town, taking vessels to Brazil and Sumatra; and a little later, its merchant prince, Ango, was able to blockade the Portuguese fleet in the Tagus. Its inhabitants in great numbers embraced the Reformed religion; and they were among the first to acknowledge Henry IV., who fought one of his great battles at the neighbouring village of Arques. Few of the cities of France suffered more from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685; and this blow was followed in 1694 by a terrible bombardment on the part of the English and Dutch. The town was rebuilt after the peace of Ryswick, but the decrease of its population and the deterioration of its port prevented the restoration of its commercial prosperity. Within the present century, however, especially since communication by rail was effected with Paris, it has made rapid advances. During the Franco-German war the town was occupied by the Germans from December 1870 till July 1871.
See Pierre Pillon, Rccueil general des edits, d-c., donnez enfaveur des habitants de Dieppe, Dieppe, 1700 ; Vitet, JJi&toire de Dieppe, 1844 ; Cochet, Les egliscs de I arrondissement de Dieppe, 1846-1850, and Galerie Dieppoise, 1862 ; Jules Hardy, Les Dieppois en Guinee en 1364, 1864 ; Asseline, Les Antiquitez ct Ghroniques de la villede Dieppe, a 17th century account, which comes down only to 1694, and was first published in 1874 by Hardy, Guerillon, and Sauvage.
DIES, Christoph Albert (1755-1822), was born at Hanover, and learned the rudiments of art in his native place. For one year he studied in the academy of Diisseldorf, and then he started at the age of twenty with thirty ducats in his pocket for Rome. There he established his domicile, and lived a frugal life till 1796. Copying pictures, chiefly by Salvator Rosa, for a livelihood, his taste led him to draw and paint from nature in Tivoli, Albano, and other picturesque places in the vicinity of Rome. Naples, the birthplace of his favourite master, he visited more than once for the same reasons. In this way he became a bold executant in water colours and in oil, though he failed to acquire any originality of his own. Lord Bristol, who encouraged him as a copyist, predicted that he would be a second Salvator Rosa. But Dies was not of the wood which makes original artists. Besides other disqualifications, he had necessities which forced him to give up the great career of an independent painter. David, then composing his Horatii at Rome, wished to take him to Paris. But Dies had reasons for riot accepting the offer. He was courting a young Roman whom he subsequently married. Meanwhile he had made the acquaintance of Volpato, for whom he executed numerous drawings, and this no doubt suggested the plan, which he afterwards carried out, of publishing, in partner ship with Median, Reinhardt, and Frauenholz, the series of plates known as the Collection de vues pittoresques de I ltalie, published in 72 sheets at Nuremberg in 1799. With so many irons in the fire Dies naturally lost the power of concentration. Other causes combined to affect his talent. In 1787 he swallowed by mistake three- quarters of an ounce of sugar of lead. His recovery from this poison was slow and incomplete. His return to Germany was hastened by it. He had hoped that the air of his native country would improve his health. He settled at Vienna, and lived there in the old way on the produce of his brush as a landscape painter, and on that of his pencil or graver as a draughtsman and etcher. But instead of getting better as he had hoped, his condition became worse, and he even lost the use of one of his hands. En this condition he turned from painting to music, and spent his leisure hours in the pleasures of authorship. He did not long burvive, dying at Vienna in 1822, after long years of chronic suffering. From two pictures now in the Belvedere gallery, and from numerous engraved drawings from the neighbourhood of Tivoli, we gather that Dies was never destined to rise above a respectable mediocrity. He followed Salvator Rosa s example in imitating the manner of Claude Lorraine. But Salvator adapted the style of Claude, whilst Dies did no more than copy it.
DIEST, a town and fortress of Belgium, in the province of Brabant, and the arrondissement of Lb wen, is situated on the Demer, 28 miles E. by N. of Brussels. The manu factured are hats, leather, stockings, beer, and spirits It waa taken from the French by Marlborough in 1705 and recaptured the same year. The fortifications, which replace the old ramparts and walls, were commenced in 1837, and finished in 1853. The population in 18G6 was 7561.
DIET (German, Reichstag). The origin of the German Diet is to be sought in the national assembly, which was a common institution of the Teutonic race. From the earliest recorded times we find all leading questions first discussed by the chiefs and then referred to the assembly of the clan or tribe, in which every freeman had a voice.
The earliest Diets of the German or Holy Roman Empire were assemblies in which the monarch deliberated with his subjects on the common interests of the empire. Originally all members were bound by their feudal tenure to be present, and if absent they not only forfeited their vote but were liable to fine. Thus the Diet was a feudal, not a representative, Parliament. As by degrees the feudatories of the emperor turned into independent sovereigns, the Diet became nothing more than a congress of princes. The emperor, instead of presiding in person, was represented by a delegate called principal commissarius, and the princes sent envoys, the right of suffrage being no longer personal, but attached to certain territories or districts.
At first the emperor was, in theory at least, elected by universal suffrage; a candidate was chosen by the chief men, and their nominee approved by the people. Thus we read that at the election of Conrad II. 50,000, and at that of Lothaire II. 60,000 persons were present. In time this custom of nominating the emperor grew into an established right, which, under the name of prætaxation, was arrogated by the chief princes of the empire. Thus the chief function of the Diet, the choice of an emperor, became the prerogative of a few of its most powerful members, who claimed the right not only of election but of deposition. Thus in 1298 Adolphus of Nassau was deposed, and Albert of Austria chosen in his stead. The right of the electors and the forms and rules of election were defined and settled by the famous instrument of Charles IV. known as the Golden Bull, 1356.
The Diet consisted of three bodies, who met and voted in separate colleges,—(1) the electoral college, (2) the princes of the empire spiritual and temporal, (3) the free imperial cities.
1. In a law of Otho IV. (1208), we find the right of electing an emperor vested in the electoral college of seven. These consisted of three spiritual princes—the archbishops of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne,—and four secular electors—the duke of Saxony, the count palatine of the Rhine, the king of Bohemia, and the margrave of Brandenburg. The former sat as recognized heads of the German church. The latter would naturally have been the dukes of Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria; but when Bavaria was united with the county palatine its right was transferred to Bohemia; that of Swabia was, on the accession of Frederick (who by his election was incapacitated from voting), delegated to Brandenburg, and by it retained; and probably that of Franconia was for similar reason forfeited (see Dunham, Germanic Empire, i. 216).
2. The princes of the empire had in all other respects, save that of electing an emperor, the same rights as the dukes or electors. They consisted of the archbishop of Salzburg, 20 bishops, 4 abbots, and 2 prebendaries, and of 44 temporal princes, though this number was afterwards largely augmented. Of these several, such as the archduke of Austria, and the dukes of Brunswick and Burgundy, were in rank and power more than equals of the electors.
