Clearly the seigneurs did not have things all their own way in these good old times! For after several years of contention Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme came to terms with his burghers, and matters were put upon so friendly a footing that, in 1540, the bishop-duke began the erection at Anizy of a new château, to be surrounded with an extensive and beautiful park. The plans were made by the first architects and artists of the Renaissance; the sculptors of Francis I. were employed to decorate the façade with statues—the new buildings were connected with what remained of the earlier château by a grand gallery; pavilions flanked the main edifice and adorned the grand cour d'honneur. King Francis, during his stay at Folembray, frequently visited his cousin the Bishop-duke in this château, one of the great chambers of which was long known as the room of King Francis. When Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme died in 1557, the château was not entirely finished, and a lawsuit followed his death, between his personal heirs and the bishop-dukes for the possession of the buildings. It lasted for nearly a century, and when the prelates at last were declared to be the owners, in 1645, the stately edifice had fallen into a sad state of dilapidation. The Cardinal d'Estrées restored the façade in 1660, but one of his successors actually unroofed it and sold the lead. In 1750, a bishop-duke of quite another type, the Cardinal de Rochechouart, spent great sums of money upon it, restored it, and decorated it throughout, and made it one of the noblest residences in this part of France. At the same time he put in order all the public buildings of Anizy, and had the roads carefully paved throughout the borough. He was followed by a prelate of a like mind, Louis de Sabran, the last bishop-duke of Laon, who is still remembered in his episcopal city for his public spirit and his benevolence, and who made the park of Anizy his special care.
Then came the Revolution.
In 1790, the local 'directory' of the district of Chauny laid violent hands upon the château. It was in great part demolished, and what was left of it defaced. It was robbed of its precious furniture, pictures, and ornaments, its valuable chimney-pieces, its elaborate iron and brass work. The old trees were cut down in the park, and the railings destroyed. The fine old church of Ste.-Geneviève at the same time was first turned into a hall of meeting for the electors, who distrusted each other so profoundly that when their first meeting was held, May 3, 1790, the documents relating to the elections were locked up in a confessional, lest they should be stolen, and then deliberately wrecked and looted by the 'friends of Liberty,' or, in other words, by a squad of ruffians from Chauny and the neighbourhood, who, after putting on the sacerdotal vestments, marched about the church carrying the daïs, beat the crosses and the carved stalls to pieces, smashed and defaced the monuments and the altars, broke open the poor-box, and carried off all that was worth stealing. The stone slabs from the graves were sold, a saltpetre factory was established in the church, the presbytery was made a town-hall, and the 'worship of Reason,' in the person of a young woman of Chauny, was solemnly inaugurated at Anizy! The château and the park were sold by the self-constituted dictators of Anizy to one M. Orry de Sainte-Marie on August 7, 1792, for a nominal price. This M. Orry seems to have been an 'operator.' For in June, 1793, he sold the château to the 'ci-devant Vicomtesse de Courval,' the mother of the then owner of the Château of Pinon, about which I shall presently have something to say, and bought it back from her again in March 1795, leaving her the right to enjoy it until her death, which took place in 1806. All this curiously illustrates the perils and uncertainties of land-ownership in such times! In 1808, Orry de Sainte-Marie, having by that time become a justice of the peace at Anizy, and doubtless a fervent Imperialist, sold the château to M. Collet, Director of the Mint at Paris. From him it passed by sale, in 1824, to M. Senneville, and in 1841 to M. Lafont de Launoy.
Let us turn now to Pinon, two kilomètres to the south of Anizy, long one of the chief seats of the power of the famous Sires de Coucy, one of whom seems to have been the real author of the arrogant motto since, in one or another form, attributed to more than one great family in France:
Roi ne suis
Ne prince, ne comte aussy:
Je suis le Sire de Coucy.
The Château of Pinon was originally built by Enguerrand II. of Coucy in the twelfth century. His grandfather Enguerrand I. had been invited by the Archbishop of Reims to establish himself at Pinon, which was a part of the splendid Christmas gift made by Clovis to the see of Reims, as I have already stated, after his baptism at Reims; and Enguerrand II., who appears to have been a typical baron, finding the place favourable for the feudal industry of levying toll on trade and commerce, there erected a great castle, one of the many legendary castles to be found all over Europe which boasted a window for every day in the year. He thought fit, however, to select for this castle a site which belonged to the Abbey of St.-Crispin the Great at Soissons, and thus got himself into trouble with the Church. Strong as he was, he found the Church too strong for him. The Bishop of Soissons compelled him to agree to pay an annual and perpetual rent to the Abbey, and made him also take the cross and go to the Holy Land to expiate his sacrilege. There he fell in battle. The grandson of this baron, Robert de Coucy, in 1213 granted the people of Pinon 'a right of assize according to the use and custom of Laon,' and the next year founded there a hospital. Twenty years afterwards Pinon became a commune, and John de Coucy granted the inhabitants a free market. The Château of Pinon passed in the 14th century to the elder branch of the great house of de Coucy, and in 1400 it was sold, under duress to Louis of France (Duc d'Orléans) by the last heiress of the house Marie de Coucy, daughter of Enguerrand VII. by his first wife Isabel, Princess Royal of England, and eldest daughter of Edward III. by Philippa of Hainault.
A hundred years afterwards Louis XII. had taken possession of the estates and the château, and made a gift of these to his daughter Claude de France. In spite of this, however, the property passed into the hands of the ancient family of De Lameth, and towards the end of the seventeenth century the Château de Pinon witnessed one of the most romantic and abominable murders recorded in the annals of French gallantry.
As Pinon is still, after all the chances and changes of seven hundred years, the finest inhabited château in the Soissonnais, and as, by a curious throw of the dice of Destiny, it now belongs to a fair compatriot of mine, perhaps I may be allowed to tell this somewhat gruesome tale, which has a flavour rather Italian than French.
Charles Marquis d'Albret, the last of that illustrious race, Prince de Mortagne and Comte de Massant, was the nephew of the Maréchal d'Albret, and he came therefore, on the mother's side, of the royal blood of Henry of Navarre.
He loved, not wisely but too well, Henriette de Roucy, Comtesse de Lameth, called 'la belle Picarde,' whose husband was seigneur of the Château de Pinon. In August 1678, the Marquis d'Albret was at the Château de Coucy with the army of Flanders, then commanded by the Marshal-Duke of Schomberg, who afterwards fell fighting for King William III. in Ireland at the battle of the Boyne.