C'est la Guerre - Parade Ground - Francois de Fargniers

[Seigneury of Trie
Bertrand du Guesclin
Francois de Fargniers
Enguerrand de Coucy]

The central battle draws from holdings around Paris, a region known as the Île-de-France.

The town and Seigneury of Trie is about twenty-five miles northwest of Paris. I believe the titleholder in 1358 was probably one Renaud de Trie, although my source is lacking in dates around that time. He was related to the count of Dammartin. (Third cousins once removed.)

Bertrand du Guesclin was one of the most famous French personages during the Hundred Year’s War. Apparently this Breton was none to handsome, for ‘there was none so ugly from Rennes to Dinant’ according to a panegyric(!) by Cuvelier. Benefitting from the state of local politics in Brittany, he learned the art of ambush and guerilla warfare. Compared to the standard French battle tactics as practised at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, it is easy to see why these skills proved so valuable. His first major triumph concerned the defense (or capture?) of Rennes in 1356, after which he entered the service of Charles V. He eventually was made supreme commander of the French army in 1370, and died in 1380. His leadership was in large measure why the French crown’s possessions grew during the reign of Charles V.

François de Fargniers is one of my multiple personalities, in this guise as the fictional leader of the French army. Why such a humble figure was bestowed with such an august position is explained in Chapter 2 - Paris in the Chronicles of Pepin le Bref. Fargniers, where my mother was born, is a village in France. It is now part of the greater township of Tergniers, itself located sixty-five miles northeast of Paris. Just down the road is the village of La Fere where some short little officer passed through the artillery school there sometime before starting the eponymous Napoleonic wars. The history of Fargniers is supposted to go back to around the turn of the millenium. (As in 1000 A.D., not that other johnny-come-lately turn of the millenium.) It’s name could possibley mean “burning farm”, from which I devised his heraldic device. In A Distant Mirror, La Fere is listed as being in the Coucy domain, so I suspect that Fargniers was as well.

The castle of Coucy (Coucy-le-Chateau) lies fifty miles northeast of Paris. Enguerrand VII de Coucy turns out to be the featured figure in Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. I still get a kick from reading her description of the family’s pride: Holding one of the four great baronies of France, they scorned territorial titles and adopted their motto of simple arrogance: "Not king nor prince, Duke nor count am I; I am the lord of Coucy." Coucy-le-Chateau was one of the pre-eminent castles of France. The 13th century donjon was 180 feet high and was designed to surpass the royal tower of the Louvre in Paris. It was dynamited by the Germans during the first world war. My father still remembers visiting Coucy-le-Chateau where an old French lady explained the history of the site to the tourists. As she was describing what happened to it at the hands of the Germans, she got madder and madder as she told the story. I must admit, the though of some German officer ordering the dynamiting of this historical treasure on the rather weak grounds that it could have been used as an observation post makes me a little sore as well.