Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/408

 378 MedicBval Military Architecture, chAteau-gaillard, on the seine. CHATEAU-GAILL ARD, though a French castle, is here intro- duced as being the work of an EngUsh king, and a very- remarkable example of the military architecture of the close ot the twelfth century. Chateau-Gaillard, the " Saucy Castle " of Coeur-de-Lion, the work of one year of his brief reign, and the enduring monument of his skill as a military engineer, is in its position and details one of the most remarkable, and in its history one of the most interesting of the castles of Normandy. Although a ruin, enough remains to enable the antiquary to recover all its leading particulars. These par- ticulars, both in plan and elevation, are so peculiar that experience derived from other buildings throws but an uncertain light upon their age ; but of this guide, usually so important, they are inde- pendent, from the somewhat uncommon fact that the fortress is wholly of one date, and that date is on record. Moreover, within a few years of its construction, whilst its defences were new and per- fect, with a numerous garrison and a castellan, one of the best soldiers of the Anglo-Norman baronage, it was besieged by the whole disposable force of the most powerful monarch of his day ; and the particulars of the siege have been recorded by a contem- porary historian with a minuteness which leaves little for the imagination to supply, and which, by the help of the place and works, but little changed, enables us to obtain a very clear compre- hension of the manner in which great fortresses were attacked and defended at the commencement of the thirteenth century. Chateau-Gaillard crowns the almost precipitous head of a bold and narrow promontory of chalk, which, isolated on either hand by a deep valley, stands out from the broad table-land of Le Vexin, at a height of 300 feet above the deep and rapid Seine, which washes and has for ages threatened to undermine its base. The course of the Seine through Normandy, from below the conflux of the Epte to the sea, is one rapid succession of bold and graceful curves, the concavities of which, bluff and precipitous, are attacked by the advancing stream, in strong contrast to the opposite banks, which, deposited and encircled by it, are low and fertile, and studded with ancient villages, churches, and manor-houses, rising through a mantle of rich, smiling verdure. At the bottom of one of the grandest of these reaches, on the margin of a vast amphitheatre, stands the saucy boast of Coeur-de- Lion. Right and left are the bold bluffs of the chalk range, masked with turf, green as that of Sussex or Kent, varied by the occasional protrusion of a cliff of chalk, and relieved by a band of vegetation covering up the foot of the steep, and intervening between the high ground and the river. In front, beyond the innumerable islands of