l'Académie des Inscriptions_, X. p. 413, carries the antiquity of the
place still eight centuries higher, representing it as the _Portus
Ictius_, whence Julius Cæsar sailed for Britain.
[9] _Description de la Haute Normandie_, I. p. 125.
[10] Vol. XI. p. 55.
[11] The deed itself under which this exchange was made is also
preserved in _Duchesne's Scriptores Normanni_, and in the _Gallia
Christiana_, XI. _Instr_. p. 27, where it is entitled "_Celebris
commutatio facta inter Richardum I, regem Angliæ et Walterium
Archiepisc. Rotomagensem_." It is worth remarking, in illustration of
the feudal rights and customs, how much importance is attached in this
instrument to the mills and the seignorage for grinding: the king
expressly stipulates that every body "tam milites quàm clerici, et omnes
homines, tam de feodis militum quàm de prebendis, sequentur molendina de
_Andeli_, sicut consueverunt et debent, et moltura erit nostra.
Archiepiscopus autem et homines sui de _Fraxinis_ (a manor specially
reserved,) molent ubi idem Archiepiscopus volet, et si voluerit molere
apud _Andeli_, dabunt molturas suas, sicut alii ibidem molentes. In
escambium autem ... concessimus ... omnia molendina quæ nos habuimus
Rotomagi, quando hæc permutatio facta fuit, integrè cum omni sequelâ et
molturâ suâ, sine aliquo retinemento eorum quæ ad molendinam pertinent
vel ad molturam, et cum omnibus libertatibus et liberis consuetudinibus
quas solent et debent habere. Nec alicui alii licebit molendinum facere
ibidem ad detrimentum prædictorum molendinorum; et debet Archiepiscopus
solvere eleemosinas antiquitùs statutas de iisdem molendinis."
[12] A very copious and interesting account of the nautical discoveries
made by the inhabitants of Dieppe, and of their merits as sailors, is
given by Goube, in his _Histoire du Duché de Normandie_, III, p.
172-178.
[13] _Goube, Histoire de Normandie_, III, p. 170.
[14] _Noel, Essais sur le Département de la Seine Inférieure_, I. p.
194.
LETTER III.
CÆSAR'S CAMP--CASTLE OF ARQUES.
(_Dieppe, June_, 1818)
After having explored Dieppe, I must now conduct you without the walls,
to the castle of Arques and to Cæsar's camp, both of which are in its
immediate neighborhood. At some future time you may thank me for
pointing out these objects to you, for should you ever visit Dieppe,
your residence may be prolonged beyond your wishes, by the usual
mischances which attend the traveller. And in that case, a walk to these
relics of military architecture will furnish a better employment than
thumbing the old newspaper of the inn, or even than the contemplation of
the diligences as they come in, or of the packets as they are not going
out, for I am anticipating that you are becalmed, and that the pennons
are flagging from the mast. With respect to my walk, let me be allowed
to begin by introducing you to a friend of mine at Dieppe, M. Gaillon,
an obliging, sensible, and well-informed young man, as well as an ardent
botanist, my companion in this walk, and the source of much of the
information I possess respecting these places. The intrenchment,
commonly known by the name of Cæsar's camp, or even more generally in
the country by that of "_la Cité de Limes_," and in old writings, of
"_Civitas Limarum_," is situated upon the brink of the cliff, about two
miles to the east of Dieppe, on the road leading to Eu, and still
preserves in a state of perfection its ancient form and character;
though necessarily reduced in the height of its vallum by the operation
of time, and probably also diminished in its size by the gradual
encroachments of the ocean. Upon its shape, which is an irregular
triangle, it may be well to make a preliminary observation, that this
was necessarily prescribed by the scite; and that, however the Romans
might commonly prefer a square outline for their temporary encampments,
we have abundant proofs that they only adhered to this plan when it was
perfectly conformable to the nature of the ground, but that when they
fortified any commanding position, upon which a rectangular rampart
could not be seated, their intrenchments were made to follow the
sinuosities of the hill. In the present instance the northern side, the
longest, extending nearly five thousand feet, fronts the channel, and it
required no other defence than was afforded by the perpendicular face of
the cliff, here more than two hundred feet in height. The western side,
the second in length, and not greatly inferior to the first, after
running about three thousand feet from the sea, in a tolerably straight
line southward, suddenly bends to the east, and forms two semi-circles,
of one of which the radius is turned from the camp, and of the other
into it. The third side is scarcely more than half the length of the
others, and runs nearly straight from south to north, where it again
unites with the cliff. Of the two last-mentioned sides the first is
difficult of access; from its position at the summit of a steep hill;
but it is still protected by a vallum from thirty to forty feet high,
and between the sea and the entrance nearest to it, a length of about
three hundred yards, by a wide exterior ditch with other out-works, as
well as by an inner fosse, faint traces of which only now remain. Hence
to the next and large entrance is a distance of about two thousand feet;
and in this space the interior fosse is still very visible; but the
great abruptness of the hill forbade an outer one.
You, who are not a stranger to the pleasures of botany, would have
shared my delight at finding upon the perpendicular side of this
entrance the beautiful _Caucalis grandiflora_, growing in great
luxuriance upon almost bare chalk, and with its snowy flowers
resembling, as you look down to it, the common species of _Iberis_ of
our gardens. The _Asperula cynanchica_, and other plants peculiar to a
chalky soil, are also found here in plenty, together with the _Eryngium
campestre_, a vegetable of extreme rarity in England, but most abundant
throughout the north of France. _Papaver hybridum_ is likewise common in
the neighboring corn fields round.
Returning from this short botanical digression, let me tell you that the
position considered by some as the southern side of the fortification,
but which I have described as the sinuous part of the western, has its
ramparts of less height. Not so the eastern: on this, as being the most
destitute of all natural defence, (for here there is no hill, and the
eye ranges over an immense level tract, stopped only by distant woods,)
is raised an agger, full forty-five feet in height, and, at a further
distance, is added an outward trench nearly fifty feet wide, though in
its present state not more than three feet deep, and now serving for a
garden.
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 Cæsar'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 Abbé 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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar 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
Cæsar of the English[17], while besieging Dieppe in the middle of the
XVth century.
This opinion of the learned Abbé 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 Cæsar[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 côté 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
Béthune, 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 æra. 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 æras; 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.
Napoléon, 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 Napoléon was envious of the veneration, which, as the French
believe, they feel for the memory of Henri quatre. Napoléon is accused
of having given the title of _le Roi de la Canaille_ to the Bourbon
Monarch. And when Napoléon 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 conquérant,
Ce diable à quatre a bien plus de talent
Que ce Henri quatre et tous ses descendans,"
Footnotes:
[15] _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions_, X. p. 403. tab. 15.
[16] Such are the Abbé'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 æra, 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 Abbé 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 Départment de la Seine Inférieure_, I. p. 88.