[Original]
Perhaps the greatest, or at any rate the most indefensible piece of vandalism perpetrated by the retiring armies of the invader, was the total annihilation of the great castle of Coucy-le-Château in March of this year. Coucy castle, legend says, was built upon the site given to St. Remi by Clovis, in the fulfillment of a condition that the former should walk around it while the King enjoyed his noonday siesta. Afterwards it was part of the property of the Chapter of Rheims for upwards of two hundred years. In the year nine hundred and twenty-nine King Charles the Simple was imprisoned in its donjon by Herbert, Count of Vermandois. Enguerrand I, founder of the house of Coucy, received the castle in fief from the Archbishop of Rheims, and from it departed with his knights in quest of the Holy Grail and was distinguished in the Crusades. His descendant, Enguerrand III, who was surnamed the Great, rebuilt the castle, and when he flouted the authority of the Chapter of Rheims, and they laid the matter before the king, he answered with the words: "Je ne puis faire autre chose pour vous que de priere le Sire de Coucy de ne point vous inquiéter." In the subsequent quarrel with the Chapter of Lâon, Enguer-rand at the head of his cohort stormed the Cathedral and carried off the dean a prisoner to Coucy, where he languished at the pleasure of the fiery knight.
The laws he promulgated and forced upon the barony were called "Le Coutume de Coucy."
The battle of Bouvignes, in which he performed many acts of prowess and valor, and also his successes during the Albigensian war of 1209 added to his great fame as a warrior and caused the league of nobles to propose the dethronement of Louis IX, then a child, whose crown they offered to Enguerrand.
So proud were his descendants that they abandoned their other titles and called themselves simple "de Coucy" and adopted the motto "Roi ne suys—ne prince, ne duc, ne compte aussi—je suys le Sire de Coucy."
Descendants sold the Château, as it was called, and Jie Seigneurie de Coucy to Louis d'Orléans in 1400, who made it a duchy, and so amplified and decorated it that it became noteworthy throughout the realm. In 1411 it was besieged and captured by the royal army, and retained until 1419, when it was taken by the troops of the Duke of Orleans. In 1423 it was captured by the English, and again in 1652 by the royal army and dismantled by order of Mazarin. At the outbreak it was an "historical monument" kept up by the state as a museum.
Coucy-le-Chateau was one of the greatest and most splendid relics of the thirteenth century. Nothing remains of it now. It has been utterly blasted away from the foundations. On the heights is only a series of great piles of crumpled masonry and pulverized rock. The oldest, the strongest, the largest and most historic of the castles of Europe is now only a memory.
So enraged were the French at this piece of wanton destruction, that they refused to bombard the ruins, even though they knew that the invader had intrenched machine gunners behind and beneath it.
Instead the infantry, unsupported by artillery, charged across a plain swept by gun fire and wrested the sacred ruin from the enemy.
So terrific was the assault that the Germans could make no counter attack.