st the town, which
he expected would fall an easy prey. But it resisted an incessant
bombardment for three months, and did not finally surrender, till the
fortifications had sustained such essential injuries, that the repairing
of them by the besieged, at their own charge, was made one of the
leading articles of the capitulation. It was upon this occasion, that
the lofty circular tower, one of the principal objects in both these
plates, was added to the castle. Tradition ascribes its erection to the
celebrated English general, Talbot, then governor of the town; and, even
to the present day, it bears his name.[199]

The last siege of Falaise, that of December, 1589, was occasioned by the
devoted adherence of the inhabitants to the League, and their consequent
refusal to recognize Henry IV. as their sovereign, on account of his
attachment to the Protestant faith. In defence of their creed, they had
already sustained one siege in the month of July of the same year; and,
headed by the Count de Brissac, governor of the castle, had repulsed the
royal troops under the command of the Duke de Montpensier. But the new
sovereign was not a man to be trifled with; and when Brissac, upon being
summoned to surrender, replied, according to the words of De Thou,
"religione se prohiberi; sumpto quippe Dominici corporis sacramento,
fidem suis obligasse de deditione se prorsus non acturum;" the king is
reported, by the same noble historian, to have returned in answer, "se
menses ad totidem dies contracturum, intra quos illum, sed magno suo cum
damno, religione soluturus esset." The garrison, notwithstanding these
threats, did not relax in their opposition, and the town was finally
taken by assault, the frost enabling the assailants to cross the moat.
On this, the Count de Brissac retired to the castle, which he
surrendered about a month afterwards.

Falaise appears in the religious annals of Normandy, as the seat of an
abbey, founded in 1127, and first occupied by regular canons of the
order of St. Augustine, and placed under the invocation of St. Michael,
the Archangel; but shortly afterwards transferred to the
Praemonstratensian friars, and dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The
monastery is said to have taken its rise from an hospital, established
by a wealthy inhabitant, in consequence of a beggar having died of cold
and hunger in his barn. A bull from Pope Sextus IV. dated in 1475,
conferred upon the abbots the privilege of wearing t