Note 212 — Scene III.

This magnificent ruin of the favourite castle of Richard I. is on the banks of the Seine, near Les Andelys, the birth-place of Poussin, and the retreat of Thomas Corneille. A single year sufficed to form its immense fosses, and to raise those walls which might seem to be the structure of a lifetime. When Cœur de Lion saw it finished, he is said to have exclaimed with exultation, "How beautiful she is, this daughter of a year!" It was the last hold of the English in Normandy; and, under the command of Roger de Lacy, long mocked the efforts of Philip Augustus, who came in person to invest it in August 1203. The siege was memorable for its length, the incredible exertions of De Lacy, and the sufferings endured by the besieged until its capture in the following March.—Wiffen's "Memoirs of the House of Russell," vol. i. p. 548.