A mass of inharmonious structures, it is dominated by a donjon. When the visitor has mounted the crumbling steps of this ancient donjon, he reaches a little plateau where, in the seventeenth century, Georges Philibert de Sequigny, Lord of the Glandier, Maisons-Neuves and other places, built the existing town in an abominably rococo style of architecture.
Some small houses on the side of the road leading to Corbeil, an inn, called the "Auberge du Donjon," which offered passing hospitality to waggoners; these were about all to represent civilisation in this out-of-the-way part of the country, but a few leagues from the capital.
Everything struck your eye at once: the carved gable, the pointed roof, the turrets suspended at the angles of the walls; the stone pyramids of the eleventh century, the slate obelisks of the fifteenth; the round, bare tower of the donjon keep; the square and fretted tower of the church; the great and the little, the massive and the aerial.
To the right of the Tournelles, that truss of enormous towers, black as ink, running into each other and tied, as it were, by a circular moat; that donjon keep, much more pierced with loopholes than with windows; that drawbridge, always raised; that portcullis, always lowered,--is the Bastille.
Finally, far away to the east, Vincennes, and its seven quadrangular towers to the south, Bicêtre and its pointed turrets; to the north, Saint-Denis and its spire; to the west, Saint Cloud and its donjon keep.
With the native sound judgment of the father of a heroine of romance, the von Berlichingen of that day shut his daughter up in his
donjon keep, or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place, and resolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband from among her rich and noble lovers.
As Fouquet was giving, or appearing to give, all his attention to the brilliant illuminations, the languishing music of the violins and hautboys, the sparkling sheaves of the artificial fires, which, inflaming the heavens with glowing reflections, marked behind the trees the dark profile of the
donjon of Vincennes; as, we say, the superintendent was smiling on the ladies and the poets the fete was every whit as gay as usual; and Vatel, whose restless, even jealous look, earnestly consulted the aspect of Fouquet, did not appear dissatisfied with the welcome given to the ordering of the evening's entertainment.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the
donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings.
It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a
donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of inferior height, which were encircled by an inner court-yard.
Fouquet, who is making himself quite giddy on his
donjons yonder, in waiting for us."
DSB OFFSHORE LTD, Arya Shipyards, Damen Shipyards Group,
Donjon Marine Co., Inc.
It is perhaps best known for the extraordinary Matsumoto Castle, one of five castles designated as National Treasures of Japan and with the oldest remaining castle tower (called a
donjon).
donjon - the main tower within the walls of a medieval castle or fortress