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.
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.
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 Cœur 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.
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.
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.
[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 Cæsar, 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 Inférieure, 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.