secondary in the general aspect of the place, which gathers wholly round the parish church and the donjon. The western side of the hill, towards the forest which takes its name from Conches, shows nearly the same features as the eastern side on a smaller scale. It looks down on another plain girt in by hills; but on this side the slope of the hill of Conches itself is gentler, and the town is here defended by a wall. Altogether it was a formidable undertaking when the lord of the ancient city in the vale carried his arms against the fortress, the work of his brother, which had arisen within his own memory on the height overlooking his own river.
Siege of Conches.
Near kindred of the combatants.
Death of Richard of Montfort.
Count William thus began his winter siege of Conches;
but, as usual, we get no intelligible account of the siege
as a military operation. We are told nothing of the
Count's line of march, or by what means he sought to
bring the castle to submission. But, as usual too, we
have no lack of personal anecdotes, anecdotes some of
which remind us how near were the family ties between
the fierce nobles who tore one another in pieces.
We have already mentioned one nephew of the Count of
Evreux who came with him to the attack of Conches.
But William of Breteuil was nephew alike of both the
contending brothers. His mother Adeliza, daughter of
Roger of Toesny, wife of Earl William of Hereford before
he went to seek a loftier bride in Flanders,[1] was the
whole sister of Ralph of Conches and the half-sister of
Count William of Evreux.[2] Another nephew and follower
of Count William, Richard of Montfort, son of his
whole sister, was moreover a brother of the Penthesileia
of Conches.[3] The fate of these two kinsmen was different.
Richard, in warring against his sister's castle,
with some chance of meeting his sister personally in the
