Indicit populis libertatemque priorem;
Deinde re-ædificat muros....
In 1350, after the death of Philip of Valois, Gournay was again separated from France, and given as a dower to Blanche of Navarre, the widow of that prince, who held it forty-eight years, when, after her death, it reverted to the crown. At the commencement of the following century, the town fell, with the rest of the kingdom, into the possession of the English; and once more, upon the demise of our sovereign, Henry Vth, formed part of the dower of the widowed queen. On her decease, it devolved upon her son; but a period of eleven years had scarcely elapsed, when the laws of conquest united it for a third time to the crown of France, in 1449.--From that period to the revolution, it was constantly in the possession of different noble families of the kingdom.
The name of Hugo de Gournay is enrolled amongst those who followed the conqueror into England, and who held lands in capite from him in this country[[21]]. Hugo was a man of eminent valor, and his services were requited by the grant of many large possessions; but, after all his military actions, he sought repose in the abbey of Bec, which had been enriched by his piety. His son, Girald, who married the sister of William, Earl Warren, accompanied Robert, Duke of Normandy, into the Holy Land; and the grandson of Girald was in the number of those who followed Richard Coeur-de-Lion in a similar expedition, and was appointed his commissioner, to receive the English share of the spoil, after the capture of Acre. He was also among the barons who rose against King John. Their descendants settled in very early times in our own county, where their possessions were extensive and valuable.
It was in Gournay that the unfortunate Arthur, heir to the throne of England, received the order of knighthood, together with the earldoms of Brittany, Poitou, and Angers, from Philip Augustus, immediately previously to entering upon the expedition, which ultimately ended with his death; and, according to tradition, it was on this occasion that the town adopted for its arms the sable shield, charged with a knight in armor, argent[[22]].
Gournay has now no other remains of antiquity, except the collegiate church of St. Hildebert[[23]], which was founded towards the conclusion of the eleventh century, though it was scarcely completed at the end of the thirteenth. Hence the discrepancy of style observable in the architecture of its different parts. The west front, in which the windows are all pointed, was probably one of the last portions completed. The interior is principally of semi-circular architecture, with piers unusually massy, and capitals no less fanciful and extraordinary than those already noticed at St. Georges. Here, however, we have fewer monsters. The ornaments consist chiefly of foliage, and wreaths, and knots, and chequered work, and imitations of members of the antique capital. Some of the pillars, instead of ending in regular capitals, are surmounted by a narrow projecting rim, carved with undulating lines. It has been supposed that this ornament, which is quite peculiar to the church of St. Hildebert, is a kind of hieroglyphical representation of water.--Perhaps, it is the chamber of Sagittarius; or, perhaps, it is a fess wavy, to which the same signification has been assigned by heralds.--If this interpretation be correct, the symbol is allusive to the ancient situation of the town, built in the midst of a marsh, intersected by two streams, the Epte and the St. Aubin.
While we were on the point of setting out from Gournay, we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cotman, who landed a few days since at Dieppe, and purposes remaining in Normandy, to complete a series of drawings which he began last year, towards the illustration of the architectural antiquities of the duchy. He has joined our party, and we are likely to have the advantage of his society for some little time.
The village of Neufmarché, about a league from Gournay, on the right bank of the Epte, still retains a small part of its castle, built by Henry Ist, to command the passage of the river, and to serve as a barrier against the incursions of the French. Its situation is good, upon an artificial hill, surrounded by a fosse; and the principal entrance is still tolerably entire. But the rest is merely a shapeless heap of ruins: the interior is wholly under the plough; and the fragments of denudated walls preserve small remains of the coating of large square stones, which formerly embellished and protected them. Neufmarché, in the days of Norman sovereignty, was one of the strong holds of the duchy. The chroniclers[[24]] speak of the village as being defended by a fortress, in the reign of William the Conqueror. The church, too, with its semi-circular architecture, attests the antiquity of the station.
Long before we reached Gisors, we had a view of the keep of the castle, rising majestically above the town, which is indeed at present "une assez maussade petite ville, qui n'a guère qu'une rue." From its position and general outline, the castle, at first view, resembles the remains of Launceston, in Cornwall. It recalled to my mind the impressions of surprise, mixed with something approaching to awe, which seized me, when the first object that met my eyes in the morning (for it was late and dark when I reached Launceston) was the noble keep, towering immediately above my chamber windows, and so near, that it appeared as if I had only to open them and step into it. I do not mean to draw a parallel between the castles of Launceston and Gisors, and still less am I about to inquire into the relationship between the Norman and the Cornish fortresses. The lapse of twenty years has materially weakened my recollection of the latter, nor would this be a seasonable opportunity for such a disquisition: but the subject deserves investigation, the result of which may tend to establish the common origin of both, and to dissipate the day-dreams of Borlase, who longed to dignify the castellated ruins of the Cornish peninsula, by ascribing them to the Roman conquerors of Britain.