Both the town and castle of Falaise are situated on
high ground; and the latter, being on the side of a precipitous
eminence, may be seen for a long distance before we approach it by the
road. At Falaise, as at Lisieux, the traveller who arrives in the town
by railway, is generally surprised and disappointed, at first sight,
with its modern aspect.
'The castle of Falaise,' says M. Leduc, 'consists of a large square
Norman keep of the tenth and eleventh centuries, standing at the
steepest and highest part of a rocky eminence, with a lofty and
exceedingly fine _circular_ tower, connected with it on the south-west
by a passage; and round the whole, a long irregular line of outer wall
following the sinuosities of the hill, fortified by circular towers and
enclosing various detached buildings used by the garrison. This line of
outer wall and the circular tower is of much later date than the keep,
and the greater portion of them is not older than the fourteenth or
fifteenth century, when the castle had to withstand attacks from the
English. In the keep (it is said) William the Conqueror was born, and
they pretend to show the remains of the very room where this event took
place, as well as the identical window from which his father "Duke
Robert the Magnificent," first saw Arlette, the daughter of the Falaise
tanner.'
Here, under the shadow of 'Talbot's tower,' we might prefer to muse
historically, and gather up our memories of facts connected with the
place; but we are treading again upon 'the footsteps of the Conqueror,'
and must pay for our indiscretion.
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