Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) by Dawson Turner

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Such is the external appearance of this camp, which, seen from the sea,
or on the approach either by the west or south, cannot fail to strike
from the boldness of its position; but the effect of the interior is
still more striking; for here, while on one side the horizon is lost in
the immensity of the ocean, on the other two the view is narrowly
circumscribed by the lofty bulwark, at whose feet are almost every where
discernible the remains of the trenches I have already noticed, more
than thirty feet in width. Nor is this the only remarkable circumstance;
for it is still more unaccountable to observe, extending nearly across
the encampment, the traces of an ancient fosse not less than one hundred
and fifty feet wide, and, though in most places shallow, terminating
towards the sea in a deep ravine. Internally the camp appears to have
been also divided into three parts, in one of which it has been
supposed, from a heap of stones which till lately remained, that there
was originally a place of greater strength; while in another,
distinguished by some irregular elevations, it is conjectured that there
was a wall, the defence probably to the keep.

[Illustration: Plan of Caesar's Camp, near Dieppe]

But I must tell you that these conjectures are none of my own, nor could
I have had any opportunity of making them; the stones and the hillocks
having disappeared before the operations of the plough. Such as they
are, I have borrowed them from a dissertation by the Abbe de
Fontenu[15], a copy of whose engraving of the place I insert. Indebted
as I am to him for his hints, I can, however, by no means subscribe to
his reasoning, by which he labors with great erudition to prove that,
neither the popular tradition which ascribes this camp to Caesar, nor
its name, evidently Roman, nor some coins and medals of the same nation
that have been found here, are at all evidences of its Latin origin; but
that, as we have no proof that Caesar was ever in the vicinity of
Dieppe, as the whole is in such excellent preservation, (a point I beg
leave to deny,) and as the vallum is full thrice the height of that of
other Roman encampments in France[16], we are bound to infer it is a
work of far more modern times, and probably was erected by Talbot, the
Caesar of the English[17], while besieging Dieppe in the middle of the
XVth century.

This opinion of the learned Abbe I quote, principally for the purpose of
shewing how far a man of sense and acquirements maybe led astray from
truth and probability in support of a favorite theory. Nothing but the
love of theory could surely have induced him to suppose that this strong
hold was erected for a purpose to which it could in no wise be
applicable, as the intervening ground prevents all possibility of seeing
any part of Dieppe from the camp, or to ascribe it to times when
earth-works were no longer used. In Normandy and Picardy are other
camps, more evidently of Roman construction, which are likewise ascribed
to Caesar[18]; with much the same reason perhaps as every thing
wonderful in Scotland is referred to Fingal, to King Arthur in Cornwall,
and in the north of England and Wales to the devil.

[Illustration: General View of the Castle of Arques]

Upon the origin of the castle of Arques, it is somewhat unfortunate for
the learned that there is not an equal field for ingenious conjecture,
its antiquity being incontestible. Du Moulin, the most comprehensive,
though the most credulous of Norman historians, one who, not content
with dealing in miracles by wholesale, tells us how the devil changed
himself into a postillion, to apprize an alehouse-keeper of the fate of
the posterity of Rollo, may still be entitled to credit, when the theme
is merely stone and mortar; and from him we may conclude that Arques
was a place of importance at the time of William the Conqueror, as it
gave the title of Count to his uncle, who then possessed it, and who,
confiding perhaps in the strength of his fortress, and secretly
instigated by Henry Ist, of France, usurped the title of Duke of
Normandy, but was defeated by his nephew, and finally obliged to
surrender his castle. This, however, was not till, after a long siege,
in which Arques proved itself impregnable to every thing but famine. In
the following reign, we again find mention made of Arques, as a portion
given by Robert, Duke of Normandy, to induce Helie, son of Lambert of
St. Saen, to marry his illegitimate daughter, and join him in defending
the Pays de Caux against the English. From this period, during the
reigns of the Anglo-Norman Sovereigns, it continues to be occasionally
noticed. Before the walls of Arques, according to William of Malmesbury,
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, received the wound which afterwards proved
fatal. Arques was the last castle which held out in Normandy for King
Stephen. It was taken in 1173, by our Henry IInd, and then repaired; was
seized by Philip Augustus during the captivity of Richard Coeur de Lion;
was restored to its legitimate sovereign at the peace in 1196; and was a
source of disgrace to its former captor, when in 1202 he laid siege to
it with a powerful army, and was obliged to retreat from its walls.
Under the reign of our third Edward, we find it again return to the
British crown, as one of the castles specified to be surrendered to the
English, by the treaty of Bretigny, in 1359; after which, in 1419, it
was taken by Talbot and Warwick, and was finally given up to France by
one of the articles of the capitulation of Rouen in 1449. More
recently, in 1584[19], it was captured by a party of soldiers disguised
like sailors, who, being suffered to approach without distrust, put the
sentinels to the sword, and made themselves masters of the fortress;
while in 1589 it obtained its last and most honorable distinction, as
the chief support of Henry IVth, at the time of his being received at
Dieppe, and as having by the cannon from its ramparts, materially
contributed to the glorious defeat of the army of the league, commanded
by the Duke de Mayenne, when thirty thousand were compelled to retire
before one tenth of the number. I have already mentioned to you the
address of this king to the citizens of Dieppe: still more magnanimous
was his speech to his prisoner, the Count de Belin, previously to this
battle, when, on the captive's daring to ask, how with such a handful of
men, he could expect to resist so powerful an army, "Ajoutez," he
answered, "aux troupes que vous voyez, mon bon droit, et vous ne
douterez plus de quel cote sera la victoire."

In _Sully's Memoirs_[20], as well as in the history of the town of
Dieppe, you will find these transactions described at much length, and
the warrior, as well as the historian, expatiates on the strength of the
castle of Arques; but how much longer it remained a place of
consideration I have no means of knowing: most probably the alteration
introduced into the art of war by the use of cannon, caused it to be
soon after neglected, and dismantled, and suffered to fall gradually
into its present state of ruin. It is now the property of a lady
residing in the neighboring town of Arques, who purchased it during the
revolution, and by her good sense and feeling it has been preserved from
further injury. The castle is situated at the extremity of a ridge of
chalk hills, which, commencing to the west of Dieppe, run nearly
parallel to the sea, and here terminate to the east, so that it has a
complete command over the valley. Standing by its walls, you have to the
north-west a full view of the town of Dieppe; in an opposite direction
the eye ranges uncontrolled over a rich vale of corn and pasturage; and
in front, immediately at your feet, lies the town of Arques itself,
backed by the hills that are covered by the forest of the same name.
Either this forest, or the neighboring one of Eavy, is supposed to have
been the ancient Arelanum. The little river called the Arques flows
through the valley, and beneath the walls of the castle is lost in the
Bethune, under which name the united waters continue their course to
Dieppe, after receiving the tribute of a third, yet smaller, stream, the
Eaulne.

Of the power of the castle an idea may be formed from the extent of the
fosse, little less than half a mile in circumference. The outline of the
walls is irregularly oval, and the even front is interrupted by towers
of various sizes, and placed at unequal distances. On the northern side,
where the hill is steepest, there are no towers; but the walls are still
farther strengthened by square buttresses, so large that they indeed
look like bastions, and with a projection so great as to indicate an
origin posterior to the Norman aera. The two towers which flank the
western entrance, and the towers which stand behind each of the flanking
towers in the retiring line of the wall, are much larger than any of the
rest. One of the latter towers is of so extraordinary a shape, that I
consider it as a non-descript; but, as I should tire both you and myself
by endeavoring to describe it, I think it most prudent to refer you to a
sketch: perhaps its angular parts may not be coeval with the rest of the
building[21]: on this it would be impossible to decide positively, so
shattered, impaired, and defaced are the walls, and so evidently is
their coating the work of different periods. I fancied that in some
parts I could discern a mode of construction, in layers of brick and
stone, similar to that of Roman buildings in our own country, while
many of the bricks, from their texture and shape, appear also to be
Roman. Tradition, if we follow that delusive guide, teaches us that we
are contemplating a work of the middle of the eighth century, and of one
of the sons of Charles Martel. If we follow William of Jumieges, the
Chronicle of St. Vandrille, and William of Poitiers, we ascribe it to
the uncle and rival of the Conqueror; other writers tell us that the
ruins arose under Henry IInd. I dare not decide amongst such reverend
authorities, but I think I may infer, without the least disrespect
towards monks and chroniclers, that the Norman Arques now occupies the
place of a far more early structure, and that a portion of the walls of
this latter was actually left in existence. Taken, however, as a whole,
the castle is evidently a building of different aeras; and it would be
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define the parts belonging to
each.

[Illustration: Tower of remarkable shape in Castle of Arques]

The principal entrance is to the west, between the two towers first
mentioned, over a draw-bridge, whose piers still remain, and through
three gateways, whose arches, though now torn and dislocated into
shapeless rents, seem to have been circular, and probably of Norman
erection. One of the towers of the gate-way appears formerly to have
been a chapel. Hence you pass into a court, whose surface, uneven with
the remains of foundations, marks it to have been originally filled with
apartments, and, at the opposite end of this, through a square
gate-house with high embattled walls, a place evidently of great
strength, and leading into a large open space that terminated in the
quadrangular and lofty keep. This, which is externally strengthened by
massy buttresses, similar to those of the walls, is within divided into
two apartments, each of them about fifty feet by twenty. In one of them
is a well, communicating with a reservoir below, which is filled by the
water of the river, and was sufficiently capacious for watering the
horses of the garrison. The greatest part, if not the whole, of the
walls seems to have been faced with brick of comparatively modern date.
The keep also was coated with brick within, and with stones carefully
squared without. The windows are so battered, that no idea can be formed
of their original style. The walls of the keep are filled with small
square apertures. At Rochester, and at many other castles in England, we
observe the same; and unless you can give a better guess respecting
their use, you must content yourself with mine: that is to say, that
they are merely the holes left by the scaffolding. At the foot of the
hill to the west is a gate-house, by no means ancient, from which a wall
ascends to the castle; and another similar wall connects the fortress
with the ground below, on the north-eastern side; but the extent or
nature of these out-works can no longer be traced. Still less possible
would it be to say any thing with certainty as to the excavations, of
the length of which, tradition speaks, as usual, in extravagant terms,
and mixes sundry marvellous and frightful tales with the recital.

In the general plan a great resemblance is to be traced between many
castles in Wales and its frontiers, especially Goodrich Castle, and this
at Arques. Yet I do not think that any of ours are of an equal extent;
nor can you well conceive a more noble object than this, when seen at a
distance: and it is only then that the eye can comprehend the vast
expanse and strength of the external wall, with the noble keep towering
high above it.

[Illustration: Church at Arques]

Until the revolution, the decaying town of Arques was not wholly
deprived of all the vestiges of its former honours: the standards of the
weights and measures of Upper Normandy were deposited here. It was the
seat of the courts of the Archbishop of Rouen, and, though the actual
session of the municipal courts took place at Dieppe, they bore the
legal style and title of the courts of Arques. Since the revolution
these traces of its importance have wholly disappeared, nor is there any
outward indication of the consequence once enjoyed by this poor and
straggling hamlet.

The church is a neat and spacious building, of the same kind of
architecture as that of St. Jacques, at Dieppe; and, as it is a good
specimen of the florid Norman Gothic, (I forbid all cavils respecting
the employment of this term) I have added a figure of it. My slender
researches have not enabled me to discover the date of the building, but
it may, have been erected towards the year 1350. A most elegant bracket,
formed by the graceful dolphin, deserves the attention of the architect;
and I particularize it, not merely on account of its beauty, but
because, even at the risk of exhausting your antiquarian patience, I
intend to point out all architectural features which cannot be retraced
in our own structures; and this is one of them. By the way, Arques
contributed to increase the bulk of our herbal as well as of our
sketch-book, for under the walls of the church is found the rare
_Erodium moschatum_; and near the castle grow _Astragalus glycyphyllos_
and _Melissa Nepeta_.

The field of battle is to the southward of the town. A small walk under
the south wall of the castle, near the east end, adjoining a covered way
which led to a postern-gate or draw-bridge, is still called the walk of
Henry the IVth, because it was here that this monarch was wont to
reconnoitre the enemy's forces from below.

Napoleon, towards the conclusion of his reign, visited the field of
battle at Arques; he ascertained the position of the two armies, and
pronounced that the King ought to have lost the day, for that his
tactics were altogether faulty. I am willing to suppose that this
military criticism arose merely from military pedantry, though it is now
said that Napoleon was envious of the veneration, which, as the French
believe, they feel for the memory of Henri quatre. Napoleon is accused
of having given the title of _le Roi de la Canaille_ to the Bourbon
Monarch. And when Napoleon was in full-blown pride, he might have had
the satisfaction of hearing the rabble of Paris chaunt his comparative
excellence in a parody of the old national song--

"Vive Bonaparte, vice ce conquerant,
Ce diable a quatre a bien plus de talent
Que ce Henri quatre et tous ses descendans,"

Footnotes:

[15] _Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions_, X. p. 403. tab. 15.

[16] Such are the Abbe's principal arguments; but he goes on to say,
that the height of the ramparts proves almost to demonstration their
having been erected since the use of fire-arms, a mode of reasoning that
would, I fear, be equally conclusive against the antiquity of a very
celebrated earth-work, the Devil's-Ditch, in Cambridgeshire, whose agger
is of about the same elevation, but of whose modern origin nobody ever
yet dreamed;--that the ramparts opposite Dieppe could only be of use
against cannon, another position equally untenable;--that, were the camp
Roman, there would be platforms on the agger for the reception of wooden
towers, as if time would not wear away vestiges of this nature;--that
the disposition is not in regular order like that of a Roman encampment,
a matter equally liable to be defaced;--and, finally, that the out-works
to the west are fully decisive of a more modern aera, as if intrenchments
were not, like buildings, frequently the objects of subsequent
alterations;--In his inferences he is followed, and, apparently without
any question as to their authenticity, by Ducarel, whom I suspect from
his description never to have visited the place. The Abbe Fontenu, in a
paper in the same volume, gives it as his opinion that, from the term
_Civitas Limarum_, it might safely be believed there was a _city_ in
this place; and he tries to persuade himself that he can trace the
foundations of houses.

[17] _Noel, Essais sur le Department de la Seine Inferieure_, I. p. 88.

[18] The same is also notoriously the case in our own country: popular
tradition, by a metonymy very easily to be accounted for, from a desire
of adding importance to its objects, attributes whatever is Roman to
Julius Caesar, as the most illustrious of the Roman generals in England;
just as we daily hear smatterers in art referring to Raphael any
painting, however ordinary, that pretends to issue from the schools of
Rome or Florence, every Bolognese one to Guido or Annibal Carracci,
every Kermes to Ostade or Teniers, &c.

[19] _Noel, Essais sur la Seine Inferieure_, I. p. 98.

[20] Sully, who was himself in this battle, and bore a conspicuous part
in it, dwells upon its details completely _con amore_, and evidently
regards the issue of this day as decisive of the fate of the monarch,
who is reported to have said of himself shortly before the battle, that
"he was a king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and a
warrior without money."--I. p. 204.

[21] In justice to my readers, I must not here omit to say that such is
the opinion of a most able friend of mine, Mr. Cohen, who visited this
castle nearly at the same time with myself, and who writes me on the
subject: "I feel convinced that the brick coating of the _wedge-tower_
at Arques is recent. Such was the impression I had upon the spot; and
now I cannot remove it. It appeared to me that the character of the
brick-work, and of the stone cordons or fillets, was entirely like that
of the fortifications of the XVIth century; and I also thought, perhaps
erroneously, that the _wedge_ or _bastion_ was _affixed to_ the round
tower of the castle, and that it was an after-construction. At the south
end of the castle, you certainly see very ancient and singular masonry.
The diagonal or herring-bone courses are found in the old church of St.
Lo, and in the keep at Falaise; not in the front of the latter, but on
the side where you enter, and on the side which ranges with Talbot's
Tower. The same style of masonry is also seen, according to Sir Henry
Englefield, at Silchester, which is most undoubtedly a pure Roman
relic."--It abounds likewise in Colchester Castle.

LETTER IV.

JOURNEY FROM DIEPPE TO ROUEN--PRIORY OF LONGUEVILLE--ROUEN--BRIDGE OF
BOATS--COSTUME OF THE INHABITANTS.

(_Rouen, June_, 1818.)

I arrived alone at this city: my companions, who do not always care to
keep pace with my constitutional impatience, which sometimes amuses, and
now and then annoys them, made a circuit by Havre, Bolbec, and Yvetot,
while I proceeded by the straight and beaten track. What I have thus
gained in expedition, I have lost in interest. During the whole of the
ride, there was not a single object to excite curiosity, nor would any
moderate deviation from the line of road have brought me within reach of
any town or tower worthy of notice, except the Priory of Longueville,
situate to the right of the road, about twelve miles from Dieppe. I did
not see Longueville, and I am told that the ruins are quite
insignificant, yet I regret that I did not visit them. The French can
never be made to believe that an old rubble wall is really and truly
worth a day's journey: hence their reports respecting the notability of
any given ruin can seldom be depended upon. And at least I should have
had the satisfaction of ascertaining the actual state of the remains of
a building, known to have been founded and partly built in the year
1084, by Walter Giffard[22], one of the relations and companions of the
Conqueror, in his descent upon England, and therefore created Earl of
Buckingham, or, as the French sometimes write it, _Bou Kin Kan_. The
title was held by his family only till 1164 when, upon the decease of
his son without issue, the lands of his barony were shared among the
collateral female heirs. He himself died in 1102, and by his will
directed that his body should be brought here, which was accordingly
done; and he was buried, as Ordericus Vitalis[23] tells us, near the
entrance of the church, having over him an epitaph of eight lines, "in
maceria picturis decorata." You will find the epitaph, wherein he is
styled "templi fundator et aedificator," copied both in the _Neustria
Pia_ and in _Ducarel's Anglo-Norman Antiquities_. The latter speaks of
it as if it existed in his time; but the doctor seldom states the extent
of his obligations towards his predecessors. And in consequence of this
his silent gratitude, we can never tell with any degree of certainty
whether we are perusing his observations or his transcripts. If he
really saw the inscriptions with his own eyes, it is greatly to be
regretted that he has given us no information respecting the paintings:
did they still exist, they would afford a most genuine and curious
proof of the state of Norman art at that remote period; and possibly, a
search after them among the cottages in the neighborhood might even now
repay the industry of some keen antiquary; for the French revolution may
well he compared to an earthquake: it swallowed up every thing,
ingulphing some so deep that they are lost for ever, but leaving others,
like hidden treasures, buried near the surface of the soil, whence
accident and labor are daily bringing them to light. The descendants of
Walter Giffard are repeatedly mentioned as persons of importance in the
early Norman writers; nor are they less illustrious in England, where
the great family of Clare sprung from one of the daughters; while
another, by her marriage with Richard Granville, gave birth to the
various noble families of that name, of which the present Marquis of
Buckingham is the chief.

Of the Priory, we are told in the _Neustria Pia_[24], that it was
anciently of much opulence, and that a Queen of France contributed
largely to the endowment of the house. Many men of eminence,
particularly three of the Talbot family, were buried within its walls.
Peter Megissier, a prior of Longueville, was in the number of the judges
who passed sentence of death upon the unfortunate Joan of Arc; and the
inscription upon his tomb is so good a specimen of monkish Latinity,
that I am tempted to send it you; reminding you at the same time, that
this barbarous system of rhyming in Latin, however brought to perfection
by the monks and therefore generally called their own, is not really of
their invention, but may be found, though quoted to be ridiculed, in the
first satire of Persius,

"Qui videt hunc lapidem, cognoscat quod tegit idem
Petrum, qui pridem conventum rexit ibidem
Annis bis senis, tumidis Leo, largus egenis,
Omnibus indigenis charus fuit atque alienis."

I believe it is always expected, that a traveller in France should say
something respecting the general aspect of the country and its
agriculture. I shall content myself with remarking, that this part of
Normandy is marvellously like the country which the Conqueror conquered.
When the weather is dull, the Normans have a sober English sky,
abounding in Indian ink and neutral tint. And when the weather is fine,
they have a sun which is not a ray brighter than an English sun. The
hedges and ditches wear a familiar livery, and the land which is fully
cultivated repays the toil of the husbandman with some of the most
luxuriant crops of wheat I ever saw. Barley and oats are not equally
good, perhaps from the stiffness of the soil, which is principally of
chalk; but flax is abundant and luxuriant. The surface of the ground is
undulated, and sufficiently so to make a pleasing alternation of hill
and dale; hence it is agreeably varied, though the hills never rise to
such a height as to be an obstacle to agriculture. There is some
difficulty in conjecturing where the people by whom the whole is kept in
cultivation are housed; for the number of houses by the road-side is
inconsiderable; nor did we, for the first two-thirds of the ride, pass
through a single village, excepting Totes, which lies mid-way between
Dieppe, and Rouen, and is of no great extent. Yet things in France are
materially altered in this respect since 1814, when I remember that, in
going through Calais by the way of the Low Countries to Paris, and
returning by the direct road to Boullogne, the whole journey was made
without seeing a single new house erecting in a space of four hundred
miles. This is now far from being the case; there is every where an
appearance of comparative prosperity, and, were it not for the coins, of
which the copper bear the impress of the republic, and the gold and
silver chiefly that of Napoleon, a stranger would meet with but few
visible marks of the changes experienced in late years by the government
of France. Much has been also done of late towards ornamenting the
chateaux, of which there are several about Totes, though in the opinion
of an Englishman, much also is yet wanting. They are principally the
residences of Rouen merchants.

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