230 DIEPPE. 



But it is not only to compare the present world with the old 

 that we travel, but to study customs and manners, to inquire 

 into the composition of society, to look inio the aspect ofnature» 

 and read the physiognomies of men. A companion, therefore, 

 who is not in some respects a man of the world, is of no use. 



The Cite de Limes, which we have mentioned, and the Cha- 

 teau d'Arques, are only places in the immediate nei^hbourhood 

 of Dieppe which strangers think themselves obliged to visit. 



The chateau stands on a majestic height, from which the deep 

 gorges of the hills, the woods, and wandering streams, and the 

 ocean lost in the distance, combine to form a picture which the 

 traveller does not readily forget. All around is silence and 

 solitude, which the town of Dieppe, niched in a distant corner 

 of the view, does not seem to interrupt; and the crumbling ruins 

 on which you stand impress upon the scene a character of melan- 

 choly and desolation. 



The area of these old walls is crowded with historical asso- 

 ciation. You hear from the subterranean depths of its dungeons 

 the groan, half-guilt, halt- physical suffering, of Osmond de Chau- 

 mont, the prisoner of our first Henry. The armed shadows of 

 Philip Augustus, and Richard of the Lion Heart, stalk through 

 the gloom; Warwick, Talbot, and the heroes of Charles VIL, 

 the heroic libertine reclaimed by love, pass in turn before your 

 mind's eye; and last, not least, the waving plumes of Henri 

 Quatre, the last of the knights, fan your glowhig cheek as the 

 •hape strides past, pointing to the field of Arques, where he 

 conquered thirty thousand men with half the number, and gave 

 a mortal blow to that enormous hydra, the League. 



At the beginning of the last century, the chateau was still 

 formidable. The outer walls were of thick masonry, flanked by 

 fourteen towers, some round and some square, but even those 

 filled up by the ruins of the upper parapets. In the entrance 

 from Dieppe, there were galleries carried through the interior of 

 the battlemented walls. There were two dungeons, separated 

 by a wall five feet thick, or, rather, a single dungeon divided in 

 this manner, and supporting, by its vault, a platform which 

 commanded all the neighbouring heights. A stair of fifty-two 

 steps led from the dungeon to subterranean prisons six feet high, 

 and four wide; and, as these were immediately under the inner 

 side of the ditch, escape was impossible. The ditch itself was 

 wide, deep, and precipitous; and, being filled with water, formed 

 a defence oi' the most formidabU^ nature. The place, nolwith- 



