Conflans, de Conde, de Comin, de Buzancy,
de Puysegur.

Two of the most important chateaux in this region in 1789 were those of
Pinon and of Anizy. The first still exists, and stands substantially as
it then stood, and is now admittedly the finest in the Laonnais. The
second was wrecked and demolished. It is perhaps worth while to tell
what befell Anizy, and how Pinon escaped.

Both Anizy and Pinon are of very ancient origin.

Anizy seems to have been a fortress of the Emperor Valentinian in the
fourth century, and it was pillaged by the Vandals in the fifth. On
December 26, 496, Clovis, in recognition of the baptism he had received
on the preceding day at the hands of St.-Remi in the cathedral church of
Reims, gave the lordships of Anizy, Coucy, and Leuilly to that prelate.
Two years afterwards St.-Remi, who had made Laon a bishopric, gave Anizy
to his nephew St.-Genebaud, the first bishop of Laon, to be held and the
revenues thereof to be applied by the bishops of Laon for ever to the
benefit of the poor of that diocese. He coupled the gift with a solemn
curse and anathema upon all who should ever disturb or misapply the
donation. From that time to 1789 Anizy was a lordship of the bishops of
Laon, who in time were made dukes and peers of France.

The annals of Laon attest the loyalty through long ages of the bishops
of Laon to the injunctions laid upon them by St.-Remi. The Normans came
to Anizy, for example, in 883, and pillaged and ruined the place. Four
years afterwards the bishop of Laon founded there a hospital, or
Hotel-Dieu, for the poor and infirm of the diocese, and the king,
Charles le Gros, endowed it handsomely. In 904 Jeanne, sister of Raoul,
bishop of Laon, with the help of her brother, founded at Anizy a priory
of Sisters to receive and care for the young girls of the place. In 996,
Adalberon, bishop of Laon, founded a maladrerie, or lepers' hospital, at
Anizy, to be 'a refuge and place of healing for the poor of Anizy,
Wissignicourt, and Pinon.'

As time went on and the feudal system became more fully developed, the
bishops of Laon found it judicious to establish one of those high feudal
personages known as Vidames, and the relations of the Vidames of Laon
with their episcopal superior, on the one hand, and with the people of
such lordships as Anizy on the other, become very interesting.

They are made more interesting still by the entrance upon the scene of
the kings of France, contending for a