| 31.
FRENCH CASTLES
Photographs by T. E. Lawrence (1907-8)
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(i) Fougères
(August 1907) 
When Lawrence first visited Fougères
in 1906 he made a plan, but he had no camera. Afterwards he wrote home: 'Inside the castle
is all destroyed; it is nothing but a shell, though a glorious one. NO finer exterior
exists I am certain . . . I shall certainly return there next year for another
examination, and I shall bring a camera with me: Father’s one if possible: it is a
paradise for a photographer.' 1 He went back, therefore, to take photographs in
1907.
1. T. E. Lawrence to his mother, 24.8.1906, HL p.29
Literature: Crusader Castles II, ill. fp. 23 |
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(ii) Mont St Michel, the cloisters (August
1907)
Lawrence visited Mont St Michel in 1906, 1907 and 1908. His first
impressions were mixed: 'The insides of the building son the Mont are lovely; the outside
is decidedly badly proportioned, with its dumpy spire, and flat masses of unrelieved
masonry. I was horrified with the exterior.' 1 In August 1907 he brought a
camera to photograph architectural details, and the following summer he visited again,
with his brother Will.
1. T. E. Lawrence to his father, 20.8.1906, HL p. 23.
Literature: Crusader Castles II, ill. between pp.40-41. |
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 (iii) The Tour Cesar, Provins (July 1908)
Lawrence visited Provins during his 1908 tour, and wrote
that he found there 'a most puzzling xii [century] keep, and the remains of town walls. I
was in and around them for hours, and came to the conclusion that the architect was making
experiments when he built them . . . the keep would have been almost incapable of defence,
and yet in spirit it is half a century ahead of its time. It ranks with Chateau Gaillard
in importance for my thesis.' 1
1. T. E. Lawrence to his mother, 23.7.1908, HL p.61.
Literature: Crusader Castles II, ill. between pp. 48-9.
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 (iv) Crussol (July 1908)
Lawrence visited Crussol on the way south,
describing it in a letter home as 'a fine xii c. castle on a 500 feet precipice over the
Rhone'. 1 He told her that he had spent the night there, but omitted to mention
that it was a roofless ruin.
1. T. E. Lawrence to his mother, 2.8.1908, HL p.64.
Literature: Crusader Castles, passim.
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(v) Hautefort (August 1908)
Hautefort, the castle of Bertrand de Born, was visited on Lawrence's return journey
from the south of France. He wrote to C. F. C. Beeson that the castle had been 'burnt, so
the butler assured me, by the English under Chas I. and only rebuilt in the xvii cent:
quite so: the gateway is supposed to be B. de Bornish, but that's all rot: at least if so
he was an astonishing anachronism. It may be xiv cent.' 1
1. T. E. Lawrence to C. F. C. Beeson, 16.8.1908, DG p.61.
Literature: HL, ill. fp. 176 |
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| Liddell Hart
Centre for Military Archives, King’s College London.
Provenance: given by A. W. Lawrence to B. H. Liddell Hart, 1938 |
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