Part 22 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 90. CASTLE OF FALAISE.
_North View._]
The castle of Falaise is with justice regarded by Mr. Turner, as one of the proudest relics of Norman antiquity. The following description of it, as more copious than any other that has yet appeared, is transcribed verbatim from the Tour[200] of that author:--”It is situated on a very bold and lofty rock, broken into singular and fantastic ma.s.ses, and covered with luxurious vegetation. The keep which towers above it is of excellent masonry: the stones are accurately squared, and put together with great neatness, and the joints are small; and the arches are turned clearly and distinctly, with the key-stone or wedge accurately placed in all of them. Some parts of the wall, towards the interior ballium, are not built of squared freestone; but of the dark stone of the country, disposed in a zig-zag, or, as it is more commonly called, in a herring-bone direction, with a great deal of mortar in the interstices: the b.u.t.tresses, or rather piers, are of small projection, but great width. The upper story, destroyed about forty years since, was of a different style of architecture. According to an old print,[201] it terminated with a large battlement, and bartizan towers at the angles.
This dungeon was formerly divided into several apartments, in one of the lower of which was found, about half a century ago, a very ancient tomb, of good workmans.h.i.+p, ornamented with a sphynx at each end, but bearing no inscription whatever. Common report ascribed the coffin to Talbot, who was for many years governor of the castle; and at length an individual engraved upon it an epitaph to his honor: but the fraud was discovered, and the sarcophagus put aside, as of no account. The second, or princ.i.p.al, story of the keep, now forms a single square room, about fifty feet wide, lighted by circular-headed windows, each divided into two by a short and ma.s.sy central pillar, whose capital is altogether Norman. On one of the capitals is sculptured a child leading a lamb,[202] a representation, as it is foolishly said, of the Conqueror, whom tradition alledges to have been born in the apartment to which this window belonged: another pillar has an elegant capital, composed of interlaced bands.--Connected with the dungeon by a stone staircase is a small apartment, very much dilapidated, but still retaining a portion of its original facing of Caen stone. It was from the window of this apartment, as the story commonly goes, that Duke Robert first saw the beautiful Arlette, drawing water from the streamlet below, and was enamoured of her charms, and took her to his bed.--According to another version of the tale, the earliest interview between the prince and his fair mistress, took place as Robert was returning from the chace, with his mind full of anger against the inhabitants of Falaise, for having presumed to kill the deer which he had commanded should be preserved for his royal pastime. In this offence the curriers of the town had borne the princ.i.p.al share, and they were therefore princ.i.p.ally marked out for punishment. But, fortunately for them, Arlette, the daughter of one Verpray, the most culpable of the number, met the offended Duke while riding through the street, and with her beauty so fascinated him, that she not only obtained the pardon of her father and his a.s.sociates, but became his mistress, and continued so as long as he lived. From her, if we may give credence to the old chroniclers, is derived our English word, _harlot_. The fruit of their union was William the Conqueror, whose illegitimate birth, and the low extraction of his mother, served on more than one occasion as a pretext for conspiracies against his throne, and were frequently the subject of personal mortification to himself.--The walls in this part of the castle are from eight to nine feet thick. A portion of them has been hollowed out, so as to form a couple of small rooms. The old door-way of the keep is at the angle; the returns are reeded, ending in a square impost; the arch above is destroyed.--Talbot's tower, thus called from having been built by that general, in 1430 and the two subsequent years, is connected with the keep by means of a long pa.s.sage with lancet windows, that widen greatly inwards. It is more than one hundred feet high, and is a beautiful piece of masonry, as perfect, apparently, as on the day when it was erected, and as firm as the rock on which it stands. This tower is ascended by a staircase concealed within the substance of the walls, whose thickness is full fifteen feet towards the base, and does not decrease more than three feet near the summit. Another aperture in them serves for a well, which thus communicates with every apartment in the tower. Most of the arches in this tower have circular heads: the windows are square.--The walls and towers which encircle the keep are of much later date; the princ.i.p.al gate-way is pointed. Immediately on entering, is seen the very ancient chapel, dedicated to St. Priscus, or, as he is called in French, St. Prix. The east end with three circular-headed windows, retains its original lines: the masonry is firm and good. Fantastic corbels surround the summit of the lateral walls. Within, a semi-circular arch resting upon short pillars with sculptured capitals, divides the choir from the nave. In other respects the building has been much altered. Henry V.
repaired it in 1418, and it has been since dilapidated and restored. A pile of buildings beyond, wholly modern in the exterior, is now inhabited as a seminary, or college. There are some circular arches within, which shew that these buildings belonged to the original structure.--Altogether the castle is a n.o.ble ruin. Though the keep is dest.i.tute of the enrichments of Norwich or Castle-Rising, it possesses an impressive character of strength, which is much increased by the extraordinary freshness of the masonry. The fosses of the castle are planted with lofty trees, which shade and intermingle with the towers and ramparts; and on every side they groupe themselves with picturesque beauty. It is said that the munic.i.p.ality intend to _restore_ Talbot's tower and the keep, by replacing the demolished battlements; but I should hope that no other repairs may take place, except such as may be necessary for the preservation of the edifice; and I do not think it needs any, except the insertion of clamps in the central columns of two of the windows, which are much shattered.”
NOTES:
[198] At the same time that no record whatever has been preserved relative to the date of the building of the castle at Falaise, the Norman chroniclers have carefully recorded the aeras of the erection of the other castles in the neighborhood. That of Domfront, according to them, was built A.D. 1011 and 1014, by the Counts of Alencon; that of Caen, by William the Conqueror, but much increased by his son, Henry I.; that of Vignats, a league and a half from Falaise, about the year 1096, during the dukedom of Robert, by Robert of Montgomery, Count of Alencon, and Viscount of Hiemes and of Falaise; and that of Argentan, by Henry I.
King of England, by way of protection against his son-in-law, Geoffrey Plantagenet.--_Recherches Historiques sur Falaise_, p. 22.
[199] According to Langevin, p. 30, Talbot likewise added to the castle, some n.o.ble apartments, ornamented with paintings, which also pa.s.sed under his name, and of which some portions were still standing a few years ago.
[200] Vol. II. p. 266.
[201] This print has lately been copied into _Mr. Dibdin's Tour_, vol.
II. p. 11.
[202] Mr. Turner appears to be in error with regard to this capital: Mr.
Cotman, who examined it more attentively, found the child to be holding _two animals_ in a leash; and he supposes them to be greyhounds, comparing them with a very similar piece of sculpture upon one of the capitals in the bishop's palace, in the castle at Durham, erected by the Conqueror.--See _Carter's Ancient Architecture_, I. pl. 17, fig. P.
PLATE XCI.
INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF CREULLY.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 91. INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF CREULLY.]
Creully, whose church has been here selected for publication, as a favorable specimen of genuine Norman architecture, is a small market-town of the diocese of Bayeux, situated about six miles to the east of the city of that name, and fifteen miles north-west of Caen. It is an ancient barony, having been honored with that distinction by Henry I. in favor of his natural son, the Earl of Glocester, many of whose descendants, according to Ma.s.seville, were still living in Normandy in the eighteenth century, and bore the name of Creully. The same author makes mention of the Lords of Creully, on more than one occasion, in the course of his Norman history.--They are to be found in the list of the barons that accompanied Duke Robert to the Holy Land, in 1099; and when the Genoese, in 1390, called upon the King of France for succours against the infidels of the coast of Barbary, and the pious monarch sent an army to their relief, under the command of the Duke of Bourbon, the name of the Seigneur de Creully stands prominent among those who embarked upon that unfortunate expedition. Again, in 1302, the Baron of Creully held the fifth place among the nine lords from the bailiwick of Caen, who were summoned to sit in the Norman exchequer.
From the days of the Earl of Glocester to the breaking out of the French revolution, the barony of Creully continued to be held by different n.o.ble families. In the early part of the eighteenth century, when Ma.s.seville published his work, it was in the hands of the heirs of M. de Seigneley-Colbert, who likewise possessed other considerable domains in Normandy. The last that had the t.i.tle was a member of the family of Montmorenci.--His emigration caused the estate to be confiscated, and sold as national property; but the baronial castle is now standing, and displays, in two of its towers, and in a chimney of unusual form, a portion of its ancient character. The rest of the building is modernized into a spruce, comfortable residence, which, in 1818, was occupied by an English general of the name of Hodgson.[203]
The writer of this article has met with no records connected with the church of Creully.--Externally, it is wholly modernized; but within, the nave, side-aisles, and choir, are all purely Norman, except at the extremities. The piers are very ma.s.sy; the arches wide and low; the capitals covered with rude, but remarkable sculpture, which is varied on every pillar; and the walls are of extraordinary thickness.
NOTES:
[203] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 264.
PLATES XCII.--XCIV.
CATHEDRAL AT COUTANCES.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plates 92-93. CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, AT COUTANCES.
_West Front._]