A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish Winter's tyranny.--King Henry IV. Second Part.
We intended to proceed on our journey the following morning, but our valet-de-place, who had a longing for more five-franc pieces, put in the claims of the old château of Arques, and we went to visit it next day.
I am fond of ruins and old buildings in general, not alone for their picturesque beauty, but for the various trains of thought they excite in the mind. Every ruin has its thousand histories; and could the walls but speak, what tales would they not tell of those antique times to which age has given an airy interest, like the misty softness with which distance robes every far object.
No one ought to pass by Dieppe, without visiting the old castle and town of Arques. It is but a short ride, and the road is far from uninteresting. The fields are rich, highly cultivated, and decked with a thousand flowers, and at some distance before reaching Arques, the ruin is seen on the height above, standing in the solitary pride of desolation.
A ruin ought always to be separate from other buildings. Its beauties are not those which gain by contrast. The proximity of human habitations takes from its grandeur. It seems as if it leant on them for support in its age. But when it stands by itself in silence and in solitude, there is a dignity in its loneliness, and a majesty even in its decay.
Passing through Arques, the château is at some distance, on the height which domineers the town. The hand of man has injured it more than that of time. Many of the peasants' houses are built of the stone which once formed its walls; and the government has, on more than one occasion, sanctioned this gradual sort of destruction.
What remains of it has, I believe, been either sold or granted to some one in the town: but, however, a gate has been placed, and some other precautions taken to prevent its further dilapidation.
A pale interesting boy, with large blue Norman eyes, brought the keys and admitted us within the outer walls; but a weak castellan for those gates which once resisted armies! for in truth he could scarcely push them open. A few more years, and the château d'Arques will be nothing. It, is, however, still an interesting sight, and so many remembrances hang by it, that one is forced to dream. Memory is like the ivy which clothes the old ruin with a verdure not its own.
The county of Talou, of which Arques was the capital, was given by William the Conqueror to his uncle, in order to attach him more sincerely to the crown, but the gift had not that effect. Revolt against his benefactor was the first project that entered into his head, and he built the castle of Arques, in order to fortify himself in his new possessions. There he for some time resisted the forces of the king, and yielded not until his troops were little better than skeletons with hunger and fatigue.
William revenged himself by clemency, and again loaded his ungrateful uncle with favours, wishing, as his historians say, rather to attach him by benefits, than to pursue him as a rebel.