T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 236

French in design, and North French in execution. Richard undoubtedly devised it himself: all authorities agree upon that, and throughout it shows a unity of purpose that could only have been secured by a consummate master of war absolutely uncontrolled. Its plan (A) shows an outwork with round towers, of quite ordinary character, behind a deep rock-cut ditch; and the outwork is cut off from the castle itself by another ditch, less deep. The outer ward has round towers everywhere except at one angle, where attack was absolutely impossible: most of the rest is destroyed, so that no gate can be identified. Within the outer ward, in the manner of Hautefort is a deep moat, with the ribbed walls of the inner ward rising sharply up from its edge. These ribbed walls have never yet been found anywhere else on earth. Viollet le Duc describes them most effectively, but cannot find a parallel. Semi-circular buttresses are common enough, and one finds a suggestion of Richard's plan in St. Remi at Rheims or the Cathedral at Albi or in the now destroyed donjon at Conde sur Noirreau described by De Caumont. Probably Richard invented the idea: certainly no one copied it, so it cannot have met with approval. Inside all these walls is the donjon, a small round tower with a spur, and crowned with buttress machicoulis. It was entered on the first floor, but is too small to stand a siege (A). Richard of course made it (1) In Viollet le Duc's restoration the figure of a man climbing the stair is about 20 inches high.