Herod.”  Writers of this description are curious and amusing, let their theories but rest upon the basis of fair probability.  Even when we reject their reasonings, we are pleased with their ingenuity; and they serve, to borrow an expression from Horace, “the purpose of a whetstone.”  But M. Langevin has nothing farther to offer, than gratuitous assertion or vague conjecture; and yet, upon the faith of these, he insists upon our believing, that the foundation of Falaise took place very shortly after the deluge; that its name is derived from Fele, the cat of Diana, or from the less pure source of Phaloi-Isis; that the present site of the castle was that of a temple, dedicated to Belenus and Abraxas; and that every stone of remarkable form in the neighborhood, was either so shapened by the Druids, (notwithstanding it is the character of rocks, like those at Falaise, to assume fantastic figures,) or was at least appropriated by the Celtic priesthood to typify the sun, or moon, or stars.

Various tombs, stone-hatchets, &c., have been dug up at Tassilly, a village within six miles of Falaise, and fragments of mosaic pavements have been discovered in the immediate vicinity of the castle[95]; but history and tradition are alike silent as to the origin of these remains.—­The first historical mention of Falaise is in the year 1027; during the reign of the fifth Norman Duke, Richard IIIrd, at which period this town was one of the strong holds of the duchy, and afforded shelter to Robert, the father of the Conqueror, when he rebelled against his elder brother.  Falaise on that occasion sustained the first of the nine sieges, by which it has procured celebrity in history.—­Fourteen years only elapsed before it was exposed to a second, through the perfidy of Toustain de Goz, Count of Hiesmes, who had been intrusted with the charge of the castle, and who, upon finding that his own district was ravaged by the forces of the King of France, voluntarily offered to surrender to that monarch the fortress under his command, on condition that his territory, the Hiesmois, should be spared.  But Duke William succeeded in retaking the place of his birth before the traitor had an opportunity of introducing the troops of his new ally.—­In the years 1106 and 1139, Falaise opposed a successful resistance to the armies of Henry Ist, and of Geoffrey Plantagenet.  Upon the first of these occasions, the Count of Maine, the general of the English forces, retired with shame from before the walls; and Henry was foiled in all his attempts to gain possession of the castle, till the battle of Tinchbray had invested him with the ducal mantle, and had induced Robert himself to deliver up the fortress in person to his more fortunate brother.  On the second occasion, Robert Marmion, lord of the neighboring barony of Marmion le Fontenay, a name equally illustrious in Norman and in English story, held Falaise for Eustace of Boulogne, son to Stephen, and twice repelled the attacks of the husband