In 1790, the local 'directory' of the district of Chauny laid violent hands upon the chateau. It was in great part demolished, and what was left of it defaced. It was robbed of its precious furniture, pictures, and ornaments, its valuable chimney-pieces, its elaborate iron and brass work. The old trees were cut down in the park, and the railings destroyed. The fine old church of Ste.-Genevieve at the same time was first turned into a hall of meeting for the electors, who distrusted each other so profoundly that when their first meeting was held, May 3, 1790, the documents relating to the elections were locked up in a confessional, lest they should be stolen, and then deliberately wrecked and looted by the 'friends of Liberty,' or, in other words, by a squad of ruffians from Chauny and the neighbourhood, who, after putting on the sacerdotal vestments, marched about the church carrying the dais, beat the crosses and the carved stalls to pieces, smashed and defaced the monuments and the altars, broke open the poor-box, and carried off all that was worth stealing. The stone slabs from the graves were sold, a saltpetre factory was established in the church, the presbytery was made a town-hall, and the 'worship of Reason,' in the person of a young woman of Chauny, was solemnly inaugurated at Anizy! The chateau and the park were sold by the self-constituted dictators of Anizy to one M. Orry de Sainte-Marie on August 7, 1792, for a nominal price. This M. Orry seems to have been an 'operator.' For in June, 1793, he sold the chateau to the 'ci-devant Vicomtesse de Courval,' the mother of the then owner of the Chateau of Pinon, about which I shall presently have something to say, and bought it back from her again in March 1795, leaving her the right to enjoy it until her death, which took place in 1806. All this curiously illustrates the perils and uncertainties of land-ownership in such times! In 1808, Orry de Sainte-Marie, having by that time become a justice of the peace at Anizy, and doubtless a fervent Imperialist, sold the chateau to M. Collet, Director of the Mint at Paris. From him it passed by sale, in 1824, to M. Senneville, and in 1841 to M. Lafont de Launoy. Let us turn now to Pinon, two kilometres to the south of Anizy, long one of the chief seats of the power of the famous Sires de Coucy, one of whom seems to have been the real author of the arrogant motto since, in one or another form, attributed to more than one great family in France: Roi ne suis Ne prince, ne comte aussy: Je suis le Sire de Coucy.