of boyes & old people which had no other imployment . Before it , went a bell continually tinckling , at the sound whereof all such as are in their houses , being warned that then their God goeth by them , make some shew of reverence ; those which meet it in the street , with bended knees and elevated heads doing it honour . The Protestants of this bell make an use more religious , and use it as a warning or a watch-peal , to avoid that street through which they hear it coming . This invention of the Bell hath somewhat of Turcisme , it being the custom there , at their Canonical hours , when they hear the cryers bawling in the steeples ; to fall prostrate on the ground wheresoever they are , and to kiss it thrice , so doing their devotions to Mahomet . The carrying it about the streets hath no question in it a touch of the Jew : this Ceremony being borrowed from that of the carrying about the Ark upon the shoulders of the Priests . The other main part of it , which is the adoration , is derived from the Heathen ; there never being a people but they which afforded divine honour to things inanimate . But the people indeed I cannot blame for this idolatrous devotion , their consciences being perswaded , that what they see pass by them is the very body of their Saviour . For my part could the like beleif possess my understanding ▪ I could meet it with a greater reverence , then their charge can enjoyn me . The Priests and Doctors of the people are to be condemned onely , who impose and inforce this sin upon their bearers , and doubtless there is a reward which attendeth them for it . Of standing it is so yoūg , that I never met with it before the year 1215. Then did Pope Innocent ordain in a Council holden at Rome , that there should be a Pixe made to cover the Bread , and a Bell bought to be rung before it . The adoration of it was enjoyned by Pope Honorius Anno Dom. 1226. Both afterwards encreast by the new solemn Feast of Corpus Christi day by Pope Vrban the fourth , Anno 1264. and confirmed for ever with multitudes of pardons in the Council of Vienna by Clement the third , Anno 1310. Such a punie is this great God of the Romans Lactantius in his first book of Institutions against the Gentiles taxeth the wise men of those times of infinite ridiculousness , who worshipped Jupiter as a God , Cum eundem tamen Saturno & Rhea genitum confiterentur , since themselves so perfectly knew his original . As much I marvail at the impudency of the Romish Clergy , who will needs impose a new God upon their people , being so well acquainted with his cradle .

It is now time to go on in our journey to Roven . The Cart stayeth , and it is fit we were in it ; Horses we could get none for money , and for love we did not expect them : we are now mounted in our Chariot , for so we must call it . An English man thought it a plain Cart , and if it needs will have the honour of being a Chariot , let it , sure I am it was never ordained for a triumph . At one end were fastened three carkasses of Horses , and three bodies which had been once Horses and now were worn to dead Images . Had the statue of a man been placed on any one of them , it might have been hang'd up at an Inn door to represent Saint George on horse-back : so liveless they were and so little moving ; yet at last they began to crawl , for go they could not . This converted me from my former heresie , and made me apprehend life in them , but it was so little , that it seemed onely enough to carry them to the next pack af Hounds . Thus accomodated we bad Farewell to Diepe , and proceeded with a pace so slow , that we thought our journey to Roven would prove a most perfect Emblem of the motion of the ninth Sphere , which was 49000. years in finishing . But this was not our greatest misery : The rain fell on us through our Tilt , which for the many holes in it we would have thought a net . The durt brake plentifully in upon us through the rails of our Chariot , & the unequal and unproportionable pace of it startled almost every bone of us . I protest I marvel how a French-man durst adventure in it . Thus endured we all the diseases of a journey , and the danger of three several deaths , drowning , choaking with the mire , and breaking of the wheel , besides a fear of being famished before we came to our Inn , which was six French miles from us . The mad Duke that in the Play undertook to drive two Snails from Millaine to Musco , without staffe , whip , or goad ; and in a bravery to match him , for an experiment would here have had matter to have tired his patience .

On the left hand we saw Argues , once famous for a siege laid about it by our Richard the first , but wasted speedily by the French . It is now ( as before I told you ) the Parish Church of Diepe Protestants , their Preachers were Mr. Courteau and Mr. Mondeme , who had each of them an yearly stipend , fifty pound or thereabouts . A poor pay , if the faithful discharge of that duty were not a reward unto it self above the value of gold and siver . To instance in none of these beggerly Villages we past through : we came at last unto Tostes , the place destinate to our Lodging , a Town like the worser sort of Market Towns in England . There our Charioter brought us to the ruines of an house , an Alehouse I would scarce have thought it , and yet in spite of my teeth it must be an Inn , yea , and that an honourable one too , as Don Quixot's Host told him . Despair of finding there either bedding or victuals , made me just like the fellow at the Gallows , who when he might have been repreived , on condition he would marry a Wench , which there sued for him , having veiwed well , cried to the Hangman to drive on his Cart. The truth is , I' eschappay du tonnere etrencheu en l'es lair , according to the French proverb ; I fell out of the frying-pan into the hot fire . One of the house ( a ragged fellow I am sure he was , and so most likely to live there ) brought us to a room somewhat of kindred to a Charnel-house ; as dark and as dampish : I confess it was paved with brick at the bottom , and had towards the Orchard a pretty hole , which in former times had been a window , but now the glass was all vanished . By the light that came in at the hole , I first perceived that I was not in England . There stood in the chamber three beds , if at the least it be lawful so to call them . The foundation of them was of straw , so infinitely thronged together , that the wooll-pack which our Judges fit on in the Parliament were melted butter to them ; upon this lay a medley of flocks and feathers together , sowed up in a large bag ( for I am confident it was not a Tick ) but so ill ordered , that the knobs stuck out on each side of it , like a crabtree-cudgel . He must needs have flesh enough that lieth upon one of them ; otherwise the second night would wear out his bones . The sheets which they brought for us were so course , that in my consciente no Marriner would vouchsafe to use them for a sail : and the Coverlid so bare , that if a man would undertake to reckon the threeds , he need not miss one of the number . The Napery of the Table was sutable to the bedding , so foul and durty , that I durst not conceive it had ever been washed above once , and yet the poor cloth looked as briskly , as if it had been promised for the whole year ensuing to scape many a scouring . The Napkins were fit companions for the cloath ; Vnum si noveris , omnes nosti . By my description of the Inn , you may guess at the rest of France . Not altogether so wretched , yet is the alteration almost insensible .

Let us now walk into the Kitchen , and observe their provision , and here we found a most terrible execusion committed on the person of a Pullet . My Hostess , cruel woman , had cut the throat of it , and without plucking off the feathers , tare it into pieces with her hands , and afterwards took away skin and feathers together , just as we strip Rabbets in England . This done , it was clapt into a pan , and fried into a supper . In other places where we could get meat for the spit , it useth to be presently broached , and laid perpendicularly over the fire : three turns at the most dispatcheth it , and bringeth it up to the table , rather scorched than roasted ; I say , where we could get it , for in these rascally Inns you cannot have what you would , but what you may , and that also not at the cheapest . At Pontoise we met with a Rabbet , and we thought we had found a great purchase . Larded it was , as all meat is in that Country , otherwise it is so lean , it would never endure the roasting . In the eating it proved so tough , that I could not be perswaded that it was any more than three removes from that Rabbet which was in the Ark. The price half a Crown English : My Companions thought it over dear , to me it seem'd very reasonable , for certainly the grass that fed it was worth more than thrice the money : but I return to Tostes .

And it is time , you might perchance else have lost the sight of mine Hostess and her Daughters , you would have sworn at first blush they had been of a bloud , and it had been great pitty , had it been otherwise . The salutation of Horace , O mater pulchra , filia pulchrior , was never so seasonable as here . Not to honour them with a further character let this suffice that their persons kept so excellent decorum with the house and furniture , that one could not possibly make use of Tullies , Quam dispari dominaris domino ! But this is not their luck onely . The Women not of Normandy alone , but generally of all France are forced to be contented with a little beauty ; and she which with us is reckoned among the vulgar ; would amongst them be taken for a Princess . But of the French Women more , when we have taken a view of the Dames of Paris , now onely somewhat of their habit and condition . Their habit in which they differ from the rest of France , is the attire of their heads , which hangeth down their backs in fashion of a vail . In Roven and the greater Cities , it is made of linnen pure and decent , here and in the villages it cannot possibly be any thing else than an old dish-clout turned out of service , or the corner of a table-cloth reserved from washing . Their best condition is not alwayes visible , they shew it onely in the mornings , or when you are ready to depart , and that is their begging . You shall have about you such a throng of these ill faces , and every one whining out this ditty , Pour les servantes ; that one might with greater ease distribute a dole at a rich mans funeral , then give them a penny : Had you a purpose to give them unasked , their importunity will prevent your speediest bounty . After all this importunate begging , their ambition reacheth no higher than a Sol : He that giveth more out-biddeth their expectation , and shall be counted a spend-thrift .

But the principal ornaments of these times are the men-servants , the raggedst regiment that ever I yet looked upon . Such a thing as a Chamberlain was never heard of among them , and good clothes are as little known there as he . By the habit of his attendants a man would think himself in Gaole , their clothes either full of patches , or else open to the skin . Bid one of them wipe your boots , he presently hath recourse to the curtains ; with those he will perhaps rub over one side , and leave the other to be made clean by the Guest . It is enough for him that he hath written the coppy . They wait alwayes with their hats on their heads , and so also do servants before their Masters : Attending-bareheaded is as much out of fashion there as in Turkey . Of all French fashions in my opinion the most unfitting and unseeming . Time and much use reconciled me to all other things , which at the first were offensive , to this irreverent custom I returned an enemy . Neither can I see how it can choose but stomack the most patient , to see the worthiest sign of liberty usurped and profaned by the basest of slaves . For seeing that the French paisants are such infamous slaves unto their Lords and Princes ; it cannot be , but that those which are their servants must be one degree at the least below the lowest condition .

Certainly among the Ancients this promiscuous covering of the head was never heard of , it was with them the chief sign of freedom , as is well known to those which are conversant with antiquity . The Lacones a people of Peloponnesus , after they had obtained to be made free Denizens of Lacedaemon , in sign of their now gotten liberty would never go into the battel , nisi pileati , but with their hats on . Amongst the Africans , as it is written of Alexander , ab Alexandro , the placing of an hat on the top of a spear , was used as a token to incite the people to their liberty which had been oppressed by Tyrants : Per pileum in bast â propositum ad libertatem proclamari . But among the Romans we have more variety . The taking off the hat of Targuinius Priscus by an Eagle , and the putting of it on again , occasioned the Augures to prophesie unto him the Kingdom ; which fell out accordingly . In their Sword-playes when one of their Gladiators had with credit slain his adversary , they would sometimes honour him with a Palm , sometimes with a Hat , of these the last was the worthier ; the Palm onely honouring the Victor ; this also enfranchising the receiver ; therefore conferred commonly on him which killed most men in the Theaters : Hence the complaint of Tertuslian lib. de Spectaculis cap. 21. Qui insigniore cuiquam homicide leonem poscit , idem gladiatori atroci Rudem petat ( Redis was another token of enfranchizement ) & pileum proemium conferat . In their common Forum or Guild-Hall , when they purposed to manumit any of their servants , their custom also was , after the Lictor or Sergeant had registred the name of the party manumitted , to shave his head , and give him a cap , whence according to Rosinus , ad pileum Vocare , is to set one at liberty .

Erasmus in his Chiliades maketh the hat to be the sign of some eminent worth in him that weareth it . Pileus ( saith he ) insigne spectatae , virtutis . On this he conjectureth , that the putting on of caps on the heads of such as are created Doctors or Masters had its original . In the Universities of England this custom is still in force , the putting on of the Cap being never performed but on the solemn Comitia , and in the presence of all such as are either auditors or spectators of that dayes exercise : When I was Regent , the whole house of Congregation joyned together in a petition to the Earl of Pembroke , to restore unto us the jus pileorum , the licence of putting on our caps at our publike meetings , which priviledge time and the tyranny of our Vice-Chancellors had taken from us . Amongst other motives we used the solemn form of creating a Mr. in the Arts by putting on his cap , and that that sign of liberty might distinguish us that were the Regents from those boyes which we were to govern : which request he graciously granted . But this French sauciness had drawn me out of my way . An impudent familiarity , which I must confess did much offend me , and to which I will still profess my self an open enemy . Though Jack speach French , I cannot endure that Jack should be a Gentleman .

IVly the first we set out for Roven ; in ten hours our Cart dragged us thither , the whole journey being in all six miles French ; admirable speed . About three of the clock in the afternoon we had a sight of the Town , daintily seated in a valley on the River Seine : I know not any Town better scituated ( Oxford excepted ) which indeed it much resembleth , I mean not in bigness but in scituation . It standeth on all sides environed with Mountains , the North excepted , and hath a large and pleasant walk of meadow by the river side , to the South-Eastward , as Oxford hath towards Iffley . It is seated on the principal River of France , distant from the Metropolis of that Countrey fifty miles English or thereabouts ; as Oxford on the Thames and from London : watered also it is with two small Rillets , Rosee and Renelle , as the other with Charwell and Evenlode . The difference is , that Oxford is seated somewhat higher on the swelling of an hill , and a little more removed from those mountains which environ it , and that the Rivers which run through some part of Roven , do onely wash the precincts of the other . The buildings are in some places wood , in some stone , in others both . The houses without juttings or overlets four stories high , and in the front not very beautiful . The most promising house which mine eyes met with was that of Mr. Boniface , who being of obscure parents ; and having raised himself a fortune in the wars against the League , here built a receptacle for his age . It is fashioned after the manner of new buildings in London , composed all of dainty white stone , square and polished . On the partition betwixt the first story and the second it hath these words engraven , Vt & Virtute Martisopus ; Tentanda via amore & armis . A Motto sutable to his rising .