Chapter 21

Louviers is one of the most considerable of the numerous manufacturing towns which surround Rouen in every direction, depending altogether for their prosperity upon the state of commerce in the provincial capital. Its population consists of about seven thousand inhabitants. Its position is beautiful, in a small island formed by the Eure, which divides, in the immediate vicinity of the town, into two streams, flowing through a valley of the most luxuriant fertility, enclosed by hills covered for the greater part with extensive forests.

The name of Louviers, in Latin _Locoveris_, occurs upon more than one occasion, in the early Norman chronicles; and the town, though never fortified, has obtained a considerable degree of historical celebrity. When Richard Coeur-de-Lion, escaped from his captivity in the east, hastened to punish the perfidy with which he had been on all sides assailed during his absence, and Normandy became the theatre of a most bloody warfare, Louviers had the honor of being selected as the place in which these differences were composed. The treaty signed upon this occasion, in 1195, prescribed new bounds to the duchy; and the old historians, who always delight in consecrating the recital of any memorable event by a mixture of the marvellous, tell how, at the moment when the kings were engaged in the conference which led to this treaty, a serpent of enormous size darted from the foot of the tree beneath which they were standing, and approached them with marks of great fury, hissing violently at both, as if in the act to attack them. The monarchs, who were alone, instantly laid their hands upon their swords; and the armies, who stood at a short distance on either side arranged in battle array, alarmed at such hostile demonstrations, had well nigh joined in a fresh combat.--Only the following year, Louviers was one of the towns ceded by Richard to Walter, archbishop of Rouen, by way of compensation for the infringement of the rights of the see, of which he had been guilty in the erection of Château Gaillard. The possession of Louviers was peculiarly acceptable to the prelate, as being in the immediate vicinity of the village of Pinterville, where the archbishops of Rouen then had their country seat: they continued to occupy the same till the reign of St. Louis, when that monarch conferred upon them the castle of Gaillon, which they held till the revolution.

Louviers was taken in 1345, by the English army under King Edward III. then on his march for Paris, after the battle of Caen; and Froissart, in relating the circumstance, takes occasion to mention the importance of the place, stating that the town was then a great one, and "the chief town of all Normandy for drapery and riches, and full of merchandize. But, not being closed, the hostile army soon entered it." He goes on to add, not much to the credit of the invading host, that "they overran, and spoiled and robbed without mercy; and that they won there great riches."--In 1360, Louviers was once more chosen as the spot where peace was signed: the treaty that had been concluded at Bretigny, was confirmed at Paris by the Regent, and was finally ratified by the Black Prince in this town.--During the subsequent wars, under Henry V. and VI. Louviers is repeatedly mentioned; but principally for opposing a resistance of twenty-six days to the English in 1418.--In the time of the league, it distinguished itself most unfortunately by its devoted attachment to the Catholic cause; in consequence of which, it was pillaged by the royalists shortly after the battle of Ivry.[181]

The church of Louviers is an imposing structure: though materially injured, and reduced to no more than a nave with its four aisles, it is still a spacious and handsome building. The great western door is closed, and the front defaced: the eastern end is likewise altogether modern. The central tower is handsome, though square and short. Two windows, very similar to those of the tower of St. Romain, in Rouen cathedral, light it on either side; and saints, placed under canopies, ornament the angles behind the buttresses. A second tower, to the west, is surmounted with a truncated cone. The south porch,[182] here figured, is the great feature of the exterior; and, for beauty and elegance in the formation or disposition of its parts, it may safely be put in competition with any similar portion of an ecclesiastical building, either in Normandy or in England. Yet, even here, the saints have been torn from their pedestals by the wanton violence of Calvinists or of democrats.

Internally, the church is a fine specimen of the pointed architecture of the thirteenth century;[183] but, to use the words of Mr. Turner, from whose Tour[184] a great part of the preceding description has been borrowed, "the whole is so concealed and degraded by ornaments in the worst of taste, and by painted saints in the most tawdry dresses, that the effect is disgusting." In the windows of the church there still remains a considerable quantity of painted glass; and a bas-relief on the right of the choir is well deserving of attention. It is placed under a niche, which in all probability was originally filled with a statue of St. Hubert; as the sculpture pourtrays a well-known legend, recorded in his history--the miraculous stag with a cross between his antlers, seen by the hunter-knight.--The foliage at the base of the niche is executed with particular elegance and skill.

In the town of Louviers is an old house, said to have belonged to the Knights Templars. Its gable, pierced with numerous windows, generally in the form of flatly pointed arches, each of them containing a couple of arches with trefoil-heads, has given currency to the tale of its original destination. It was figured some time since by M. Langlois, in a work commenced to illustrate the Antiquities of Normandy, but of which the first number only appeared; and it has recently been lithographized by M. Nodier. But, from the style of its architecture, it does not appear to have been erected anterior to the fourteenth century, however confidently it is referred by M. Langlois to the twelfth or thirteenth.

NOTES:

[181] Sully, in his _Memoirs_, I. p. 254, (_English translation_) gives the following account of its capture:--"The King succeeded better at Louviers: this town kept a priest in its pay; who, from the top of a belfry, which he never left, played the part of a spy with great exactness. If he saw but a single person in the field, he rung a certain bell, and hung out at the same side a great flag. We did not despair of being able to corrupt his fidelity, which two hundred crowns, and a promise of a benefice worth three thousand livres a year, effected. There remained only to gain some of the garrison; the Sieur du Rollet took this upon himself, and succeeded. He addressed himself to a corporal and two soldiers, who easily prevailed upon the rest of the garrison to trust the guard of one of the gates to them only. Every thing being thus arranged, the King presented himself before Louviers, at twelve o'clock in the night. No one rung the bell, nor was there the least motion in the garrison. Du Rollet entered, and opened the gate, through which the King passed, without the smallest resistance, into the centre of the town. Fontaine Martel made some ineffectual efforts to draw the garrison together: as for the citizens, they were employed in concealing their wives and daughters. The town, whose chief riches consisted in its magazines of linen and leather, was wholly pillaged: I had a gentleman with me, called Beaugrard, a native of Louviers, who was of great use to us in discovering where these sort of goods were concealed, and a prodigious quantity of them was amassed together. The produce of my share amounted to three thousand livres. The King consigned to Du Rollet the government of Louviers."

[182] Mr. Cotman very much regrets that it was not in his power to do this porch the justice it deserved, in consequence of the continual interruptions to which he was exposed from the lower class of the inhabitants.

[183] M. Nodier, in his _Voyages Pittoresques et Romantiques_, has figured the interior of this church, the erection of which he refers (p. 18) to the time of the first crusades; but a comparison of the building with others of that æra, would scarcely warrant such a conclusion.

[184] Vol. II. p. 287.

PLATE LXXX. AND LXXXI.

CHÂTEAU GAILLARD.

On the building of Château Gaillard, the following account is given by Masseville, in his _History of Normandy_:[185]--"In the year 1196, a few months after the treaty of Louviers had been concluded between Philip-Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, the Norman Duke, considering how frequently inroads had been made into his territories, by the way of Andelys, resolved to strengthen himself by means of a formidable barrier in that quarter. With this view, he built a fortress upon an island in the Seine, opposite the village of Lesser Andelys; and, at the same time, erected upon the brow of the rock that overhung the river, a castle of the greatest possible strength, without, however, reflecting how far these works were likely to affect the rights, or to diminish the revenues, of the see of Rouen, to whom the ground belonged. But Walter, who then wore the archiepiscopal mitre, was by no means of a character patiently to submit to an invasion of his privileges. He complained loudly during the progress of the works, menaced the artificers, and even the prince himself, with the vengeance of the church; and, finally, finding his threats and his remonstrances equally disregarded, had recourse to the bold measure of laying the whole of Normandy under a spiritual interdict. The king, alarmed at so decisive a step, appealed to the papal see, and sent the bishops of Durham and of Lisieux, as his ambassadors to Rome. The archbishop also repaired thither to plead his own cause; and the affair was finally compromised by an exchange, in virtue of which, the castles were allowed to stand, and the secular seigniory of Andelys was ceded to the duke, who, in return for this acquisition, and to obtain his reconciliation to the church, gave up to the primate the towns and lordships of Dieppe and Louviers, the land and forest of Alihermont, the land and lordship of Bouteilles, and the mills of Rouen."--The contract was considered of so much importance, that the archbishop of Canterbury, together with several other English prelates, as well as almost all those of Normandy, and many of the principal abbots and noblemen of the province, were summoned to sanction the execution of it by their presence. Such were the benefits it was supposed to bestow upon the church, that it has passed in ecclesiastical history, under the significant appellation of the _celebris permutatio_.

But the king also congratulated himself, and not without reason, upon having opposed an impregnable barrier to the inroads of his more powerful, and scarcely less active, neighbor. He delighted in Château Gaillard, the very name of which is said to have had its origin in proud mockery and defiance; and he himself, in his public acts, designated it his "_beautiful castle of the rock_." Many of his charters bear date from this fortress; so that, though only begun three years before the death of the monarch, it is plain that it was already habitable in his life-time. It may likewise safely be inferred, that it was then quite finished; for his dastardly successor, engaged either in distant wars, or in intrigues at home, from the moment of his mounting the throne, had bestowed no thought upon the strengthening of his hereditary continental dominions, till he found himself, in the year 1202, attacked by Philip-Augustus at the head of an overwhelming army, while his own subjects were but little disposed to assist a prince, whose hands were reeking with his nephew's blood.

It was at this time that Château Gaillard supported the siege which will render its name for ever memorable in history. Long, and curious, and interesting details of the occurrences connected with the capture of the castle, are given by Father Daniel: Du Moulin also briefly enumerates a few of the many stratagems to which the French king was obliged to have recourse. But those who delight in narratives of this kind, or who desire to obtain full information relative to the attacks and defence, combined with a lively picture of the strength of the fortress, must be referred to Brito, the poetical chronicler of the exploits of Philip-Augustus. The whole of the seventh book of the _Philippiad_ of that author, containing no fewer than eight hundred and forty-one lines, are devoted to this single subject; so eventful was the history of the siege, and so great the importance attached to the capture of the place. The fall of Château Gaillard was almost immediately followed by the total subversion of the power of the Norman Dukes; but, as to the fortress itself, though its situation was no longer such as to give it importance, Brito expressly states, that Philip bestowed great pains upon the restoring of its damaged works, and upon augmenting its strength by the addition of new ones:--

"Rex ita Gaillardo per prælia multa potitus, Cuncta reædificat vel ab ipso diruta, vel quæ Improbus appositis destruxerat ignibus hostis, In triplo meliùs et fortiùs intùs et extrà, Antea quàm fuerint muros et cætera firmans."

Fortunately for France, the subsequent state of the kingdom rendered precautions of this description unnecessary; Château Gaillard appears no more in history as a formidable fortress, except upon the occasion of the occupation of the Gallic throne by Henry V. and of the expulsion of his successor. In the former case, the castle did not surrender to the English army, till after a vigorous resistance of sixteen months;[186] and even then its garrison, though composed of only one hundred and twenty men, would not have yielded, had not the ropes of their water-buckets been worn out and destroyed: in the latter instance, it was one of the last of the strong holds of Normandy that held out for the successors of its ancient dukes; and the siege of six weeks, sustained by a dispirited army, was scarcely less honorable to its defenders, than the far longer resistance opposed on former occasions.

Even after the final re-union of the duchy, Château Gaillard was neither purposely destroyed, nor suffered to fall through neglect into decay, like the greater number of the Norman fortresses. During the religious wars, it still continued to be a military post, as well as a royal palace; and it was honored with the residence of Henry IV. whose father, Anthony of Bourbon, died here in 1562. Its importance ceased in the following reign. The inhabitants of the adjacent country petitioned the King to give orders that the castle should be dismantled. They dreaded, lest its towers should serve as an asylum to some of the numerous bands of marauders, by whom France was then infested. It was consequently undermined, and reduced to its present state of ruin.

If the name of this castle is to be found at other times, in "the historian's ample page," it is only in the comparatively unimportant character of a place of safe confinement for state prisoners, or, on one occasion, as a temporary residence for a fugitive monarch. In the latter capacity, it opened its gates to David Bruce, in 1331, when the Scottish prince, received by Philip de Valois, with all the honours due to an exiled sovereign, had this palace assigned him as a regal residence, and was permitted to maintain here, for a while, the pageantry of a court. As a prison, Château Gaillard was frequently employed: it was in particular distinguished with an unenviable preference in one of the most disgraceful æras of the history of France. Margaret of Burgundy, the Queen of Louis X. and Blanche, the consort of his brother, Charles le Bel, were both of them confined here, after having been tried and convicted of adultery; together with Jane, another princess of the house of Burgundy, the wife to Philip, brother to Louis and Charles. Margaret was shortly after murdered in this castle; when Louis, intent upon a fresh marriage with the princess Clementia of Hungary, found an obstacle to his wishes in the protracted existence of his former queen.

Of the extent, the magnificence, the commanding situation, or the imposing appearance of Château Gaillard, it is almost equally difficult to convey an adequate idea by the pencil or by the pen. "The faithful eye" can alone give satisfaction upon such subjects. Mr. Turner's account of the present state of the ruin, has the merit of being the most copious that has yet appeared; and the following extract from it shall therefore conclude this article:--"Our expectations respecting Château Gaillard were more than answered. Considered as to its dimensions and its situation, it is by far the finest castellated ruin I ever saw. Conway, indeed, has more beauty; but Château Gaillard is infinitely superior in dignity. Its ruins crown the summit of a lofty rock, abruptly rising from the very edge of the Seine, whose sinuous course here shapes the adjoining land into a narrow peninsula. The chalky cliffs on each side of the castle are broken into hills of romantic form, which add to the impressive wildness of the scene. Towards the river, the steepness of the cliff renders the fortress unassailable: a double fosse of great depth, defended by a strong wall, originally afforded almost equal protection on the opposite side.

"The circular keep is of extraordinary strength, and in its construction differs wholly from any of our English dungeon-towers. It may be described as a cylinder, placed upon a truncated cone. The massy perpendicular buttresses, which are ranged round the upper wall, whence they project considerably, lose themselves at their bases in the cone from which they arise. The building, therefore, appears to be divided into two stories. The wall of the second story is upwards of twelve feet in thickness. The base of the conical portion is perhaps twice as thick. It seldom happens that the military buildings of the middle ages have such a _talus_ or slope, on the exterior face, agreeing with the principles of modern fortification; and it is difficult to guess why the architect of Château Gaillard thought fit to vary from the established model of his age. The masonry is regular and good. The pointed windows are evidently insertions of a period long subsequent to the original erection.

"The inner ballium is surrounded by a high circular wall, which consists of an uninterrupted line of bastions, some semi-circular and others square. The whole of this part of the castle remains nearly perfect. There are also traces of extensive foundations in various directions, and of great out-works. Château Gaillard was, in fact, a citadel, supported by numerous smaller fortresses, all of them communicating with the strong central hold, and disposed so as to secure every defensible post in the neighborhood. The wall of the outer ballium, which was built of a compact white and grey stone, is in most places standing, though in ruins. The original facing only remains in those parts which are too elevated to admit of its being removed with ease.--Beneath the castle, the cliff is excavated into a series of subterraneous caverns, not intended for mere passages or vaults, as at Arques and in most other places, but forming spacious crypts supported by pillars roughly hewn out of the living rock, and still retaining every mark of the workman's chisel.

"The keep cannot be ascended without difficulty. We ventured to scale it; and we were fully repaid for our labor by the prospect which we gained. The Seine, full of green willowy islands, flows beneath the rock in large lazy windings: the peninsula below is flat, fertile, and well wooded: on the opposite shores, the fantastic chalky cliffs rise boldly, crowned with dark forests."

NOTES:

[185] Vol. II. p. 113.

[186] So says Monstrelet; and he has generally been followed; but, according to Masseville, (_Histoire de Normandie_, IV. p. 84) the Norman Chronicle limits the duration of the siege to only seven months.

PLATE LXXXII.

CHURCH OF MONTIVILLIERS.

Montivilliers is a town of about four thousand inhabitants, situated in a beautiful valley upon a small stream, called the _Lezarde_, near the western extremity of the Pays de Caux, within the distance of six leagues from Fécamp, and two from Havre de Grace. Its fortifications, now in ruins, were erected near the close of the fourteenth century, till which time it was altogether defenceless; but the state of France, just recovered from one English invasion and threatened with another, turned the thoughts of the government towards the securing of all vulnerable points on the northern frontier; and the trade of the place, though at present trifling, was at that period far otherwise. The cloths of Montivilliers were then considered to rival those of Flanders; and the preservation of the manufacture was regarded of so much consequence, that sundry regulations respecting it are to be found in the royal ordinances. The two circular towers of one of the gates now standing, afford a good specimen of the military architecture of the time.