Its outworks and the walls which connected it with the town and stockade have for the most part gone, but time and the hand of man have done little to destroy the fortifications themselves--the fosse, hewn deep into the solid rock, with casemates hollowed out along its sides, the fluted walls of the citadel, the huge donjon looking down on the brown roofs and huddled gables of Les Andelys.

Even now in its ruin we can understand the triumphant outburst of its royal builder as he saw it rising against the sky: "How pretty a child is mine, this child of but one year old!" [Sidenote: Richard's death] The easy reduction of Normandy on the fall of Chateau Gaillard at a later time proved Richard's foresight; but foresight and sagacity were mingled in him with a brutal violence and a callous indifference to honour.

"I would take it, were its walls of iron," Philip exclaimed in wrath as he saw the fortress rise.

"I would hold it, were its walls of butter," was the defiant answer of his foe.

It was Church land and the Archbishop of Rouen laid Normandy under interdict at its seizure, but the king met the interdict with mockery, and intrigued with Rome till the censure was withdrawn.