Château de Coucy

Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique

Rebuilt around 1225-1240 by Enguerrand III, the castle of Coucy possessed the mightiest keep in Europe: 54 metres high, 31 metres in diameter, with walls 7.50 metres thick at the base. Viollet-le-Duc, who worked there, wrote that "beside this giant, the largest towers known, whether in France, in Italy or in Germany, are mere spindles". From it the house of Coucy drew a proud motto that remains famous: "I am neither king, nor prince, nor duke, nor count either; I am the lord of Coucy." The keep, ruined in the early 20th century, is today no more than a disembowelled colossus. To this history clings the darkest of French courtly legends, that of the Châtelain de Coucy and the Dame de Fayel, turned into a romance around 1300 by Jakemés: the lord, dying on crusade, has his heart carried to the lady he loves, and her jealous husband has it served to her at table. The tale belongs to the international folk type known as the "eaten heart", but here it became attached to real places and real families of the Vermandois of the late 12th century, between Coucy (Aisne) and Le Fayel (Oise). It is this grafting of a universal motif onto a very real fortress that gives the site its romantic charge, and the present ruin, with its underground passages and its collapsed sections of towers, sustains it effortlessly.

Domaine national du château de Coucy (Centre des monuments nationaux) ↗

Getting there : Rue du Château, 02380 Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique, 30 km north-east of Soissons (N31 then D1 and D5). Free parking. Site managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux: open 10 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 5.30 pm (6.30 pm in summer), closed on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December; €7 full price, free for under-18s. Expect around forty steps.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound