M. Langlois has engraved the gable end of an old house at Louviers, said
to have belonged to the Knights Templars. We found it used as an
engine-maker's shop; and neither within nor without, could we discover
any thing to justify his opinion, that it is a building of the twelfth
or thirteenth century. On the contrary, the windows, which are double,
under a flatly-pointed arch, and are all of them trefoil-headed, would
rather cause it to be considered as erected two centuries later.
The town of Louviers, though never fortified, is noticed on several
occasions in history. It was the seat of the conferences between Richard
Coeur-de-Lion and Philip Augustus, which ended in the treaty of 1195,
defining new limits to Normandy.--It was, as I have already mentioned,
one of the items of the compensation made by the same Duke to the
Archbishop of Rouen, for the injury done to the church, by the erection
of Chateau Gaillard.--During the wars of Edward IIIrd, "Louviers," to
use the language of old Froissart, "after the battle of Caen, was soon
entered by the Englishmen, as it was not closed; and they over-ran, and
spoiled, and robbed it without mercy, and won great riches; for it was
the chief place in all Normandy for drapery, and was full of
merchandize.
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