It was held successively, after its builder's time, by the Conqueror, Stephen, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Coeur de Lion, Philippe-Auguste, and Jean-Sans-Terre. Finally it reverted to the French Crown. Louis XIV. visited the château of Arques in 1648; but the Bernardine monks took from it in the seventeenth century much material for the construction of their convent, at which time it became practically a vast quarry of stone. In 1793 the ruins were sold for 8,300 livres; but in 1869 it again became the property of the state, and a guardian was installed to prevent further ravage.
The sixteenth-century church of Arques-la-Bataille is an elaborate building, far more grand than one usually expects to find in a town of eleven hundred inhabitants; but, after all, the town's chief attraction is the great rectangular donjon, practically all that remains of the old château.
The manor-house of Ango, also near Dieppe, is one of those reminders of the olden time which has reached us quite unspoiled. It was built by a celebrated ship-owner of Dieppe (1530-45), and is a great country-house surrounding a rectangular courtyard, to which one penetrates by two opposing entrances.
The very beautiful pigeon-house is quite the most elaborate of its kind anywhere to be seen.
Near Dieppe, also, is Puys, a sort of suburban watering-place for Dieppe itself. It owes its popular existence to Dumas _fils_, who made his residence there in summer. It was here that the elder romancer died in 1870; for which reason Puys may be said to be a true literary shrine.
"Monte Cristo" has something to say of the charms of Normandy. Addressing his companion, Bertuccio, Dantes says:
"I am desirous of having an estate by the seaside in Normandy, for instance, between Havre and Boulogne. You see I give you a wide range. It will be absolutely necessary that the place you select shall have a small harbour, creek, or bay, into which my vessel can enter and remain at anchor."
Possibly Dumas may have had in mind the little Norman village of Puys, where he died, when he wrote the above lines; though more probably not, as the "Count of Monte Cristo" was written at an early period of his life, while he died only in 1870.
Eastward toward the boundary of Normandy and Picardy, one passes Varengeville-sur-Mer, Sainte Marguerite and Quiberville, all delightful little seaside towns with a touch of the _beau-monde_ in summer, and a dull, quiet, but none the less entrancing, life in winter, when the natives gossip about their last season's visitors, and speculate as to what the harvest may be the coming year, meantime catching a few fish and going weekly to the nearest market-town.