Although, since the year 1603, when Henri IV. gave permission for the castle to be destroyed, it has been used as a quarry for dressed stone at various times in that period, the great pile still retains its chief features, and is, in many ways, one of the most notable castles in the world. Richard coolly determined to fortify the spot soon after the Treaty of Louviers, in which it was expressly agreed that neither France nor England should either fortify or have any feudal rights in Les Andelys! Only three months after the compact had been sworn he of the lion-heart began the great fortress. It was to be no ordinary castle; it was to be impregnable; and M. Dieulafoy suggests that Richard I. utilized his experience in the Crusades and built after the Syrian plan, Antioch and Tyre having been found exceedingly hard to capture. The oval inner bailey has the outer surface of its exceedingly lofty wall formed of nineteen semicircular buttresses, which touch one another, and are practically a continuous series of half-towers, leaving no flat surface anywhere. Inside this remarkable inner bailey stands the circular keep, whose walls are 27 feet thick, with an angular projection towards the gateway of the bailey. The outer courtyard was defended with five great circular towers. The weak point of the defence, however, was the high ground that overlooked the walls on the south-west side, and to make this impregnable an exceptionally strong outer castle, with three large towers and two small ones, was built, with a deep ditch separating it from the main works. All this and much more can be seen by anyone who cares to climb up and down the steep grassy banks that fall away from the walls. When the great pile was completed, Richard gazed on his ‘Dreadnought’ castle, with its frowning [Illustration: CHÂTEAU GAILLARD. The ruins of Richard Cœur de Lion’s great castle built above the Seine to defend the English frontier.] machicolations crowning the unassailable white walls, and exclaimed: ‘_Comme elle est belle, ma fillette d’un an!_’ Philippe Auguste, however, with justifiable indignation at the broken treaty, began hostilities, assuring Richard that he would take his saucy castle if it were made of iron, to which came the prompt reply, ‘I will hold it were it made of butter’; and Richard soon afterwards defeated the French army on the Plains of Gamaches. But in 1199 Richard died, and in his successor’s feeble hands Château Gaillard was soon in peril, for, in 1203, Philippe began a siege which lasted for five months.