distinct and foreign colony; whilst, occupied incessantly in fishing,
they have remained equally strangers to the civilization and
politeness, which the progress of letters during the last two centuries
has diffused over France. Nay, scarcely are they acquainted with four
hundred words of the French language; and these they pronounce with an
idiom exclusively their own, adding to each an oath, by way of epithet;
a habit so inveterate with them, that even at confession, at the moment
of seeking absolution for the practice, it is no uncommon thing with
them to _swear_ they will be guilty of it no more. To balance, however,
this defect, their morals are uncorrupted, their fidelity is exemplary,
and they are laborious and charitable, and zealous for the honor of
their country, in whose cause they often bleed, as well as for their
priests, in defence of whom they once threatened to throw the Archbishop
of Rouen into the river, and were well nigh executing their threats."

Footnotes:

[1] The chalk in the cliff, in the immediate vicinity of Dieppe, is
divided at intervals of about two feet each by narrow strata of flint,
generally horizontal, and composed in some cases of separate nodules,
which are not uncommonly split, in others of a continuous compressed
mass, about two or three inches thick and of very uncertain extent, but
the strata are not regular.

[2] _Goube Histoire de Normandie_, III. p. 188.--In _Cadet Gassicourt
Lettres sur Normandie_, I. p. 68, the story of Bouzard is given still
more at length.

[3] _Histoire de Dieppe_, II. p. 56.