A pale interesting boy, with large blue Norman eyes, brought the keys and admitted us within the outer walls; but a weak castellan for those gates which once resisted armies! for in truth he could scarcely push them open. A few more years, and the château d'Arques will be nothing. It, is, however, still an interesting sight, and so many remembrances hang by it, that one is forced to dream. Memory is like the ivy which clothes the old ruin with a verdure not its own. The county of Talou, of which Arques was the capital, was given by William the Conqueror to his uncle, in order to attach him more sincerely to the crown, but the gift had not that effect. Revolt against his benefactor was the first project that entered into his head, and he built the castle of Arques, in order to fortify himself in his new possessions. There he for some time resisted the forces of the king, and yielded not until his troops were little better than skeletons with hunger and fatigue. William revenged himself by clemency, and again loaded his ungrateful uncle with favours, wishing, as his historians say, rather to attach him by benefits, than to pursue him as a rebel. It was here also that the faithful Helie de Saint Saen resisted the endeavours of Henry I. to carry off the young heir of Normandy, and from hence he fled with his protégé, demanding from the neighbouring powers assistance for the child of his dead benefactor. During the various wars of England and France, sieges and battles innumerable passed by the château d'Arques, like waves beating against a rock. But the last most splendid deed it looked on before its ruin, was the defeat of the armies of the Ligue by Henry IV. of France, the last chevalier. In the life, in the words, in the actions, even in the faults of Henry IV., there is the grand generosity of a bright and ardent spirit, that mingling of great and amiable qualities which excites interest as well as admiration. The Ligueurs were ten to one, but; as he said, he had God and his good right, and he conquered. The same free spirit that bore him through the battle dictated the manner in which he announced it to his friend in the well-known words: "Pends toi, brave Crillon, nous avons combattu à Arques; et tu n'y étais pas!" Had he written pages he could not have expressed half so much! One of those same happy speeches of Henry IV. would appear to have been dexterously borrowed by an Italian poet. In those days of peril, when no regal distance could exist between the king and his subjects, Bassompierre's bed lay next to that of the monarch, and Aubigny's next to him--and both fancied that Henry slept. "Our master is ungrateful," said Bassompierre; "he casts all good things at the feet of the Ligueurs, and we, who have served him with our fortunes and our blood, are in absolute want." "What say ye, there?" cried the king. "Do you not know that I am obliged to _buy_ these Ligueurs? but you are my own."