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).

The smaller towers surrounding the court were as big as the donjons being built at that time by the French monarchy.

It became a military outpost and was frequented by German dignitaries, including Emperor Wilhelm II himself.

[citation needed] In March 1917 the retreating German army, on order of General Erich Ludendorff, destroyed the keep and the 4 towers.

[3] One of its lords, Enguerrand VII (1340–1397), is the subject of historian Barbara Tuchman's study of the fourteenth century A Distant Mirror.