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.