of the sons of Charles Martel. If we follow William of Jumieges, the
Chronicle of St. Vandrille, and William of Poitiers, we ascribe it to
the uncle and rival of the Conqueror; other writers tell us that the
ruins arose under Henry IInd. I dare not decide amongst such reverend
authorities, but I think I may infer, without the least disrespect
towards monks and chroniclers, that the Norman Arques now occupies the
place of a far more early structure, and that a portion of the walls of
this latter was actually left in existence. Taken, however, as a whole,
the castle is evidently a building of different æras; and it would be
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define the parts belonging to
each.

[Illustration: Tower of remarkable shape in Castle of Arques]

The principal entrance is to the west, between the two towers first
mentioned, over a draw-bridge, whose piers still remain, and through
three gateways, whose arches, though now torn and dislocated into
shapeless rents, seem to have been circular, and probably of Norman
erection. One of the towers of the gate-way appears formerly to have
been a chapel. Hence you pass into a court, whose surface, uneven with
the remains of foundations, marks it to have been originally filled with
apartments, and, at the opposite end of this, through a square
gate-house with high embattled walls, a place evidently of great
strength, and leading into a large open space that terminated in the
quadrangular and lofty keep. This, which is externally strengthened by
massy buttresses, similar to those of the walls, is within divided into
two apartments, each of them about fifty feet by twenty. In one of them
is a well, communicating with a reservoir below, which is filled by the
water of the river, and was sufficiently capacious for watering the
horses of the garrison. The greatest part, if not the whole, of the