s descendants
justified whenever occasion offered:

_"Roi je ne suis,
Prince, ni Comte aussi,
Je suis le Sire de Coucy."_

We left Coucy rejoicing, happy and content, expecting to reach Laon
that night. We had double-starred Laon in our itinerary, because it
was one of those neglected tourist-points that we always made a point
of visiting when in the neighbourhood.

Laon possesses one of the most remarkable cathedrals of Northern
France, but its hotels are bad. We tried two and regretted we ever
came, except for the opportunity of marvelling at the commanding site
of the town and its cathedral. The long zigzag road winding up the
hill offers little inducement to one to run his automobile up to the
plateau upon which sits the town proper. It were wiser not to attempt
to negotiate it if there were any way to avoid it. We solved the
problem by putting up at a little hotel opposite the railway station
(its name is a blank, being utterly forgotten) where the
_commis-voyageur_ goes when he wants a meal while waiting for the
next train. He seems to like it, and you do certainly get a good
dinner, but, not being _commis-voyageurs_, merely automobilists, we
were charged three prices for everything, and accordingly every one
is advised to risk the dangerous and precipitous road to the upper
town rather than be blackmailed in this way.

Laon's cathedral, had it ever been carried out according to the
original plans, would have been the most stupendously imposing
ecclesiastical monument in Northern France. Possibly the task was too
great for accomplishment, for its stones and timbers were laboriously
carried up the same zigzag that one sees to-day, and it never grew
beyond its present half-finished condition. The year 1200 probably
saw its commencement, and it is as thoroughly representative of the
transition from Romanesque to Gothic as any other existing example of
church building.

On the great massive towers of Laon's cathedral is to be seen a most
curious and unchurchly symbolism in the shape of great stone effigies
of oxen, pointing north, east, south, and west. There is no religious
significance, we are told, but they are a tribute to the faithful
services of the oxen who drew the heavy loads of building material
from the plain to the hilltop.

We had taken a roundabout road to the north, via Laon, merely to see
the oxen of the cathedral and to get swindled for our lunch at that
unspeakable little hotel. The o