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Updated: June 12, 2025
When there are deep shadows under the eaves and the fruit trees in blossom stand out against the dark thatch, one can easily understand how captivating is the rural charm of this part of Normandy. Gradually the road ascends, but no great views are apparent, although one is right above the beautiful valley of the Varennes, until quite near to Domfront.
He now annexed Cenomannian that is just now Angevin territory at more points than one, but chiefly on the line of his earlier advances to Domfront and Ambrieres. Ambrieres had perhaps been lost; for William now sent Geoffrey a challenge to come on the fortieth day. He came on the fortieth day, and found Ambrieres strongly fortified and occupied by a Norman garrison.
William had thus won back his own rebellious town, and had enlarged his borders by his first conquest. He went farther south, and fortified another castle at Ambrieres; but Ambrieres was only a temporary conquest. Domfront has ever since been counted as part of Normandy.
Disembarking in July 1417 with an army of forty thousand men near the mouth of the Touque, he stormed Caen, received the surrender of Bayeux, reduced Alençon and Falaise, and detaching his brother the Duke of Gloucester in the spring of 1418 to occupy the Cotentin made himself master of Avranches and Domfront.
"Tell the Count of Anjou," said he to William Fitz Osborn and Roger Montgomery, his messengers, "that if he attempts to carry victuals into Domfront, he will find me before the gates, mounted on a bay horse, and with a red shield. And that he may know me the better, I shall have at the point of my lance a streamer of taffety, to wipe his face withal."
An Afterword: I doubt not we shall come to the heights where there is peace, though we climb thereto by a ladder of swords. Some years before Angele's letter was written, Michel de la Foret had become an officer in the army of Comte Gabriel de Montgomery, and fought with him until what time the great chief was besieged in the Castle of Domfront in Normandy.
The first impression of the great stretch of forest-land does not lose its striking aspect, even when one has explored the whole of the town. The road that brings one into the old town runs along a ridge and after passing one of the remains of the old gateways, it rises slightly to the highest part of the mass of rock upon which Domfront is perched.
Leaving the main road which goes on to Flers, we may take the road to Domfront, which passes through three pretty villages and much pleasant country. Bellau, the first village, is full of quaint houses and charming old-world scenes. The church is right in the middle on an open space without an enclosure of any description.
The camp was established near the site of an old Roman one, located between Conlie and Domfront, the principal part occupying some rising ground in the centre of an extensive valley. It was intended to be a training camp rather than an entrenched and fortified one, though a redoubt was erected on the south, and some works were begun on the northern and the north-eastern sides.
The Montgommery, whose defeat at Domfront castle has already been mentioned, held Valognes against the Catholic army, but it afterwards was captured by the victorious Henry of Navarre after the battle of Ivry near Evreux. Valognes possesses a good museum containing many Roman relics from the neighbourhood.
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