CHAULNES. THE CHÂTEAU.
Chaulnes was razed to the ground. The low brick-and-rubble houses which lined the wide straight streets sheltered a population of about 1,250 inhabitants. Very few of them escaped total destruction.
Return along the same road by which Chaulnes was entered and follow it to the junction of G.C. 143 with G.C. 206, at the exit of the town. The ruins of the château are seen on the left, near the fork.
This sumptuous château was built in the seventeenth century by the de Luynes family, for whose benefit Chaulnes was raised to the rank of a duchy-peerage in 1621. Madame de Sévigné stayed there in 1689, and extolled its magnificence and grandeur. It was surrounded by a vast park, which she compared to that of Versailles.
CHAULNES. THE CHÂTEAU PARK.
In the foreground: Fragment of the entrance gate between the graves of two German officers.
The outbuildings were still standing when the late war broke out; to-day they form a shapeless accumulation of débris. The park was entirely cut up with German entrenchments, of which only a few concrete machine-gun posts and underground shelters with concrete entrances remain. The fine old trees of the park were reduced by the shells to mutilated stumps.
Near the entrance-gate of the château is a powerful system of defence-works, consisting of a machine-gun blockhouse and inter-communicating underground shelters, the entrances to which may be seen near the side of the road.