CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD, ON THE SEINE.

CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD, though a French castle, is here introduced as being the work of an English king, and a very remarkable example of the military architecture of the close of the twelfth century.

Château-Gaillard, the “Saucy Castle” of Cœur-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 particulars, 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 independent, 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 perfect, 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 contemporary 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 comprehension of the manner in which great fortresses were attacked and defended at the commencement of the thirteenth century.

Château-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 Cœur-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 the Seine, is the tongue of rich low land known as the peninsula of Bernieres, a village, which, with Toeni and Venables—names familiar in Anglo-Norman history—is seen in the foreground. The valley on the right, or east, and immediately below the castle, is that of the Gambon, upon which are the towns of Great and Little Andelys; the former the birthplace—or within a mile of the birthplace—of Nicholas Poussin and Brunel; the latter half-a-mile lower down, upon the junction of the stream with the Seine, and under the immediate command of the castle, and contemporary with its foundation.

Château-Gaillard is composed of two principal parts, the castle proper and the outwork: the one covering the whole head of the promontory, the other occupying the only level ground, being the root of the ridge, from which the fortress could be attacked on equal terms.

The castle proper is composed of a keep; an inner ward, of the enceinte of which the keep forms a part, and which has its own ditch; and an outer ward, within which the inner ward is placed, the two uniting, or nearly so, at the north end. This division of the fortress is therefore concentric. The outwork, in advance of the ditch of the outer ward, has a ditch of its own, and presents its salient or strongest part towards the south.

The keep is a tower of which one half, in plan, is round, and the other projects into the ward as a right angle, or spur—a form of tower well known in French castles. It is 48 feet in diameter, or 55 feet taken at the spur. The walls are 11 feet thick, at the spur 18 feet, and the circular interior is 26 feet. At this time it is composed of a basement and a first floor; nor does there appear to have been a second below the ramparts. In the basement is one window towards the west, or exterior, and a rough aperture towards the east, or the inner ward. There are marks as though this had been a door of 4 feet 6 inches opening; but if so, it was doubtless not original. This keep is not likely to have had an entrance on the ground floor.

The first floor has two windows towards the west, and a door to the north. The windows being on the cliff side, and inaccessible, are moderately large. They are of two lights, flat-headed, beneath an equilateral arch. Their internal recesses are slightly pointed. The doorway, also flat-headed, occupies the space of a window-light. In the other space is a loop, commanding the approach. Both are beneath a round-headed arch, the tympanum being closed.

There are neither mural chambers nor a staircase within the keep. The floors and stairs were of wood. There is no fireplace, nor visible garderobe, and no well. The spur is solid.

The exterior is very peculiar. The lower two-thirds batters considerably all round, so as to add strength to the base, and cause a missile dropped from above to be projected outwards upon an assailant. About half-way up this slope there commences from corbels a series of buttresses, which expand laterally as they rise, but have vertical faces. They are, in fact, machicolations, but commencing low down; and, like ordinary machicolations, are connected by a series of arches, carrying the parapet, behind which was a passage for projectiles, as, for example, at Avignon. These exaggerated machicolations give a considerable increase of space to the top of the keep, but they are confined to its inner two-thirds, the outer side being sufficiently secure without them. As the upper part of the keep has been removed, the arches are gone, and only the buttresses remain. One of these defences overhung the entrance.

From a curious representation of the castle in stone in the church of Great Andelys, there is evidence that the keep was surmounted by a second and smaller tower within the rampart walk, and this again by another within that, rising like the tubes of a telescope. These probably were of timber.

A narrow flight of steps, commencing at the ward level, and carried up the outside of the keep, ascended, with two turns, to the entrance. Part of this narrow and dangerous staircase remains. There are also traces of a lean-to building on the east side of the keep, probably an addition.

The material of the keep is flint rubble, grouted in a copious bath of mortar, and faced inside and out with ashlar. The stones are about 1 foot 6 inches long by 6 inches high, and are a hard and durable variety of chalk, with occasional flints. The material is probably local. The workmanship, though plain and without ornament, is good. The joints are moderately open, enough to admit an ordinary lead-pencil.

The inner ward is something of the shape of the human ear, the keep standing in the west or hollow side, and the lobe being to the north or north-east. This ward measures about 200 feet north and south by 100 feet east and west. Its enceinte wall is one of the curiosities of the castle. It is in girth about 500 feet. Of this the keep, a round tower, and an intermediate building, occupy about one-third on the north-west quarter, and the remaining two-thirds includes some plain wall, a gateway, and seventeen segmental buttresses of 9 feet in the chord, placed upon the curtain 3 feet apart. The wall, about 8 feet thick, is plain within. By means of this arrangement great strength was given to the wall, and a series of flanking defences provided on the only face on which the ground admitted of any attack being directed. This part of the wall was probably about 30 feet high, and stood upon a vertical scarp of about 20 feet more. The battlements are gone, so that it does not appear how the wall was crested. A wall similarly buttressed, and of rather earlier date, existed at the Castle of Cherbourg, and there is something a little like it at Caerphilly.

The keep has already been described. It stands in the line of this enceinte, on the west side, which it protects. Annexed to the keep, on the north side, and also a part of the enceinte, is a rectangular building, probably the lodging of the castellan. It is about 30 feet wide, and 40 feet long, having a basement excavated in the chalk rock. It is of two floors, with fireplaces and segmental arches, and has an appendage on the north, perhaps for offices. It has windows in the curtain looking over the cliff towards the river. Stairs from hence descend to the postern, and the keep stair lies between this building and the keep.

At the northern point outside of, but engaged in, the wall, is the foundation of a round tower, now included in a square bastion, belonging rather to the outer ward than to this.

The postern is common to this and the outer ward, or rather at this point the two run into one, and the postern pierces the common wall. It is a narrow door having a flat top supported by two brackets, and above a round-head arch with closed tympanum. It opens in a re-entering angle of the wall, covered by the bastion, and upon the scarp, so that it must have been reached by a shifting bridge or ladder, the arrangements for working which seem indicated by some recesses for bars just within the portal. There is no portcullis; the defence was a barred door. The cill of this postern is about 30 feet below the base of the keep. It is reached by steps cut in the chalk rock, and but little worn.

The great gateway of this ward opens in the curtain to the east, and had a gatehouse almost entirely within the wall. This gate is considerably below the level of the ward. A steep descent leads to it, and the portal vault has three hanging ribs or arches, with a portcullis inside them, with a square groove. The inner half of the portal is gone; probably there was a second vault and portcullis, and an open space between. The face of the porter’s lodge is gone, but the lodge is seen to have had a plain segmental vault. Outside the gate is a curious square groove as for a portcullis, but it is stopped, and does not descend below the springing level of the gate arch.

This gate opens upon the ditch. The base of the scarp-pier of the bridge remains. The counterscarp has tumbled in. There was, probably, a central pier in the ditch. The present bridge is not original. The approach to this gate left by Cœur-de-Lion was a causeway, formed by leaving the rock uncut. It was over this causeway that the inner ward was stormed and taken.

Just within this gate was a well 270 feet deep, now blocked up.

Outside the enceinte is the ditch, about 20 feet deep, and 30 feet wide at the gate, and along the south front, with vertical sides, but running out to nothing on the steep ground as its ends pass northwards.

This ditch is, in fact, in the outer ward, which envelopes the inner ward. This ward is oblong, about 325 feet north and south, and 200 feet east and west. Its northern half is of an irregular oval form, following the rock, and terminating in two large rectangular conjoined bastions upon the precipitous north end. The southern half is nearly rectangular; having a straight south face 125 feet long, flanked by two drum towers. From these pass off the lateral curtains, forming the east and west front, and ending in two other drum towers, of which that to the east, nearly opposite the inner-ward gateway, is gone. The curtain, from this tower northwards, is also gone. On the opposite or west side it is a mere parapet, cresting the precipice and following its outlines. From the manner in which the inner ward is placed in this ward it occupies nearly all its northern end, but leaves to the south a platform, outside the ditch, of about 140 feet by 100 feet. Here is a rectangular foundation, about 40 feet broad by 60 feet long, and divided lengthways by a wall. Its length is north and south, but here is said to have been the chapel, probably built across one end. It was the work of King John, placed upon a substructure of cellars, and in close contiguity to the castle garderobe in the west wall. “Juxta foricas, quod quidem religioni contrarium videbatur,” says the chronicler. The end walls and the east side are faced with ashlar, but there is now nothing like a chapel. Here, however, it appears to have been, and its roof was visible above the wall. These foundations are interesting, since it was here, through a window in the contiguous wall, that the ward was entered and surprised during the great siege.

PLAN OF CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD.

No regular gateway remains in this ward. There is an opening in the south curtain which led to the great outwork, but which could scarcely have been the regular entrance. Neither could this have been on the west or north fronts. Probably, therefore, it was to the north-east, where the wall is now wanting. It is said not to have been opposite the inner gateway. At best the approach must have been little suited to wheel carriages. There was a well in the east quarter of this ward.

Mention has to be made of some curious chambers cut in the chalk of the escarpment of the ditch, from which at this time they are entered. There are three or four of these, about 80 feet in length and 7 feet high. They are carved with a sort of rough regularity, with pilasters left against the wall, and bands representing segmental arches. One large octagonal pier has a cap and base, and the latter has the water-bearing hollow of the Early English style, and is evidently original. It is probable, from what is said of these places in the account of the surprise of this ward, that they had a door towards the ditch, but they seem to have been also entered by a round hole, 4 feet across, in the roof, as was the case with the dungeons at Coucy.

The outer ward has its proper ditch, cut with vertical sides across the ridge in front of the south wall, between it and the rear of the outwork. This ditch is about 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep, but runs out to nothing when it reaches the steep ground.

The outwork, ravelin, or outer ward, is an antemural work, intended to cover the only side upon which the castle was open to an attack from level, or rather rising, ground, and to occupy what would otherwise have been a very dangerous platform.

It is in figure an isosceles triangle, having a base of 125 feet, and sides of 175 feet. Each of the three angles is capped by a round tower of 35 feet diameter, having walls 11 feet thick, and which seem to have been at least 40 feet high. Besides these, in the side walls, 60 feet in rear of the front tower, are two subordinate towers, also round, of 25 feet diameter; and again, a few feet from these, the curtain is slightly bent, so as to present an obtuse salient to the field. The work, therefore, though in general plan a triangle, has really five angles and as many towers. The front tower has a well-stair at its junction with its western curtain. The curtain is much broken down, but must have been at least 30 feet high, and, near the front, about 12 feet thick, and elsewhere 8 feet.

The rear or gorge wall is not exactly a curtain to the flanking towers. It is placed a little outside of them, on the edge of the ditch; and between it and the east tower was the gateway, the special and independent entrance of the outwork. The north side is gone, but the other side shows the springing of the portal arches and a square portcullis groove. In this gorge wall, not far from the gate, is a large arch, corresponding to that already mentioned in the outer-ward wall. This was, no doubt, a way of communication between the castle and the earthwork. This ditch was crossed by a wall at the east end, which connected the two works and protected the bridge. The west end is filled with ruins. There are now no traces of buildings in the outwork.

The towers of the outwork are of great strength, and have been faced with ashlar. The front tower especially is strong, and does not appear ever to have been mined or breached. Also the rock beneath it is undisturbed. Possibly the breach spoken of at the siege was in the adjacent curtain on the east.

In the rear of this work is the ditch already described, and along its front and flanks is another ditch, proper to the outwork, and the most formidable of all the defences. It is above 30 feet wide, and at the advanced point, where the ground rises, above 40 feet deep. The scarp and counterscarp are vertical.

Besides these regular works are others of a less regular but very formidable character, on the west side. This face of the rock towards the Seine, steep naturally, has been scarped and defended by art. Half-way down the slope is a round tower, connected, it is said, with the work above, by a gallery cut in the chalk. From the tower a wall descended to the river, so that the approaches on this side and the road between the hill and the river were effectually commanded. This wall seems to have terminated on the river bank, in a pier of which traces remain, and which supported one end of a strong dam or weir of piles, which extended across the river, and was part of the original work of Cœur-de-Lion. Several other works were stepped into the rocky slope, and especially covered the west side.

The weir crossed above the island, called formerly D’Andelys, upon which was the octangular fort, erected also by Richard, and of which traces remain. The bridges from this island, either way, to the banks, were of timber, and have left no trace behind.

Finally are to be mentioned the fortifications of the lesser Andelys, now destroyed, and the lake, fed by the waters of the Gambon, and which washed the walls of Great Andelys, and completely enveloped the lower town. These additional defences are now destroyed and the lake is drained and filled up, but indications remain sufficient to verify the detailed description of Guillaume le Breton, and to justify M. Deville in his description, and M. le Duc, in his restorations, advanced under the excellent articles “Château” and “Donjon” in his “Dictionary.”