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While one corps captured Odiham, Farnham, Chichester, and other southern strongholds, Falkes de Bréauté overran the Isle of Ely, and Randolph of Chester besieged the Leicestershire fortress of Mount Sorrel. Enguerrand de Coucy, whom Louis had left in command, remained helpless in London. His boldest act was to send a force to Lincoln, which occupied the town, but failed to take the castle.

I inscribed a name that lacks arrogance, and brings honor to our people: The Deeds of God through the Franks. Here ends the preface to the history which is called the Deeds of God through the Franks, written by the reverend Dom Guibert, abbot of the monastery of Saint Mary at Nogent, which is located near Coucy, in the district of Laon.

He is capable of murdering you in some corner of his park, and of burying you at the foot of some tree and then of forcing Madame de Bergenheim to eat your heart fricasseed in champagne, as they say Raoul de Coucy did." "You will admit, at least, that it would be a very charming repast, and that there would be nothing bourgeois about it."

The burghers of Laon themselves, "having reflected upon the number and enormity of the crimes they had committed, shrank up with fear," says Guibert, "and dreaded the judgment of the king." To protect themselves against the consequences of his resentment, they added a fresh wound to the old by summoning to their aid Thomas de Marle, son of Lord Enguerrand de Coucy.

On this occasion he took Lieutenant Colcomb as observer: "At Coucy, terribly accurate cannonade: toc, toc, two projectiles in the right wing, one within a meter of me; we went on with our observations in the same place. Suddenly a formidable crash: a shell burst 8 to 10 meters under the machine. Result: three holes, one strut and one spar spoiled.

They make a strange feature in the landscape; above all when they are startled, and you see them galloping to and fro with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives a feeling as of great, unfenced pampas, and the herds of wandering nations. There were hills in the distance upon either hand; and on one side, the river sometimes bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain.

Nor is the castle as distinguished from the donjon, completely demolished; there is a considerable fragment standing very near. The donjon, called locally Tourgrise from the colour of its stone, is a round tower, not quite a rival of Coucy, but tall enough and big enough to have a very striking effect. It has been lately restored or set up again in some way, perhaps cleared out and roofed in.

He would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his patrol of the region beyond Compiègne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and Tracy-le-Val.

The Sacristan took us to the top of one of the towers, and showed us the five bells hanging in their loft. From above, the town was a tessellated pavement of roofs and gardens; the old line of rampart was plainly traceable; and the Sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, in a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers of Château Coucy. I find I never weary of great churches.

The countess had heard of his pilgrimage, and had hastened to greet him, only to be permitted to clasp his hand and to hear him gasp, with his last breath: "Having seen thee, I die satisfied." There is a distressing ambiguity about the troubadour's last words. And so there was the other troubadour, the Châtelain Regnault de Coucy.