Chapter XXIX: Section XXVII: Gisors to Rouen, 41 Miles

(66 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Gisors= to Les Thilliers-en-Vexin =13= 8 =Les Thilliers= to Les Andelys =15= 9¼ =Les Andelys= to Heuqueville =12= 7½ =Heuqueville= to St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre =8= 5 =St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre= to Boos =9= 5½ =Boos= to Rouen 5½

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

=Dangu.=--There is a steep ascent on the way to Les Thilliers, after
which the road is level, until the long and easy descent of the
Gambon Valley to Les Andelys.

=Le Petit Andely.=--Has a _caniveau_ on entering from Le Grand
Andely.

=La Vacherie.=--Steep, winding ascent from the Seine.

=Before reaching Heuqueville.=--There is a very steep descent through
a wood, which should be taken carefully.

=Amfreville-les-Champs.=--After leaving, there is a long descent to
the Andelle at =St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre= (caution), and after
that village there is a long winding ascent.

=Approaching Rouen.=--There is a steep descent from
=Blosseville-Bonsecours=.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

=Gisors.=--Exceedingly interesting and picturesque town on the old
Norman frontier; Norman castle, built by William Rufus, Henry I.
and II., and Philippe Auguste; streets full of timber-framed
houses; beautiful church, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries, with Classic west end; Hôtel de Ville, seventeenth
century, formerly a convent.

=Dangu.=--Interesting château, chiefly of the time of Louis XIII.

=Les Thilliers-en-Vexin.=--Small hamlet; Château de Bois d’Enemets,
sixteenth century, attributed to Mansard.

=Harquency.=--Hamlet, with small Norman church.

=Le Grand Andely.=--Small town, with a remarkably fine church,
thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, with good sixteenth-century
glass; fountain of Ste. Clotilde; remarkable inn, Le Grand Cerf,
built in 1515, rich carving.

=Le Petit Andely.=--A little town, under the shadow of Château
Gaillard; old houses and very interesting thirteenth-century
church.

=Château Gaillard.=--Imposing ruins of the great fortress, built by
Richard Cœur-de-Lion in 1197; fine scenery and rare wild-flowers.

=St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre.=--Village in the pretty valley of
the Andelle, with a fine fifteenth century château.

=Boos.=--Small town; ruins of thirteenth-century manor-house, with
remarkable pigeon house of sixteenth century.

=Blosseville-Bonsecours.=--Great panoramic view of Rouen.

Gisors is an exceedingly picturesque old town possessing a fine castle and a very beautiful church. Standing on the little River Epte, it was on the frontier of Normandy, and its importance in medieval times was due to this fact. It was William Rufus who realized the strategic value of the place, and, having obtained possession of it, Robert de Bellesme in 1097 built him a castle, the keep of which, raised upon an artificial mound, is standing to-day. The first two Henrys of England strengthened the castle with towers, and in 1196, when Gisors was ceded to Philippe Auguste at the Treaty of Louviers, still further building was carried out, including a subsidiary keep on the outer line of defence, now called the Tour du Prisonnier. A considerable portion of the eleventh-century walls of Rufus’s castle are still standing.

It is worth while to climb the fifteenth-century staircase turret in the Norman keep, and from it see the outer walls of the castle down below, with the town built close up to it on three sides, and out across the green fields, about four kilometres to the west, appears the ruined tower of the castle of Neaufles. A subterranean passage, so it is said, connected the castle of Gisors with Neaufles. During a siege in the thirteenth century a sortie was made by Queen Blanche of Castile, the mother of St. Louis (IX.), with only a small party, and being cut off from Gisors, they made for the fortress of Neaufles, which was a ruin even at that time. Night was approaching, so the best plan was to surround the ruin and make the Queen a prisoner in the morning. But when daylight came there was no sign of life within the old walls, for the Queen and her men had taken advantage of the secret passage, and had not only reached Gisors in safety, but had prepared a stronger force, which sallied forth and scattered their amazed enemies.

The salient fact concerning Gisors, which it is not easy to keep in mind, is that this quaint old town was a feudal stronghold of the English, and that the Epte formed the frontier of English land. It was therefore the scene of many alarms and excursions and much hard fighting. When it became a French possession through the treaty already mentioned, Richard Cœur-de-Lion built Château Gaillard, a few miles away, on the Seine, although he had undertaken not to fortify that spot, for without some such defence Rouen lay at the mercy of the French.

The little chapel in the keep at Gisors was dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury; only the foundations remain to-day, but these, if carefully cleared of grass, weeds, and rubble, would be an interesting addition to the ruin.

In the dungeon of the Tour du Prisonnier there are many curious carvings and scratchings on the stone walls. The chief of these are attributed to Nicholas Poulain, who, in the fifteenth century, was kept in this hopeless prison for four years by Louis XI.

The streets of Gisors are full of charm, for, although stucco has been applied far too liberally to quaint overhanging houses of the sixteenth century, or earlier, their individuality has, in many instances, survived the treatment, and carved brackets and moulded beams are frequently to be seen. The greenish, and yet transparent, waters of the Epte flow through the town in the form of a canal, and the covered washing-places for the women are of exceptional picturesqueness.

The Hôtel de Ville, dating from the seventeenth century, was formerly a convent of the Carmelites.

The Church, dedicated to the saints Gervais and Protais, is a building of wonderful charm, and peeps of its Flamboyant carving, seen through narrow passages between antique timber-framed houses, are some of the delights of the town. The earliest portion of the building is the choir, with its aisles, built in the thirteenth century through the generosity of Queen Blanche, who was Regent for her son during his minority, and while he was away crusading in the Holy Land (see under Pontoise). The nave, chapels, and towers date from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, the wonderfully enriched north portal is Flamboyant, and the west end, with its two unfinished towers, belongs to the Renaissance period, as at Evreux (Section III.). The towers were stopped at their present height, for fear that they might be used against the castle if the town were occupied by an enemy.

Jacob’s vision of the angels is shown in a very fine carving over the central west door. The architects of the church in the sixteenth century were chiefly members of the family of Grappin, and it was Robert Grappin who, in 1530, built the nave in such a hurry that it collapsed, but within a decade it had been rebuilt.

Of the interior there is only space to mention the exceedingly interesting carved pillars; the huge Tree of Jesse in the baptistery; the chapel, containing a skeleton in stone; twenty-eight sixteenth-century painted panels, showing legends of the lives of the patron saints of the Church; the beautiful vaulted aisles of the choir; and, finally, the sixteenth-century glass of the windows.

The conferences between the English and French kings were held under an elm that grew upon the boundary, and under its shade, in 1188, Henry II. of England and Philippe Auguste held a peace conference, at which the aged Archbishop of Tyre appeared, and implored the monarchs to lead armies to aid in driving the infidels from the Holy City. It was agreed that both should lead a crusade in two years’ time; but in the following year, having fallen out, they were at war again, and Philippe soon afterwards cut down the tree.

Going out of Gisors by the street that leads approximately southwards, a tributary of the Epte is crossed by a bridge bearing a gilded statue to Our Lady, and just afterwards a level-crossing, where one turns to the right by the railway, soon afterwards passing (on the right) a very interesting example of the fortified farm, having a squat round tower at each corner. Further off, beyond the river, appears the ruined tower of the castle of Neaufles.

After crossing the Epte the road climbs up through the village of Dangu, whose château on the left among the woods above the river was at one time of the greatest importance. The Norman structure has been demolished, and the existing castle dates back no further than the fifteenth century, some of it only to 1567, and part is modern, but a large portion is older than the time of Louis XIII.--a contemporary of Charles I.--when it was owned by the Comte de Bouteville, of whom Mr. Dearmer tells the following story in his admirable work on Normandy:

‘This gentleman has a place in history for his defiance of the
celebrated edict against duelling; he and the Comte de Chapelles
fought two other lords in broad daylight in the Place Royale at
Paris. One of their opponents was killed, and Richelieu determined
to prove that no lord was above the law. In spite of the efforts of
the greatest families in France, Bouteville and Chapelles were
executed in 1627. Eight years afterwards Louis XIII. arranged to
visit Dangu in the company of the Cardinal, but when the widowed
Madame de Bouteville heard of the intended honour, she sent this
message: “The King will be received at Dangu with the honours due
to the majesty of a King of France; but as for the Cardinal, I
shall place under the drawbridge twelve barrels of powder, to which
a light will be applied as he passes, in order to send him to
heaven, where he ought to have been long ago.” The King came alone.
But Richelieu had his revenge, and in five years Dangu passed into
the hands of a recently ennobled favourite of the great Cardinal.’

On the left-hand side, on entering the village of Les Thilliers-en-Vexin, where the _route nationale_ to Rouen is reached, a little distance from the road, is the Château de Bois d’Enemets, built in the time of Louis XIII., and attributed to Mansard.

After a short run on the straight and perfectly level main road, a turning to the left is taken, which drops at a gentle gradient down the side of the Gambon Valley--reminiscent of the chalky valleys of Kent--through the hamlet of Harquency, with its midget Norman church, to

LE GRAND ANDELY

Although possessing an almost cathedral-like church, the major attraction of Le Grand Andely must be its early sixteenth-century inn--the Hôtel du Grand Cerf. It was built in 1515 by Nicholas Duval, Seigneur du Viennois, a favourite of François I., and in the carving on the oak beams of the house one frequently comes across the salamander and the fleur-de-lys of that monarch. The frontage on the street and the charming little courtyard are made beautiful with the dark brown timber, in many places richly carved, which has never been hidden by plaster.

Going through a beautifully decorated door from a corner of the courtyard, one enters the old hall of the house through a _tambour_, or lobby, of richly carved and panelled oak. The chief feature is the great fireplace, which almost makes folk who sit at the little tables appear as figures in a romantic picture. It was only in 1749 that the house was sold to the M. Lefèvre who turned it into an inn. Sir Walter Scott, Rosa Bonheur, Viollet-le-Duc, Chateaubriand, and Victor Hugo, all stayed at Le Grand Cerf, but the book in which these famous guests wrote their names was stolen a few years ago.

The church dates between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, but belongs chiefly to the earlier period, and has three towers and fifty-two beautiful sixteenth-century windows worthy of careful examination. It has stalls of the Flamboyant period and three pictures by Quentin Varin, the first master of Nicholas Poussin, the most famous of the French painters of the seventeenth century, who was born, in 1594, in a village close to Les Andelys, and to whom a statue has been erected in the town.

On June 2 every year there is a pilgrimage to the Fontaine de Ste. Clotilde, which is under the shade of lime-trees near the church. Its waters are sacred in connection with the legend that Ste. Clotilde gave them the strength and flavour of wine for the workmen who were building a convent for her, and had complained of having nothing but water to drink.

LE PETIT ANDELY

A short straight road leads from Le Grand to Le Petit Andely, with its church standing in the centre of a space where one turns either to the right to go on to Rouen or to the left for Château Gaillard, whose walls, gleaming white in the sunshine, still frown above the picturesque main street of the town. The interesting church seems to have been built very soon after the first siege of the castle, and therefore at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The choir is considered to be the oldest part, but the whole building is very much of the same period, and is a very perfect example of early French architecture. Inside and out the style is a little plain, but the beauty of its proportions is very striking. The paintings on the walls are fifteenth century, and the copper chandeliers belong to the eighteenth.

CHÂTEAU GAILLARD

Just before the last houses of the little town are reached an opening to the left leads to the footpath which climbs up the steep, grassy ascent to the ruins of Richard Cœur-de-Lion’s ‘saucy’ castle.

Although, since the year 1603, when Henri IV. gave permission for the castle to be destroyed, it has been used as a quarry for dressed stone at various times in that period, the great pile still retains its chief features, and is, in many ways, one of the most notable castles in the world. Richard coolly determined to fortify the spot soon after the Treaty of Louviers, in which it was expressly agreed that neither France nor England should either fortify or have any feudal rights in Les Andelys! Only three months after the compact had been sworn he of the lion-heart began the great fortress. It was to be no ordinary castle; it was to be impregnable; and M. Dieulafoy suggests that Richard I. utilized his experience in the Crusades and built after the Syrian plan, Antioch and Tyre having been found exceedingly hard to capture.

The oval inner bailey has the outer surface of its exceedingly lofty wall formed of nineteen semicircular buttresses, which touch one another, and are practically a continuous series of half-towers, leaving no flat surface anywhere. Inside this remarkable inner bailey stands the circular keep, whose walls are 27 feet thick, with an angular projection towards the gateway of the bailey. The outer courtyard was defended with five great circular towers. The weak point of the defence, however, was the high ground that overlooked the walls on the south-west side, and to make this impregnable an exceptionally strong outer castle, with three large towers and two small ones, was built, with a deep ditch separating it from the main works. All this and much more can be seen by anyone who cares to climb up and down the steep grassy banks that fall away from the walls.

When the great pile was completed, Richard gazed on his ‘Dreadnought’ castle, with its frowning

The ruins of Richard Cœur de Lion’s great castle built above the Seine to defend the English frontier.]

machicolations crowning the unassailable white walls, and exclaimed: ‘_Comme elle est belle, ma fillette d’un an!_’ Philippe Auguste, however, with justifiable indignation at the broken treaty, began hostilities, assuring Richard that he would take his saucy castle if it were made of iron, to which came the prompt reply, ‘I will hold it were it made of butter’; and Richard soon afterwards defeated the French army on the Plains of Gamaches. But in 1199 Richard died, and in his successor’s feeble hands Château Gaillard was soon in peril, for, in 1203, Philippe began a siege which lasted for five months.

The English Governor was Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, who was left to look after himself, when John with his army had made one half-hearted effort to relieve him. The fort on the island opposite Le Petit Andely was taken, and the little town soon afterwards fell into the hands of the French, the people fleeing to the castle for safety. But the Governor had no pleasure in seeing his food-supplies consumed by non-combatants, and the hapless creatures were soon turned out to shift for themselves. Some were at first allowed to pass through the French lines, but many were stopped, and lay in the grassy hollows, starving between friends and foes. The French King finally took pity on them and fed them, and allowed them to go before all were dead.

Meanwhile the siege proceeded with vigour; a wooden tower was built, and the outer castle was sapped and an entrance gained. The outer bailey was surprised by an entry being made through an unprotected window which may be seen to-day. Finally, the inner bailey was entered through a breach in the gateway, which the besiegers succeeded in making with a mangonel, and they rushed in with such impetuosity that the English had no time to reach the keep, and its enormous strength was therefore useless. There were only 180 Englishmen left when Philippe gained possession; the Governor was given his liberty, and the garrison marched out as the French flag was unfurled above the towers.

In 1314 Marguerite of Burgundy, wife of Louis X., was imprisoned in the castle and strangled with her own hair by order of her husband, who wished for another consort, and later on Blanche, wife of Charles le Bel, also accused of adultery, was kept there until removed to the Abbey of Maubisson for imprisonment for the remainder of her life.

In 1334 David Bruce, the son of Robert the Bruce, spent the seven years of his exile in France in Château Gaillard, while Edward Balliol had made himself King in Scotland.

Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, was another famous prisoner, in 1355. He was sent to the castle by King Jean of France for having had designs on the throne, and escaped when the King was captured by the English at Poitiers, in 1356.

The vivid story of the castle told in full, with a detailed account of its defences, would keep one at Château Gaillard much longer, and it is with the keenest regret that one leaves the steep hill, with its strange ruins standing out in front of the widespread view over a great horseshoe bend of the Seine.

The road by the river is followed for two kilometres, with the white, castle-like chalk cliffs on the right, to a few houses called La Vacherie, where one goes to the right and zigzags up the steep ascent that leads to the villages of Heuqueville and Amfreville les Champs.

From Amfreville the road winds steeply down to the charming valley of the Andelle, and crosses the river at the village of St. Nicholas-de-Pont-St. Pierre, where there is a fine fifteenth-century château, approached by an avenue of evergreen trees. There is an imposing façade flanked by two towers, and close by are the ruins of an older castle.

After a steep, winding ascent through the forest of Longboël the plateau of Caux is reached, the River Andelle dividing it from that of Vexin.

At Boos the _route nationale_ is joined, and one may stop to see the remarkable ruins of a thirteenth-century manor-house of the Abbesses of St. Armand de Rouen. The beautiful octagonal pigeon-house of the sixteenth century is decorated with inlaid tiles.

Just before descending the steep hill down to Rouen, from whence there is a remarkable panorama of the city, the village of Blosseville Bonsecours is passed through. An important Benedictine abbey was founded there in 1030. It was fortified in the fourteenth century, but in 1597, after the wars of the League, it was destroyed at the demand of the people of Rouen, who had always been apprehensive that the cannons would be turned upon them.

* * * * *

The routes from Rouen to Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne and Calais, are described in Section I.