Even then, no mention has been made of the ancient fronts that greet one in
many of the streets, and the charms of some of the sudden openings between
the houses that give views of the steep, wooded hollows that almost touch
the main street, have been slighted. A huge cube of solid masonry with a
great cylindrical tower alongside perched upon a mass of rock precipitous
on two sides is the distant view of the castle, and coming closer, although
you can see the buttresses that spring from the rocky foundations, the
description still holds good. You should see the fortress in the twilight
with a golden suffusion in the sky and strange, purplish shadows on the
castle walls. It then has much the appearance of one of those unassailable
strongholds where a beautiful princess is lying in captivity waiting for a
chivalrous knight who with a band of faithful men will attempt to scale the
inaccessible walls. Under some skies, the castle assumes the character of
one of Turner's impressions, half real and half imaginary, and under no
skies does this most formidable relic of feudal days ever lose its grand
and awesome aspect. The entrance is through a gateway, the Porte St.
Nicolas, which was built in the thirteenth century. There you are taken in
hand by a pleasant concierge who will lead you first of all to the Tour La
Reine, where he will point out a great breach in the wall made by Henri IV.
when he successfully assaulted the castle after a bombardment with his
artillery which he had kept up for a week. This was in 1589, and since then
no other fighting has taken place round these grand old walls. The ivy that
clings to the ruins and the avenue of limes that leads up to the great keep
are full of jackdaws which wheel round the rock in great flights. You have
a close view of the great Tour Talbot, and then pass through a small
doorway in the northern face of the citadel. Inside, the appearance of the
walls reveals the restoration which has taken place within recent years.
But this, fortunately, does not detract to any serious extent from the
interest of the whole place. Up on the ramparts there are fine views over
the surrounding country, and immediately beneath the precipice below nestle