The Saucy Castle itself still remained to be won.  Knowing, however, that for this nothing was likely to avail but a blockade, which was now practically formed on two sides by his occupation of the island fort and the Lesser Andely, Philip on the very next day set off to make another attempt on Radepont, whence he had been driven away by John a year before.  This time John made no effort to dislodge him.  It was not worth while; the one thing that mattered now was Chateau Gaillard.  Thither Philip, after receiving the surrender of Radepont, returned toward the end of September, 1203, to complete the blockade.

No second attempt to relieve it was possible.  It may have been for the purpose of endeavoring to collect fresh troops from the western districts, which were as yet untouched by the war, that John about this time visited his old county of Mortain, and even went as far as Dol, which his soldiers had taken in the previous year.  But his military resources in Normandy were exhausted; the Marshal bluntly advised him to give up the struggle.  “Sire,” said William, “you have not enough friends; if you provoke your enemies to fight, you will diminish your own force; and when a man provokes his enemies, it is but just if they make him rue it.”

“Whoso is afraid, let him flee!” answered John.  “I myself will not flee for a year; and if indeed it came to fleeing, I should not think of saving myself otherwise than you would, wheresoever you might be.”

“I know that well, sire,” replied William; “but you, who are wise and mighty and of high lineage, and whose work it is to govern us all, have not been careful to avoid irritating people.  If you had, it would have been better for us all.  Methinks I speak not without reason.”

The King, “as if a sword had struck him to the heart,” spoke not a word, but rushed to his chamber; next morning he was nowhere to be found; he had gone away in a boat, almost alone, and it was only at Bonneville that his followers rejoined him.  This was apparently at the beginning of October, 1203.  For two months more he lingered in the duchy, where his position was growing more hopeless day by day.  At the end of October, or early in November, he took the decisive step of dismantling Pont de l’Arche, Moulineaux, and Montfort, three castles which, next to Chateau Gaillard, would be of the greatest value to the French for an advance upon Rouen.  To Rouen itself he returned once more on November 9th, and stayed there four days.  On the 12th he set out for Bonneville, accompanied by the Queen, and telling his friends that he intended to go to England to seek counsel and aid from his barons and people there, and would soon return.  In reality his departure from the capital was caused by a rumor which had reached him of a conspiracy among the Norman barons to deliver him up to Philip Augustus.  At Bonneville, therefore, he lodged not in the town, but in the castle, and only for a few hours; the Marshal and one or two others