Chateau-Thierry, which has added a splendid page to the martial
history of the American Army, is another of the ancient strongholds
whose strategic position has given it equal significance in the recent
fighting. It was originally a Roman camp, Castrum Theodorici. The
castle, built in 730 by Charles Martel, was given in 877 by Louis II.,
"the Stammerer," to Herbert, Count of Vermandois, from whose family it
passed in the tenth century to the Counts of Troyes. At the end of the
eleventh century the town, which had grown up under the shelter of the
fortress, was surrounded by a wall, and the Burgesses of the town, in
1520, received permission from Francis I. to found a leather and cloth
fair, which was long famous. Often a battleground, Château-Thierry
was captured by the English in 1421. It was sacked by the Spanish in
1591. It was a centre of French resistance in the invasion of 1814,
and Napoleon with 24,000 veterans decisively beat Blücher with 50,000
men under the historic walls of the ancient fortress. The fabulist La
Fontaine was born here on July 8, 1621.