an emperor of the lower empire; another, is a damsel attired in a ruff; a third, is a turbaned turk.  The borders of the medallions are equally diversified:  the cordeliere, well known in French heraldry, the vine-leaf, the oak-leaf, all appear as ornaments.  The battlements are surmounted with two statues, apparently Neptune, or a sea-god, and Hercules.  These heathen deities not being very familiar to the good people of Caen, they have converted them, in imagination, into two gens-d’armes, mounting guard on the castle; and hence it is frequently called the Chateau de la Gendarmerie.  Some of the busts are accompanied by inscriptions—­“Vincit pudicitiam mors;” “Vincit amor pudicitiam;” “Amor vincit mortem;” and all seem to be either historical or allegorical.  The battlements of the curtain-wall are ornamented in the same manner.  The farther tower has less decoration, and is verging to decay.  I have given these details, because the castle of Calix is a specimen of a style of which we have no fair parallel in England, and the workmanship is far from being contemptible.

[Illustration:  Tower in the Chateau de Calix, at Caen]

In the Rue St. Jean is a house with decorations, in the same style, but more sumptuous, or, perhaps I ought rather to say, more perfect.  Both of them are most probably of nearly the same date:  for it was principally during the reigns of Charles VIIIth and Louis XIIth, that the practice prevailed in France, of ornamenting the fronts of houses with medallions.  The custom died away under Francis Ist.

I must now return to more genuine fortifications.—­When the walls of Caen were perfect, they afforded an agreeable and convenient promenade completely round the town, their width being so great, that three persons might with ease walk abreast upon them.  De Bourgueville tells us that, in his time, they were as much frequented as the streets; and he expatiates with great pleasure upon the gay and busy prospect which they commanded,

The castle at Caen, degraded as it is in its character by modern innovation, is more deserving of notice as an historical, than as an architectural, relic.  It still claims to be ranked as a place of defence, though it retains but few of its original features.  The spacious, lofty, circular towers, known by the names of the black, the white, the red, and the grey horse, which flanked its ramparts, have been brought down to the level of the platform.  The dungeon tower is destroyed.  All the grandeur of the Norman castle is lost; though the width of its ditches, and the thickness of its walls, still testify its ancient strength.  I doubt whether any castle in France covers an equal extent of ground.  Monstrelet and other writers have observed, that this single fortress exceeded in size the towns of Corbeil or of Montferrand; and, indeed, there are reasons for supposing that Caen, when first founded, only occupied the site of the present castle; and that, when it became advisable to convert the old town into a fortress, the inhabitants migrated into the valley below.  Six thousand infantry could be drawn up in battle-array within the outer ballium; and so great was the number of houses and of inhabitants enclosed within its area, that it was thought expedient to build in it a parochial church, dedicated to St. George, besides two chapels.