Of all his castles, Tarascon is the only one standing in anything like its original condition. As one looks up at the great round towers that swell out at the two corners of the main building (on the landward side), one realises what a sense of security its inmates must have indulged in, when besieged; and how impotent the attacking party must have felt. The riverward towers are square, as are the two smaller towers on the north-east side. There is a girdle of slightly projecting stone-work upon one of the towers, about three-quarters of the way up, that conveys very vividly to the eye its great circumference. Just past the south corner of this vast fortress, the Château de Montmorency rises on the other side of the river. In the clear air its outlines are sharp and well defined, and this distant toylike building helps to accentuate the size of the Château, near at hand. The outer windows on the great wall are grilled over with strong iron bars, for the Château is now a prison. These windows have dripstones over them, the carved ends of which are the only ornamentation on the great bare face of the building. For the rest, the corbels that support the machicolated battlements give a play of light and shade that, though simple, has a very rich effect, when contrasted with the great plain spaces below. The battlements, with their embrasures and oylets, form a crown of great dignity to the whole building, and it is in such fine condition (doubtless carefully restored) that one has no difficulty in picturing the rich spectacle that must have been presented by a cavalcade of brightly habited knights and ladies with their attendants issuing forth on a sunny morning to fly their falcons or to attend some fête at a neighbouring castle. No finer background for their gorgeous costumes could be conceived than these plain creamy walls, which the rounded towers at each corner save from monotony. From the river the Castle does not present so bold an appearance, owing to the absence of rounded towers. At a little distance, when its size is not so apparent, it looks almost Greek in its restraint and refinement; the row of brackets supporting the overhanging battlements suggesting a series of dentils under an irregular entablature.