From the summit we enjoyed a delightful prospect: at our feet lay the
town of Falaise, so full of trees, that it seemed almost to deserve the
character, given by old Fuller to Norwich, of _rus in urbe_: the distant
country presented an undulating outline, agreeably diversified with
woods and corn-fields, and spotted with gentlemen's seats; while within
a very short distance to the west, rose another ridgy mass of bare brown
rock, known by the name of Mont Mirat, and still retaining a portion of
the intrenchments, raised by our countrymen when they besieged Falaise,
in 1417.--By this eminence the castle is completely commanded, and it is
not easy to understand how the fortress could be a tenable position; as
the garrison who manned the battlements of the dungeon and Talbot's
tower, must have been exposed to the missiles discharged from the
catapults and balistas planted on Mont Mirat.
The history of the castle is inseparably connected with that of the
town: its origin may safely be referred to remote antiquity, the time,
most probably, of the earliest Norman Dukes. If, however, we could agree
with the fanciful author just quoted, it would claim a much earlier
date. The very fact of its having a dungeon-tower, he maintains to be a
proof of its having been erected by Julius Caesar inasmuch as the word,
_dungeon_, or, as it is written in French, _donjon_, is nothing but a
corruption of _Domus Julii_! More than once in the course of this
correspondence, I have called your attention to the fancies, or, to
speak in plain terms, the absurdities, of theoretical antiquaries.
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