If the countryside afford a good granite rock surmounting a hill or mound of any height, that situation has generally been chosen for the castle, encircled by its protecting precipice. But in some parts of Northern France such sites are few; and, contrasted with the German or Italian fortress on the hill, we find more frequently the manor “emmy estangs,” so often sung of old poets--the castle built like Rochester, or Melun, on the brink or island of a river, isolated by moats and defended by encircling towers. Such was, for example, the Castle of Bièvre, commended by Deschamps in his 454th Ballad-- “La place est forte et de noble cloison. Emmy l’estang où le donjon se lance Trois tours y a de pierre et de moellon.” Each tower is three stories high, and each stands well in advance of the castle wall, the entry defended by a “puissant pont-levis.” By the fourteenth century, the castles were no longer built with a sole view to refuge and defence; the nobles no longer dwelt there as a last resort in war time, living in the guardroom with their garrison, and directing the defence amid the treasure. The castles of that time of transition were very habitable palaces; and Master Eustace passes from the military architecture to belaud the “noble aqueduct,” which carried water into the interior of the castle, and to praise the rich device of the halls and chambers, the excellent _vivarium_, the well-stocked preserves of game, the baths, the gardens, the rowing-boats, the shady park. “’Tis,” he finishes, “the pleasantest house I know--_pour demourer la nouvelle saison_.” This is not the strain in which a thirteenth-century minstrel would have sung the praise of Coucy--the castle has become a country-house. The great square tower, flanked with turrets at the angles, which has succeeded to the round tower of defence, is spacious enough for luxurious habitation. Every story contains a large hall, a moderate-sized room and a smaller one, beside the four cabinets in the corner turrets. Generally, the gallery, the chapel, the dining-hall, and the lord’s private room or “retrait” occupied the first story; above came my lady’s chamber, her tiring-room, her oratory, and the “garde-robe,” where her dresses lay folded in spice and lavender, and where her maidens sewed by day and slept by night. The upper stories were occupied by the children and by the guests; and the castle was crowned by several tiers of “machicoulis,” or crenelated battlements, pierced by loopholes and communicating by a “chemin de ronde.”