ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY.

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established by a wealthy inhabitant, in consequence of a beggar having died of cold and hunger inhis barn. A bull from Pope Sextus iv., dated in 1475, conferred upon the abbots the privilege ofwearing the mitre, ring, and pontifical insignia, together with various other honorary distinctions. Therevolution deprived Falaise of its abbey and eight churches. It now retains only four; two within thewalls, and two in the suburbs. Its population is estimated at about ten thousand inhabitants.

The castle of Falaise is with justice regarded by Mr. Turner, as one of the proudest relics ofNorman antiquity. The following description of it, as more copious than any other that has yet appeared,is transcribed verbatim from the Tour* of that author.—“ It is situated on a very bold and lofty rock,broken into singular and fantastic masses, and covered with luxurious vegetation. The keep whichtowers above it is of excellent masonry: the stones are accurately squared, and put together with greatneatness, and the joints are small; and the arches are turned clearly and distinctly, with the key-stoneor wedge accurately placed in all of them. Some parts of the wall, towards the interior ballium, are notbuilt of squared freestone; but of the dark stone of the country, disposed in a zigzag, or, as it is morecommonly called, in a herring-bone direction, with a great deal of mortar in the interstices: thebuttresses, or rather piers, are of small projection, but great width. The upper story, destroyed aboutforty years since, was of a different style of architecture. According to an old printf, it terminated witha large battlement, and bartizan towers at the angles. This dungeon was formerly divided into severalapartments, in one of the lower of which was found, about half a century ago, a very ancient tomb, ofgood workmanship, ornamented with a sphynx at each end, but bearing no inscription whatever.Common report ascribed the coffin to Talbot, who was for many years governor of the castle; and atlength an individual engraved upon it an epitaph to his honor; but the fraud was discovered, and thesarcophagus put aside, as of no account. The second, or principal, story of the keep, now forms asingle square room, about fifty feet wide, lighted by circular-headed windows, each divided into two bya short and massy central pillar, whose capital is altogether Norman. On one of the capitals isscultptured a child leading a lambj, a representation, as it is foolishly said, of the Conqueror, whomtradition alledges to have been born in the apartment to which this window belonged: another pillar liasan elegant capital, composed of interlaced bands.—Connected with the dungeon by a stone staircase is asmall apartment, very much dilapidated, but still retaining a portion of its original facing of Caen stone.It was from the window of this apartment, as the story commonly goes, that Duke Robert first saw thebeautiful Arlette, drawing water from the streamlet below, and was enamoured of her charms, and tookher to his bed.—According to another version of the tale, the earliest interview between the prince andhis fair mistress, took place as Robert was returning from the ehace, with his mind full of anger against theinhabitants of Falaise, for having presumed to kill the deer which he had commanded should be preservedfor his royal pastime. In this offence the curriers of the town had borne the principal share, and theywere therefore principally marked out for punishment. But, fortunately for them, Arlette, the daughterof one Verpray, the most culpable of the number, met the offended Duke while riding through the street,and with her beauty so fascinated him, that she not only obtained the pardon of her father and hisasssoeiates, but became his mistress, and continued so as long as he lived. From her, if we may givecredence to the old chroniclers, is derived our English word, harlot. The fruit of their union wasWilliam the Conqueror , whose illegitimate birth, and the low extraction of his mother, served on morethan one occasion as a pretext for conspiracies against his throne, and were frequently the subject ofpersonal mortification to himself.—The walls in this part of the castle are from eight to nine feet thick.A portion of them has been hollowed out, so as to form a couple of small rooms. The old door-way ofthe keep is at the angle; the returns are reeded, ending in a square impost; the arch above is destroyed.—Talbot’s tower, thus called from having been built by that general, in 1430 and the two subsequent years,

* Yol. ix. p. 266. f This print has lately been copied into Mr. Dibdin’s Tour , vol. n. p. 11.

X Mr. Turner appears to be in error with regard to this capital : Mr. Cotman, who examined it more attentively, foundthe child to be holding two animals in a leash; and he supposes them to be greyhounds, comparing them with a very similarpiece of sculpture upon one of the capitals in the bishop’s palace, in the castle at Durham , erected by the Conqueror.—SeeCarter’s Ancient Architecture, i. pi. 17, fig. r.

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