with almost everything else of any importance in Anizy, was
destroyed by the English of Edward III., in the next century, one of the
local seigneurs, the lord of Locq (where a chateau still represents the
extinct lordship) and the cure of the church of St.-Peter falling
valiantly in the defence of their people. The bishop-duke came over to
help them from Laon, and died in his chateau at Anizy the next year.

In 1352, another bishop-duke founded a free market at Anizy for three
days in each year, at the feast of St.-George, and in 1408 his successor
built a grain-hall there. In 1513 Louis XII. granted the burghers a free
market every Monday. This so incensed the then bishop-duke, Louis de
Bourbon-Vendome, that he tried to suppress the annual market and take
back the grain-hall, in return for which attempts the worthy burghers
pillaged his chateau at Anizy and pulled it nearly to pieces.

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-Vendome 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 chateau, 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 facade with statues--the new buildings were connected with
what remained of the earlier chateau 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 chateau, one of the great chambers of which was long
known as the room of King Francis. When Louis de Bourbon-Vendome died
in 1557, the chateau 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'Estrees restored the facade 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 p