French victory in the siege of Château Gaillard in 1204

This engraving, titled “French victory in the siege of Château Gaillard in 1204,” depicts the capture of Château Gaillard by the forces of Philip Augustus in 1204. The scene shows a violent assault at the foot of the walls, with combatants engaged in deadly hand-to-hand fighting while attackers force their way through the fortress defenses. The composition emphasizes the brutality of the siege and the decisive nature of the episode, which marked a major moment in the conquest of Normandy by the King of France against the Plantagenets. Created in the nineteenth century and published in Histoire de France en cent tableaux, this illustration belongs to the tradition of French historical imagery, which sought to give spectacular form to major military episodes of the national past.