e
northern end of the city William thought it needful to strengthen his
greatest continental conquest by two distinct fortresses. Close by Saint
Julian's, just outside the eastern line of the Roman wall, and formed,
we may believe, out of its materials, rose the Castle, the _Regia
turris_. Some way to the north-east, at a greater distance from the
river, rose the fortress of _Mons Barbatus_ or _Mont Barbet_, this last
standing on higher ground than the city and the royal tower. But of the
royal tower itself, and of the fortress into which it grew in later
times, a few fragments only have escaped the politic destruction of the
days of Richelieu. Of Mont Barbet nothing is left but the _motte_ or
_agger_, dating doubtless from far earlier days, but which, as so often
happens, has outlived the buildings which were placed upon and around
it. One would have been well pleased to see the whole line of defence,
the double wall of the city, the double fortress of the Conqueror,
grouping, as they must have done, with the endless towers and spires of
the monastic and parochial churches of the city and its suburbs.

For, besides the great cathedral church within its walls, Le Mans was,
as it were, girded with great ecclesiastical buildings. Two noble
monastic churches, those of La Couture, on the south-eastern side of the
city, and of Le Pre, on the other side of the river, still remain; and
we have spoken of their architectural character in past years.[68] There
were also the Abbeys of Beaulieu, beyond the river, and of St. Vincent
opposite to it beyond Mont Barbet, of which the latter survives in the
shape of a _Renaissance_ rebuilding. And far away in a distant suburb to
the east is the hospital founded by the last native prince of Le Mans,
the great Henry, to whom his native city might seem as a central point
of his vast domain, insular and continental. In him the blood of all the
older rulers and enemies of Le Mans was joined together. The stock of
the old Counts and of the Norman conquerors, the blood of Helias and of
his Angevin representatives, all flowed together in the veins of the
King who was born within the walls of Le Mans, and who, if he did not
die within its walls, at least died of grief at seeing them in the hands
of his enemy.

[Illustration: Notre-Dame-du-Pre, Le Mans, N.E.]

But it is painful for one who remembers Le Mans only eight years back to
speak of what it is now. It is hard to believe that within that