Château Gaillard had been on our list of places we definitely wanted to see almost from the moment we began plotting our rather vague route through France.
I love this period of history, from the Plantagenets and the powerful women around them right through to the Tudors, while for John the attraction was perhaps more straightforward. This was Richard the Lionheart’s castle, and Richard is one of those names that almost everyone knows.
We had also seen some fabulous photographs of Château Gaillard before the trip, so expectations were fairly high.
Strangely, the castle didn’t really reveal itself as we approached. We drove along fairly small roads, catching only the occasional glimpse through the countryside. It wasn’t until we parked the van and got out that we looked across and saw it properly for the first time.
And it was stunning.
Château Gaillard, Richard the Lionheart’s fortress high above Les Andelys.
The ruins of Château Gaillard sit high above Les Andelys, surrounded by rolling countryside, with the River Seine sweeping around far below.
The view in the other direction was pretty spectacular too, looking down over Petit-Andely towards the Seine.
Looking down over Petit-Andely and the River Seine from the car park.
Standing there, it isn’t difficult to understand why Richard chose this spot.
Richard I was not only King of England but Duke of Normandy, and by the 1190s his lands were under increasing threat from the French king, Philip Augustus. The Seine was a vital route towards Rouen, the Norman capital, and Richard needed something formidable to protect it.
There was, however, a slight problem.
Under the Treaty of Gaillon in 1196, Les Andelys was specifically not supposed to be fortified. Richard chose to build here anyway.
Work began in 1196 and Château Gaillard was completed remarkably quickly, by 1198. The French Ministry of Culture describes it as a masterpiece of medieval military architecture and suggests Richard himself probably took an active part in its design.
Looking at what remains more than 800 years later, you can still appreciate just how substantial it must have been.
The surviving defences of Château Gaillard, built in the late 12th century.
The castle consisted of a series of defensive enclosures rather than a single wall surrounding a keep. An attacker who managed to penetrate one section simply found himself faced with another.
The surviving masonry is fascinating in its own right. Much of what we could see was a mixture of limestone, flint and dressed stone, something particularly noticeable when you get close to the walls.
The formidable stonework that still survives more than 800 years later, and a glimpse through the thick medieval walls of Château Gaillard.
We spent quite a while wandering around the ruins and reading the information boards dotted around the site. I still find it slightly strange calling places like this a château. To me, once it has defensive walls, a keep and looks like this, it is definitely a castle!
We visited on a Monday, which unfortunately meant that the Haute Cour, the inner or upper court containing the keep, was closed. The lower court and advanced defences can be visited freely throughout the year, but the Haute Cour is normally open from Wednesday to Sunday during the visitor season.
It was a shame not to be able to go inside that part, but there was still plenty to explore, and the views alone were worth the visit.
The sweeping River Seine below Château Gaillard, showing why this was such an important strategic position.
Of all the history we read that day, one story stayed with me more than any other.
Richard did not have long to enjoy the fortress he had created. He died in 1199, only a year after its completion, and Château Gaillard eventually passed to his brother, King John.
In 1203, Philip Augustus began his siege of the castle.
People from Petit-Andely had sought refuge behind its formidable defences as the French army approached. But as the siege dragged on, the castle garrison had another problem: every person sheltering inside needed to be fed.
The civilians were expelled.
The French army initially allowed some through its lines but then prevented others from leaving. When those remaining tried to return to the castle, the defenders would not let them back inside.
They were trapped between the two sides, exposed to the winter weather without adequate food or shelter.
The episode became known as Les Bouches Inutiles, the “useless mouths”. Contemporary accounts describe hundreds of people trapped between the castle and the French siege lines, with many dying from hunger and cold before the survivors were eventually allowed through.
It is a horrible phrase, but perhaps that is why the story stayed with me. Looking at ruined walls and reading about kings and battles is one thing. Imagining ordinary families trapped outside those walls makes the history suddenly very human.
Les Bouches Inutiles by Francis Tattegrain, 1886, depicting the civilians trapped outside Château Gaillard during the siege. Musée Lombart, Doullens. Public domain.
The terrible scene was later captured by French artist Francis Tattegrain. His 1886 painting Les Bouches Inutiles shows the civilians trapped beneath the walls of Château Gaillard, with the castle looming above them.
Tattegrain returned to the subject ten years later, producing an enormous version of Les Bouches Inutiles in 1896, measuring more than seven metres across. Today that later painting is displayed at the Hôtel de Ville in Les Andelys.
Despite Richard’s confidence in his great fortress, Château Gaillard eventually fell to Philip Augustus on 6 March 1204. Its loss helped open the way for the French conquest of mainland Normandy that same year.
That wasn’t the end of Château Gaillard. Over the following centuries it was occupied by both English and French forces, used as a royal residence and a prison, and became involved again during the Hundred Years’ War.
By the end of the 16th century its military usefulness had largely disappeared. Demolition was ordered during the reign of Henri IV, and from the early 1600s its stone was quarried for other buildings in the area.
Today, what remains is protected as a historic monument, its ruins still dominating the landscape above Les Andelys.
Château Gaillard didn’t quite give me that feeling I sometimes get at historic places, of standing in the footsteps of the people who had been there centuries before.
But I am very glad we went.
The castle itself is spectacular, the setting is breathtaking and, as we drove away, Richard the Lionheart and the people caught up in the siege felt a little less like names and dates in a history book.
And, although we didn’t know it yet, the following day another piece of this period of history was waiting for us in Beaugency, where I was about to come across a connection with Richard’s formidable mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Linda
