Santo Domingo, with an
inscription reciting that he was there laid to rest, by his own request,
as a great sinner, upon whose ashes all who passed should tread.

Tortuous little streets lead through the town of Coucy into a great
green space which commands the castle. It is approached from the new and
rather pretentious lodge in which the keeper of the castle now resides,
through one of the finest and loftiest avenues in France. But the
tallest trees are dwarfed by the gigantic donjon tower. This rises to a
height still of at least 180 feet. It is 150 feet in circumference at
the base, and slopes very gradually to the summit. The hall on the
ground floor measures more than forty feet in diameter, the walls being
of enormous thickness. Over one of the doorways is a defaced bas-relief
representing a lion attacked and slain by Enguerrand I. de Coucy. The
chimney-place in the ground floor hall would make a very respectable
modern house, and there is a well within the hall said to be of unknown
depth. The donjon consists of three storeys above the ground floor, the
main hall on the first floor being particularly remarkable for its
height. The vaulted ceiling of this hall must have been very fine, and
throughout it is apparent that the builders of the Chateau de Coucy had
the comfort of the inmates and a certain stately elegance of effect much
more in mind than was common with the builders of castles in the
thirteenth century. The walls at the summit are more than nine feet
thick, and they were doubtless surmounted originally with a great
circular gallery of wood covered in with a roof. The Sires de Coucy,
like other crusaders, doubtless brought back all manner of rich carpets
and stuffs from the East, and with these and the wonderful carved chests
and massive woodwork of the time the Chateau de Coucy may well have been
a much more agreeable place of abode than, from our modern acquaintance
with their winding stone stairways and denuded walls, we are apt to
imagine these great feudal fortresses to have been.

The views from the summit now are simply superb. The vast forests over
which Enguerrand, the builder, gazed, seeking out the sites on which he
planted so many strongholds--(it is known that besides Coucy he erected
at least eight other castles, from Folembray to Saint-Lambert)--have
been replaced in great part by fertile fields and smiling towns. But the
land is still richly wooded. Far down, in a little wilderness bene