his Countess might add to the other crimes with which she charged Ralph and Isabel a share in the crime of Conan, that of traitorous dealing with the invading enemy. The forces of Evreux and Breteuil were therefore arrayed to march together against the stronghold of the common kinsman and enemy at Conches.
Position of Evreux and Conches.
Position of Mediolanum or Evreux.
History of Evreux.
No contrast could well be greater than the contrast
between the spot from which Count William set
forth and the spot which he led his troops to attack.
Near as Conches and Evreux are, they are more
thoroughly cut off from one another than many spots
which are far more distant on the map. The forest of
Evreux parts the hills of Conches from the capital of
Count William's county. The small stream of the Iton
flows by the homes of both the rival heroines. But
at Conches it flows below the hill crowned by castle,
church, and abbey; at Evreux its swift stream had ages
before been taught to act as a fosse to the four walls of
a Roman chester. Low down in the valley, like our own
Bath, with the hills standing round about his city, the
Count of Evreux lived among the memorials of elder
days. The walls of Mediolanum, which can still be
traced through a large part of their circuit, fenced in to
the south the minster of Our Lady and the palace of the
Bishop, then still tenanted by the eloquent Gilbert.[1]
His home, like that of his metropolitan at Rouen,[2]
might seem to stand upon the Roman wall itself. At
the north-west corner, the wall fenced in the castle from
which Count William had driven out the Conqueror's
garrison, and where he, either then or at some later time,
overthrew the Conqueror's donjon.[3] The wall of Mediolanum,
like the wall of the Athenian akropolis, had
