that have been found here, are at all evidences of its Latin origin; but
that, as we have no proof that Cæsar was ever in the vicinity of
Dieppe, as the whole is in such excellent preservation, (a point I beg
leave to deny,) and as the vallum is full thrice the height of that of
other Roman encampments in France[16], we are bound to infer it is a
work of far more modern times, and probably was erected by Talbot, the
Cæsar of the English[17], while besieging Dieppe in the middle of the
XVth century.

This opinion of the learned Abbé I quote, principally for the purpose of
shewing how far a man of sense and acquirements maybe led astray from
truth and probability in support of a favorite theory. Nothing but the
love of theory could surely have induced him to suppose that this strong
hold was erected for a purpose to which it could in no wise be
applicable, as the intervening ground prevents all possibility of seeing
any part of Dieppe from the camp, or to ascribe it to times when
earth-works were no longer used. In Normandy and Picardy are other
camps, more evidently of Roman construction, which are likewise ascribed
to Cæsar[18]; with much the same reason perhaps as every thing
wonderful in Scotland is referred to Fingal, to King Arthur in Cornwall,
and in the north of England and Wales to the devil.

[Illustration: General View of the Castle of Arques]

Upon the origin of the castle of Arques, it is somewhat unfortunate for
the learned that there is not an equal field for ingenious conjecture,
its antiquity being incontestible. Du Moulin, the most comprehensive,
though the most credulous of Norman historians, one who, not content
with dealing in miracles by wholesale, tells us how the devil changed
himself into a postillion, to apprize an alehouse-keeper of the fate of