this, when seen at a
distance: and it is only then that the eye can comprehend the vast
expanse and strength of the external wall, with the noble keep towering
high above it.

[Illustration: Church at Arques]

Until the revolution, the decaying town of Arques was not wholly
deprived of all the vestiges of its former honours: the standards of the
weights and measures of Upper Normandy were deposited here. It was the
seat of the courts of the Archbishop of Rouen, and, though the actual
session of the municipal courts took place at Dieppe, they bore the
legal style and title of the courts of Arques. Since the revolution
these traces of its importance have wholly disappeared, nor is there any
outward indication of the consequence once enjoyed by this poor and
straggling hamlet.

The church is a neat and spacious building, of the same kind of
architecture as that of St. Jacques, at Dieppe; and, as it is a good
specimen of the florid Norman Gothic, (I forbid all cavils respecting
the employment of this term) I have added a figure of it. My slender
researches have not enabled me to discover the date of the building, but
it may, have been erected towards the year 1350. A most elegant bracket,
formed by the graceful dolphin, deserves the attention of the architect;
and I particularize it, not merely on account of its beauty, but
because, even at the risk of exhausting your antiquarian patience, I
intend to point out all architectural features which cannot be retraced
in our own structures; and this is one of them. By the way, Arques
contributed to increase the bulk of our herbal as well as of our
sketch-book, for under the walls of the church is found the rare
_Erodium moschatum_; and near the castle grow _Astragalus glycyphyllos_
and _Melissa Nepeta_.

The field of battle is to the southward of the town. A small walk under
the south wall of the castle, near the east end, adjoining a covered way
which led to a postern-gate or draw-bridge, is still called the walk of
Henry the IVth, because it was here that this monarch was wont to
reconnoitre the enemy's forces from below.

Napoleon, towards the conclusion of his reign, visited the field of
battle at Arques; he ascertained the position of the two armies, and
pronounced that the King ought to have lost the day, for that his
tactics were altogether faulty. I am willing to suppose that this
military criticism arose merely from military pedantry, though it is now
said that Na