Dieppe
First recorded as a small fishing settlement in 1030, Dieppe was an important prize fought over during the Hundred Years' War.
Dieppe housed the most advanced French school of cartography in the 16th century. Two of France's best navigators, Michel le Vasseur and his brother Thomas le Vasseur, lived in Dieppe when they were recruited to join the expedition of René Goulaine de Laudonnière which departed Le Havre for Florida on April 20, 1564. The expedition resulted in the construction of Fort Caroline, the first French colony in the New World. Another expedition two years before where Goulaine de Laudonnière was under command of Jean Ribault, a local Huguenot captain, had resulted in the foundation of Charlesfort, now in South Carolina. Dieppe was the premier port of the kingdom in the 17th century.
On July 23, 1632, 300 colonists heading to New France departed from Dieppe.
At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Dieppe lost 3,000 of its Huguenot citizens, who fled abroad.
Pays de France
Beginning in the twelfth century, the Plaine de France was part of the original royal demesne of the Capetian kings. Its location immediately adjacent to Paris made it economically dependent on the city from an early date. Thanks to its fertile soils, covered with a thick layer of silt, under the Ancien Régime it provided food for the capital, especially corn and bread from the bakeries at Gonesse. For this reason also, it was a coveted area, divided into fiefs also from the twelfth century on. The great monastic foundations of Paris and the region around it held a large acreage of agricultural land. In addition to the Abbey of St. Denis, which was established in the early Middle Ages, Chaalis Abbey erected three very large granges during the twelfth century for storing cereal crops, which were farmed with the assistance of lay brothers. The abbey estates of Stains at Villeneuve-sous-Dammartin, Choisy-aux-Bœufs at Vémars and Vaulerent at Villeron all exceed and were farmed intensively.