After crossing the Epte the road climbs up through the village of Dangu, whose château on the left among the woods above the river was at one time of the greatest importance. The Norman structure has been demolished, and the existing castle dates back no further than the fifteenth century, some of it only to 1567, and part is modern, but a large portion is older than the time of Louis XIII.--a contemporary of Charles I.--when it was owned by the Comte de Bouteville, of whom Mr. Dearmer tells the following story in his admirable work on Normandy: ‘This gentleman has a place in history for his defiance of the celebrated edict against duelling; he and the Comte de Chapelles fought two other lords in broad daylight in the Place Royale at Paris. One of their opponents was killed, and Richelieu determined to prove that no lord was above the law. In spite of the efforts of the greatest families in France, Bouteville and Chapelles were executed in 1627. Eight years afterwards Louis XIII. arranged to visit Dangu in the company of the Cardinal, but when the widowed Madame de Bouteville heard of the intended honour, she sent this message: “The King will be received at Dangu with the honours due to the majesty of a King of France; but as for the Cardinal, I shall place under the drawbridge twelve barrels of powder, to which a light will be applied as he passes, in order to send him to heaven, where he ought to have been long ago.” The King came alone. But Richelieu had his revenge, and in five years Dangu passed into the hands of a recently ennobled favourite of the great Cardinal.’ On the left-hand side, on entering the village of Les Thilliers-en-Vexin, where the _route nationale_ to Rouen is reached, a little distance from the road, is the Château de Bois d’Enemets, built in the time of Louis XIII., and attributed to Mansard. After a short run on the straight and perfectly level main road, a turning to the left is taken, which drops at a gentle gradient down the side of the Gambon Valley--reminiscent of the chalky valleys of Kent--through the hamlet of Harquency, with its midget Norman church, to LE GRAND ANDELY Although possessing an almost cathedral-like church, the major attraction of Le Grand Andely must be its early sixteenth-century inn--the Hôtel du Grand Cerf. It was built in 1515 by Nicholas Duval, Seigneur du Viennois, a favourite of François I., and in the carving on the oak beams of the house one frequently comes across the salamander and the fleur-de-lys of that monarch. The frontage on the street and the charming little courtyard are made beautiful with the dark brown timber, in many places richly carved, which has never been hidden by plaster.