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Updated: May 12, 2025
A Royalist force, numbering some seven or eight thousand horse and foot, surrounded this formidable rock which was defended by the Calvinist Comte de Montgommery. With him was another Protestant, Ambroise le Balafre, who had made himself a despot at Domfront, but whose career was cut short by one of Montgommery's men with whom he had quarrelled.
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.
He had to call in the help of the French king to put down rebellion in the Norman duchy, and he had to drive back more than one invasion of the French king at the head of an united Norman people. He added Domfront and Maine to his dominions, and the conquest of Maine, the work as much of statesmanship as of warfare, was the rehearsal of the conquest of England.
Still John was reluctant to leave Normandy; he went south to Domfront and west to Vire before he again returned to the coast at Barfleur on November 28th, and even then he spent five days at Gonneville and one at Cherbourg before he finally took ship at Barfleur on December 5th, to land at Portsmouth next day.
Say it is my misfortune that I cannot give myself the great honour," she said; in her tone a little disdainful dryness, a little pity, a little feeling that here was a good friend lost. "It's not because of the French soldier that was with Montgomery at Domfront? I've heard that story. But he's gone to heaven, and 'tis vain crying for last year's breath," he added, with proud philosophy.
But though Domfront is full of almost thrilling suggestions of medievalism and the glamour of an ancient town, yet there is a curious lack of picturesque arrangement, so that if one were to be led away by the totally uninteresting photographs that may be seen in the shops, one would miss one of the most unique spots in Normandy.
Alençon, one of the chief border fortresses between Normandy and Maine, which had received an Angevin garrison, was captured by the duke. The inhabitants had taunted him with his birth, and William, who had dealt leniently with the rebels after Val-es-Dunes, took a cruel revenge. Soon afterward Domfront, another important border fortress, fell into his hands. In 1051 William visited England.
Some of them, where the ground was a little hilly, looked like beautiful green paths going straight up to the clouds. We kept in the forest almost all the way as we got near Domfront the road rising all the time, quite steep at the end, which, however, made no perceptible difference in our speed. The big auto galloped up all the hills quite smoothly and with no effort.
The original work is nearly untouched, except that the barbarism of modern times has removed about half the nave. After Domfront had submitted to William and had become permanently incorporated with Normandy, he himself founded the fortress of Ambrières, as a border stronghold. A fragment of the castle still overlooks the lower course of the Varenne, but the ground is no longer Norman.
We had not the energy, any of us, to go up into the tower and see the view we had seen it all the way, culminating at Domfront on the top of the mountain, and though very beautiful, it is always the same great stretches of green fields, hedges, and fine trees. It is a little too peaceful and monotonous for my taste. I like something bolder and wilder.
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