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Updated: May 25, 2025
Nor was there any castle nor stronghold anywhere nigh; the great building with walls and moats which stood on the south side of the King's pool was but the peaceful cloister of the Augustine Sisters of Pillenreuth. All about the water lay marsh-ground overgrown with leafless bushes, rushes, tall grasses, and reeds. It was verily a right dismal and ill-boding spot.
Frank saw that it was still held by a stout chain, so that no one outside could enter against the will of the inmates. It made him think of one of the old feudal castles he had lately been reading about in Sir Walter Scott's romances, where they had draw-bridges, moats, and a port-cullis to protect them against assault. A face was seen in the narrow opening.
Above, on a breastwork of granite which commands the three valleys, rise the battlements and feudal towers of the ancient castle of Fougeres, one of those enormous erections built by the Dukes of Brittany, with lofty walls fifteen feet thick, protected on the east by a pond from which flows the Nancon, the waters of which fill its moats, and on the west by the inaccessible granite rock on which it stands.
In our days, the largest cities take down their walls, the moats of the princes' castles are filled in; cities are no more than great places, and when one travels and sees all this, one might fancy that universal peace was just established, and the golden age was before the door. No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.
Its defenders were burning down the houses and woods beyond the moats to clear the way for their gunners. The King watched the sight from his horse in silence. He knew what it meant; he had fought in the Thirty Years' War: "Now, I vow, we shall have fighting," was all he said. It was not long in coming.
The noble city of Ghent then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and fortified with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, constructed of earth, during the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with bread and meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year was ignominiously surrendered.
A young Spaniard, carrying a long gun, with its rest suspended at his side and the burning match in his right hand, who was walking with nonchalance upon the rampart, stopped to look at Cinq-Mars, who was riding about the ditches and moats. "Senor caballero," he cried, "are you going to take the bastion by yourself on horseback, like Don Quixote Quixada de la Mancha?"
The noble city of Ghent then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and fortified with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, constructed of earth, during the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with bread and meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year was ignominiously surrendered.
Of the old baronial keeps many had been shattered by the cannon of Fairfax and Cromwell, and lay in heaps of ruin, overgrown with ivy. Those which remained had lost their martial character, and were now rural palaces of the aristocracy. The moats were turned into preserves of carp and pike.
We crossed the three moats and the three enclosures, now all full of barracks and soldiers. In the very centre, the old well and a little square tower are still standing, part of the Tycoon's original residence, which was destroyed by fire. The view from the top over the town and surrounding country is very fine.
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