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The Château de Coucy is a French castle in the commune of Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique, in Picardy, built in the 13th century and renovated by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century. In April 1917, the German army dynamited the keep and the four towers using 28 tons of explosives to prevent their use by enemy artillery spotters as the Germans fell back in the region. During its heyday, it was famous for the size of its central tower and the pride of its lords, who adopted the staunchly independent rhyme: ''roi ne suis, ne prince ne duc ne comte aussi; Je suis le sire de Coucy'' ("I am not king, nor prince nor duke nor count; I am the Lord of Coucy"). The castle was constructed in the 1220s by Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy. The castle proper occupies the tip of a bluff or ''falaise''. It forms an irregular trapezoid of 92 x 35 x 50 x 80 m. At the four corners are cylindrical towers 20 m in diameter (originally 40 m in height). Between two towers on the line of approach was the massive ''donjon'' (keep). The donjon was the largest in Europe, measuring 35 meters wide and 55 meters tall. The smaller towers surrounding the court were as big as the donjons being built at that time by the French monarchy. The rest of the bluff is covered by the lower court of the castle, and the small town.〔Charles-Laurent Salch, ''Dictionnaire des châteaux et des fortifications du moyen-âge en France ''. Publisher: Editions Publitotal, Strasbourg (France); 1979.〕 Coucy was occupied in September 1914 by German troops during World War I. It became a military outpost and was frequented by German dignitaries, including Emperor William himself. In March 1917 the retreating German army on the order given by general Erich Ludendorff destroyed the keep and the 4 towers. It is not known whether this act had some military purpose or was merely an act of wanton destruction. The destruction caused so much public outrage that in April 1917 the ruins were declared "a memorial to barbarity". War reparations were used to clear the towers and to consolidate the walls but the ruins of the keep were left in place.〔(the coucy castle )〕 One of its lords, Enguerrand VII (1340–1397) is the subject of historian Barbara Tuchman's study of the fourteenth century, ''A Distant Mirror''. It also features extensively in British author Anthony Price's 1982 crime/espionage novel ''The Old Vengeful''. Château de Coucy has been listed as a ''monument historique'' by the French Ministry of Culture since 1862, and is managed by the ''Centre des monuments nationaux''. == Pictures == Image:Photo Château-de-Coucy rempart 01.jpg|Rampart of the ''basse-cour'' Image:Dessin Château-de-Coucy Rempart 011.jpg|Château of Coucy, watercolor, ca 1820 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) Image:De Coucy Château 1.gif|Etching by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Image:De Coucy Château 2.gif|The ''basse-cour'' and the donjon by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Image:Coucy château (chèvres) 5.jpg|Collapsed tower on the west part of the ''basse-cour'' Image:Tour.nord.ouest.Coucy.png|North-west tower of the castle by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Image:Coupe.donjon.Coucy.3.png|Inside of the donjon, by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Image:Château de Coucy - Salle des Preuses.JPG|The ruins of the Great Hall in the Château de Coucy 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Château de Coucy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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