The immense importance of forests in the present battle is only
one among many returns to the machinery of mediaeval war, like the
revival of helmets, bombs, mortars, the use of a trench knife, which
is simply an adapted Roman broadsword. And, in exactly the same way,
the pressure of races in the present war has brought the fighting
back to the old, famous battle areas, on which the Latin races have
fought against the barbarians any time these two thousand years. This
is particularly true of the area of the fighting in the first half
of June. Much of the history here goes back to old Roman times, much
to the earliest Kings of France. Villers-Cotterets, in the old feudal
territory of Valois, has developed from a sixth century hamlet, first
named Villers-Saint-Georges. The great forest, which has been so
strong a buttress for the French and American line, was then known as
Col-de-Retz, and was a favorite hunting ground of the early Kings.
The Château Malmaison, rebuilt by Francis I. in 1530, was really a
magnificent hunting lodge; his son, Henry II., and Francis II. often
sojourned there. Charles V. halted there during his campaign in
Champagne. Charles IX. spent his honeymoon there with his young Queen
Elizabeth. The castle was restored by the Duke of Orleans in 1750, at a
cost of 2,000,000 francs, when the great walls of the park were built.
He was the father of Philippe-Egalité and the grandfather of King Louis
Philippe. Alexandre Dumas, who was born at Villers-Cotterets, described
the castle as being "as big as the whole town." Later it became an
orphanage, sheltering 800 children. In the forest is the "enchanted
butte," 752 feet above sea level, which is dimly visible from Laon,
forty-four miles away; here the fairies were traditionally believed to
dance in the moonlight. Finally, in the last martial act of Napoleon's
Hundred Days--on June 27, 1815, a week after Waterloo--Marshal Grouchy
fought the Prussians under Pirch within sight of Villers-Cotterets.