290 



ii \i;i',(>ri;s AND M<;irniorsi:s. 



I'AUT IV. 



/"R DB COKDOUAN. 



Until the Eddystone Lighthouse of that engineer, the 

 only stone lighthouse in Kumpe erected out at sea was 

 the fine Tour de CYmloiian, on a flat rock off the mouth 



of the Garonne in 

 the Bay of Biscay. 

 It was finished and 

 lit ii]) more than two 

 hundred and fifty 

 years ago; and 

 though one of the 

 earliest, it continues 

 one of the most 

 splendid structures 

 ^ of the kind in ex- 

 istence. It replaced 

 a lighthouse founded 

 by the English on 

 the rock in 13 62-71, 

 whilst the Black Prince was Governor of Guienne. 

 The stone building was begun by Louis de Foix, one 

 of the architects of the Escurial, in 1584, in the time 

 of Henry III., and was continued all through the 

 reign of Henry IV., being finally completed in 1611, 

 in the reign of Louis XIII. Its height originally was 

 169 feet French ; but in 1727 it was raised to the height 

 of 175 feet French, or 186| feet English. The building- 

 exhibits that taste for magnificence in construction which 

 attained its meridian in France under Louis XIV. The 

 tower does not receive the shock of the waves, but 

 is protected at the base by a wall of circumvallatioii, 

 which encloses the apartments for the attendants. Jt 

 is not conical like the Eddystone, but is constructed in 

 three successive stages, angular in the interior, and con- 

 sequently more susceptible of decoration than the simple 

 and solid structures of Smeaton, Rennie, and Stevenson. 

 The Tour de Cordouan is further memorable as the first 

 lighthouse in which a revolving light was ever exhibited. 



