Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 06 (of 15), French

At once, as if this were a signal for the breaking of the constrained silence, a mighty shout rose from the whole vast assembly. Again and again it was repeated, and then broke out the solemn chant of the litany, sung by hundreds of voices, while Charlemagne stood in dignified and patient silence. Whether or not this act of the pope was a surprise to him we have no assurance. Eginhard tells us that he declared that he would not have entered the church that day if he had foreseen the pope's intentions; yet it is not easy to believe that he was ignorant of or non-consenting to the coming event. At the close of the chant Leo prostrated himself at the feet of Charlemagne, and paid him adoration, as had been the custom in the days of the old emperors. He then anointed him with holy oil. And from that day forward Charles, "giving up the title of patrician, bore that of emperor and Augustus."

The ceremonies ended in the presentation from the emperor to the church of a great silver table, and, in conjunction with his son Charles and his daughters, of golden vessels belonging to the table of five hundred pounds' weight. This great gift was followed, on the Feast of the Circumcision, with a superb golden corona to be suspended over the altar. It was ornamented with gems, and contained fifty pounds of gold. On the Feast of the Epiphany he added three golden chalices, weighing forty-two pounds, and a golden paten of twenty-two pounds' weight. To the other churches also, and to the pope, he made magnificent gifts, and added three thousand pounds of silver to be distributed among the poor.

Thus, after more than three centuries, the title of Augustus was restored to the western world. It was destined to be held many centuries thereafter by the descendants of Charlemagne. After the division of his empire into France and Germany, the imperial title was preserved in the latter realm, the fiction—for it was little more—that an emperor of the west existed being maintained down to the present century.

As to the influence exerted by the power and dominion of Charlemagne on the minds of his contemporaries and successors, many interesting stories might be told. Fable surrounded him, legend attached to his deeds, and at a later date he shared the honor given to the legendary King Arthur of England, of being made a hero of romance, a leading character in many of those interminable romances of chivalry which formed the favorite reading of the mediæval age.

But we need not go beyond his own century to find him a hero of romance. The monk of the abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, whose story of the defences of the land of the Avars we have already quoted, has left us a chronicle full of surprising tales of the life and doings of Charles the Great. One of these may be of interest, as an example of the kind of history with which our ancestors of a thousand years ago were satisfied.

Charlemagne was approaching with his army Pavia, the capital of the Lombards. Didier, the king, was greatly disquieted at his approach. With him was Ogier the Dane (Ogger the monk calls him), one of the most famous captains of Charlemagne, and a prominent hero of romance. He had quarrelled with the king and had taken refuge with the king of the Lombards. Thus goes on the chronicler of St. Gall:

"When Didier and Ogger heard that the dread monarch was coming, they ascended a tower of vast height, where they could watch his arrival from afar off and from every quarter. They saw, first of all, engines of war such as must have been necessary for the armies of Darius or Julius Cæsar.

"'Is not Charles,' asked Didier of Ogger, 'with this great army?'

"But the other answered, 'No.' The Lombard, seeing afterwards an immense body of soldiery gathered from all quarters of the vast empire, said to Ogger, 'Certainly, Charles advances in triumph in the midst of this throng.'

"'No, not yet; he will not appear so soon,' was the answer.

"'What should we do, then,' rejoined Didier, who began to be perturbed, 'should he come accompanied by a larger band of warriors?'

"'You will see what he is when he comes,' replied Ogger; 'but as to what will become of us I know nothing.'

"As they were thus parleying, appeared the body of guards that knew no repose; and at this sight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried, 'This time it is surely Charles.'

"'No," answered Ogger, 'not yet.'

"In their wake came the bishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of the chapels royal, and the counts; and then Didier, no longer able to bear the light of day or to face death, cried out with groans, 'Let us descend and hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth, far from the face and the fury of so terrible a foe.'

"Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what were the power and might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by long consuetude in better days, then said, 'When you shall behold the crops shaking for fear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing the walls of the city with their waves blackened with steel, then may you think that Charles is coming.'

"He had not ended these words when there began to be seen in the west, as it were a black cloud raised by the north-west wind or by Boreas, which turned the brightest day into awful shadows. But as the emperor drew nearer and nearer, the gleam of arms caused to shine on the people shut up within the city a day more gloomy than any kind of night. And then appeared Charles himself, that man of steel, with his head encased in a helmet of steel, his hands garnished with gauntlets of steel, his heart of steel and his shoulders of marble protected by a cuirass of steel, and his left hand armed with a lance of steel which he held aloft in the air, for as to his right hand, he kept that continually on the hilt of his invincible sword. The outside of his thighs, which the rest, for their greater ease in mounting on horseback, were wont to leave unshackled even by straps, he wore encircled by plates of steel. What shall I say concerning his boots? All the army were wont to have them invariably of steel; on his buckler there was naught to be seen but steel; his horse was of the color and the strength of steel.

"All those who went before the monarch, all those who marched by his side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass of the army, had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of each permitted. The fields and the highways were covered with steel; the points of steel reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel spread terror throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what you so anxiously sought,' and whilst uttering these words he fell down almost lifeless."

If our sober chronicler of the ninth century could thus let his imagination wander in speaking of the great king, what wonder that the romancers of a later age took Charlemagne and his Paladins as fruitful subjects for their wildly fanciful themes!

PETER THE HERMIT.

The pope, Urban II., had blessed his enterprise; and then, dressed and mounted as described, and bearing in his arms a huge cross, the inspired envoy rode throughout the Teutonic lands, everywhere recounting with vehement speech and with the force of fiery indignation the sufferings of the Christians and the barbarities of the Turks, and calling on all pious souls to take arms in defence of the Holy Sepulchre and for the emancipation of the Holy Land from infidel control.

"We saw him at that time," says Guibert de Nogent; his contemporary, "scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere. The people crowded around him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity by such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever rendered to any other person. In all that he did or said he seemed to have in him something divine, insomuch that people went so far as to pluck hairs from his mule to keep as relics."

Never had mankind been more excited. All Europe was aroused, indignant, fiery. The Holy Sepulchre must be rescued, Palestine must be in the hands of the Christians, the infidel Turks must be driven from that sacred soil and punished for the indignities they had heaped upon pilgrims, Europe must march to Asia, and win salvation by driving the unbelieving barbarian from the land sanctified by the feet of Christ.

Everywhere men rose, seized their arms and prepared for the march, of whose length and dangers few of them dreamed. "The most distant islands and savage countries," says William of Malmesbury, "were inspired by this ardent passion. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scotchman his fellowship with vermin, the Dane his drinking-party, the Norwegian his raw fish." So far extended the story of the mission of Peter the Hermit; while in France, Germany, and the other lands in which he made his indignant and fiery appeals, the whole population seemed ready to rise and march en masse to the Holy Land.

In 1095, taking advantage of this enthusiasm, Urban II., the pope, called a council at Clermont, in Auvergne, where numbers of clergymen and multitudes of people assembled. Here, after the council, the pope mounted a platform which rose in the midst of a great open space, and around which extended a vast throng of knights, nobles, and common people. Peter the Hermit stood by the pope's side, and told the story of the miseries and humiliations of the Christians in Jerusalem in that fiery and fluent oratory which had stirred the soul of all Europe. Pope Urban followed in an impassioned address, recounting the sufferings of the Christian pilgrims, and calling upon the people of France to rise for their deliverance.

"Men of France," he said, "men from beyond the mountains, nations chosen and beloved of God, right valiant knights, recall the virtues of your ancestors, the virtue and greatness of King Charlemagne and your other kings; it is from you above all that Jerusalem awaits the help she invokes, for to you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal glory in arms. Christians, put an end to your own misdeeds and let concord reign among you while in those distant lands. If necessary, your bodies will redeem your souls.... These things I publish and command, and for their execution I appoint the end of the coming spring."

His eloquent words roused the mass to madness. From the throng rose one general cry, "God wills it! God wills it!" Again and again it was repeated as if it would never end, while swords waving in the air, banners floating on high, and every indication of applause and approval, attested the excitement and enthusiasm of the crowd.

"If the Lord God were not in your soul, you would not all have uttered the same words," cried the pope, when he could make himself heard. "In the battle, then, be those your war-cry, those words that came from God. In the army of our Lord let nought be heard but that one shout, 'God wills it! God wills it!' Whosoever hath a wish to enter upon this pilgrimage, let him wear upon his breast or his brow the cross of the Lord, and let him who, in accomplishment of his desire, shall be willing to march away, place the cross behind him, between his shoulders; for thus he will fulfil the precept of the Lord, who said, 'He that doth not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.'"

These words aroused a new enthusiasm. The desire to assume the cross spread like a contagion through the crowd. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, was the first to receive it from the pope's hands. This emblem was of red cloth, sewed on the right shoulder of the coat, or fastened on the front of the helmet. In haste the crowd sought materials to make it. The passion for wearing the cross spread like wild fire through Europe. Peter the Hermit, seconded by the pope, had given birth to the Crusades.

The first outburst of enthusiasm was, as always, the strongest. It has been said that in the spring of 1096 six million souls took the road to Palestine. This is, doubtless, a vast exaggeration, but great numbers set out, and an immense multitude of ignorant and enthusiastic people pushed tumultuously towards the Holy Land, in advance of the organized armies of the First Crusade.

As early as the 8th of March, 1096, great mobs—they cannot fairly be called armies—began their journey towards Palestine. They were not only composed of armed men; women and children made up part of them; whole families abandoned their villages; and without organization or provisions, or a knowledge of what lay before them, the ignorant and enthusiastic mass pushed onward with unquestioning faith.

The first body of these enthusiasts, led by a poor knight called Walter the Penniless, was cut to pieces by the natives of Bulgaria, a few only reaching Constantinople. A second multitude, forty thousand strong, was headed by Peter the Hermit. It was similar in character to the preceding. Whenever a town came in sight on their way, the children eagerly asked if that were Jerusalem. The elders were little better informed. Onward they went, through Hungary, through Bulgaria, through the provinces of the Greek empire, everywhere committing excesses, everywhere treated as enemies by the incensed people, until the line of march was strewn with their dead bodies. Peter the Hermit sought to check their excesses, but in vain; and when, at length, a miserable remnant of them reached Constantinople, the Emperor Alexius hastened to convey them across the Bosphorus, to save the suburbs of his city from their ravages.

In Asia Minor they were assailed by the Turks, and numbers of them slain; and when, in the spring of the next year, Godfrey de Bouillon and the other Crusader chiefs, with a real army of knights and men-at-arms, reached that locality, and marched to besiege Nicæa, the first important Turkish stronghold on their line of march, they saw coming to meet them a miserable band, with every indication of woful destitution, at whose head appeared Peter the Hermit. It was the handful of destitute wanderers that remained from the hundreds of thousands who had set out with such high hopes a year before.

Thus began that great movement from Europe towards Asia, which was to continue for several centuries, and end at length in disaster and defeat. But we are concerned here only with Peter the Hermit, and the conclusion of his career. He had set the flood in motion; how far was he to be borne on its waves?

The chiefs of the army welcomed him with respect and consideration, and heard with interest and feeling his account of the misfortunes of those under his leadership, and how they were due to their own ignorance, violence, and insubordination. With the few who survived from the multitude he joined the crusading army, and regained the ardent hopes which had almost vanished from his heart.

The army that reached Nicæa is said to have been six hundred thousand strong, though they were probably not nearly so many. On they went with many adventures, meeting the Turks in battle, suffering from hunger and thirst, enduring calamities, losing many by death, until at length the great city of Antioch was reached and besieged.

Here at first food was plenty and life easy. But the Turks held out, winter came, provisions grew scarce, life ceased to be agreeable. Such was the discouragement that succeeded that several men of note deserted the army of the cross, among them Robert, duke of Normandy, William, viscount of Melun, called the Carpenter, from his mighty battle-axe, and Peter the Hermit himself. Their flight caused the greatest indignation. Tancred, one of the leaders, hurried after and overtook them, and brought them back to the camp, where they, overcome by shame, swore on the Gospel never again to abandon the cause of the cross.

In time Antioch was taken, and the Turks therein massacred. But, unknown to the Crusaders, an immense army of Turks was being organized in Syria for its relief; and four days after its capture the Crusaders found themselves in their turn besieged, the place being completely enclosed.

Day by day the blockade became more strict. Suffering from want of food began. Starvation threatened the citizens and the army alike. It seemed as if the crusade might end there and then, in the death or captivity of all concerned in it; when an incident, esteemed miraculous, roused the spirits of the soldiers and achieved their deliverance.

A priest of Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew by name, presented himself before the chief and said that he had had a marvellous dream. St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him, saying, "Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch, and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the deliverance of the Christians."

The search was made, a spear-head was found, hope, confidence, enthusiasm were restored, and with loud shouts the half-starved multitude demanded that they should be led against the enemy. But before doing so, the chiefs decided to apprise the leader of the Turks of their intention, and for this purpose chose Peter the Hermit as their boldest and ablest speaker.

Peter, therefore, under a flag of truce, sought the Turkish camp, presented himself without any mark of respect before Corboghâ, the leader of the Turks, and his captains, and boldly told them the decision of the crusading chiefs.

"They offer thee," he said, "the choice between divers determinations: either that thou appear alone in person to fight with one of our princes, in order that, if victorious, thou mayst obtain all thou canst demand, or, if vanquished, thou mayst remain quiet; or again, pick out divers of thine who shall fight, on the same terms, with the same number of ours; or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one against the other, the fortune of battle."

Corboghâ received this challenge as an amusing jest, saying that the chiefs must be in a desperate state to send him such a proposition. "Go, and tell these fools," he said, "that all whom I shall find in full possession of all the powers of the manly age shall have their lives, and shall be reserved by me for my master's service, and that all others shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shall remain of them not even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it more convenient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword, I should already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they would have reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing the law of vengeance."

Corboghâ spoke much too hastily. Before night of the next day he was a helpless fugitive, his army destroyed or dispersed. Peter the Hermit returned with his message, but, by the advice of Godfrey de Bouillon, he simply announced that the Turks desired battle, and that instant preparation for it must be made. On the next day the whole Christian army, armed and enthusiastic, issued from the city, a part of the clergy marching at their head, the miraculous spear-head borne before them, and attacked the Turks in their camp. The battle was long, fierce, and stubborn, but in the end the Turks gave way before the fury of Christian enthusiasm, and fled for their lives, vast multitudes of them being slain on the field, while the vain-glorious Corboghâ rode in all haste, with a weak escort, towards far-off Bagdad.

The camp of the Turks was taken and pillaged. It yielded fifteen thousand camels and an unnamed multitude of horses. The tent of Corboghâ proved a rich prize. It was laid out in streets, flanked by towers, in imitation of a fortified town, was everywhere enriched with gold and precious stones, and was so spacious that it would have contained more than two thousand persons. It was sent to Italy, where it was long preserved. So great was the spoil that, says Albert of Aix, "every Crusader found himself richer than he had been at starting from Europe."

In June, 1099, the Crusaders arrived before Jerusalem, and saw with eyes of wonder and delight the vision of the Holy City which they had come so far to gaze upon. After a month of siege the chiefs fixed a day for the grand assault, and on the day preceding that chosen the whole army marched, fasting, and preceded by their priests, in slow procession round the walls, halting at every hallowed spot, listening to the hymns and exhortations of their priests, and looking upward with wrathful eyes at the insults heaped by the Islamites upon the cross and other symbols of the Christian faith.

"Ye see," cried Peter the Hermit, "the blasphemies of God's enemies. Now, this I swear to you by your faith; this I swear to you by the arms you carry; to-day these infidels are still full of pride and insolence, but to-morrow they shall be frozen with fear; those mosques, which tower over Christian ruins, shall serve for temples to the true God, and Jerusalem shall hear no longer aught but the praises of the Lord."

His words were received with shouts of applause by the whole army. His had been the first voice to call Europe to the deliverance of the Holy City; now, with a strong army to back him, he gazed on the walls of Jerusalem, still in the hands of the infidels, likely soon to be in the hands of the Christians. Well might he feel joy and self-gratification, in thinking that all this was his work, and that he had been the apostle of the greatest event in modern history.

On the next day, July 14, 1099, the assault began at daybreak. On Friday, the 15th, Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Crusaders, and the mission of Peter the Hermit was accomplished, the Holy City was won.

With that great day ended the active part played by Peter the Hermit in history. He was received with the greatest respect by the Christian dwellers in Jerusalem, who exerted themselves to render him the highest honors, and attributed to him alone, after God, their deliverance from the sufferings which they had so long endured. On his return to Europe he founded a monastery near Hue, in the diocese of Liége, where he spent the remainder of his life in retirement, respected and honored by all, and died there on the 11th of July, 1115.

THE COMMUNE OF LAON.

A different story must be told of the towns. In these the common people were concentrated and well organized, and possessed skilled leaders and strong walls. They understood the political situation, struck for a definite purpose, and usually gained it. The history of nearly every town in France tells of some such demand for chartered privileges, ordinarily ending in the freeing of the town from the tyranny of the nobles. Each town had its municipal government, the Commune. It was this body which spoke for the burghers, which led in the struggle for liberty, and which succeeded in gaining for most of the towns a charter of rights and privileges. Many stirring incidents might be told of this fight for freedom. We shall confine ourselves to the story of the revolt of the Commune of Laon, of which a sprightly contemporary description exists.

Truly, town life and country life alike were neither safe nor agreeable in those charming mediæval days when chivalry was the profession of all and the possession of none, when the nobility were courteous in word and violent in deed, and when might everywhere lorded it over right, and conscience was but another word for desire. As for the treatment of the peasantry by the townsmen, we may quote from Guibert, an abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, to whose lively pen we owe all we have to tell about Laon.

"Let me give as example," he says, "a single fact, which had it taken place among the Barbarians or the Scythians would assuredly have been considered the height of wickedness, in the judgment even of those who know no law. On Saturday the inhabitants of the country places used to leave their fields and come from all sides to Laon to get provisions at the market. The townsfolk used then to go round the place carrying in baskets or bowls or otherwise samples of vegetables or grain or any other article, as if they wished to sell. They would offer them to the first peasant who was in search of such things to buy; he would promise to pay the price agreed upon; and then the seller would say to the buyer, 'Come with me to my house to see and examine the whole of the articles I am selling you.' The other would go; and then, when they came to the bin containing the goods, the honest seller would take off and hold up the lid, saying to the buyer, 'Step hither and put your head or arms into the bin to make quite sure that it is all exactly the same goods as I showed you outside.' And then when the other, jumping on to the edge of the bin, remained leaning on his belly, with his head and shoulders hanging down, the worthy seller, who kept in the rear, would hoist up the thoughtless rustic by the feet, push him suddenly into the bin, and, clapping on the lid as he fell, keep him shut up in this safe prison until he had bought himself out."

This has more the aspect of a practical joke than an act of barbarism. But withal, between the cheating of the peasantry by the burghers, the robbery of the burghers by the nobles, and the general turmoil and terror, there might have been found more delightful places of residence than the good city of Laon in the eleventh century. The story of this city is a long one. We are here concerned with but one episode in the tale.

In the year 1106 the bishopric of Laon, which had been for two years vacant, was bought by Gaudri, a Norman by birth, and a man of no very savory reputation. He was a clergyman with the habits of a soldier, hasty and arrogant in disposition, hurrying through the service of the mass, and dallying with delight over narratives of fighting and hunting, one of the churchmen of wickedly worldly tastes of which those days presented so many examples.

Laon soon learned something of the character of its new bishop. Not long was he in office before outrages began. He seized one man whom he suspected of aiding his enemies, and put out his eyes. Another was murdered in the church itself, with his connivance. In his deeds of violence or vengeance he employed a black slave, imitating in this some of the Crusaders, who brought with them such servants from the east. No lawless noble could have shown more disregard of law or justice than this dignitary of the church, and the burghers of Laon viewed with growing indignation his lawless and merciless course.

Taking advantage of the absence of Bishop Gaudri in England, the burghers bribed the clergy and knights who governed in his stead, and obtained from them the privilege of choosing their own rulers. "The clergy and knights," we are told, "came to an agreement with the common folk in hopes of enriching themselves in a speedy and easy fashion." A commune was set up, and given the necessary powers and immunities.

Gaudri returned, and heard with fierce wrath of what had been done in his absence. For several days he stayed outside the walls, clouding and thundering. Then the burghers applied the same plaster to his wrath as they had done to the virtue of his representatives. They offered him money, "enough to appease the tempest of his words." He accepted the bribe and swore to respect the commune. This done, he entered the city in state.

The burghers knew him somewhat too well to trust him. There were higher powers in France than Bishop Gaudri, which were known to be susceptible to the same mercenary argument. A deputation was therefore sent to King Louis the Fat at Paris, laden with rich presents, and praying for a royal confirmation of the commune. The king loved the glitter of cash; he accepted the presents, swore that the commune should be respected, and gave Laon a charter sealed with the great seal of the crown. All that the citizens were to do in return, beyond meeting the customary crown claims, was to give the king three lodgings a year, if he came to the town, or in lieu thereof, if he failed to come, twenty livres for each lodging.

For three years all went well in Laon. The burghers were happy in their security and proud of their liberty, while clergy and knights were occupied in spending the money they had received. The year 1112 came. The bishop and his subordinates had got rid of their money, and craved again the power they had sold. They began to consider how the citizens might once more be made serfs. They would not have hesitated long but for that inconvenient grant of Louis the Fat. But King Louis might be managed. He was normally avaricious. The bishop invited him to Laon to take part in the keeping of Holy Week, trusting to get his aid to overthrow the commune.

The king came. The burghers were not long in suspecting the cause of his coming. They offered him some four hundred livres to confirm them in their liberties. The bishop and his party offered him seven hundred livres to restore their power. The higher offer prevailed. The charter was annulled, and the magistrates of the commune were ordered to cease from their functions, to give up the seal and the banner of the town, and no more to ring the belfry-chimes which indicated the beginning and the ending of their sessions.

Wrath and uproar succeeded this decree. The burghers had tasted the sweets of liberty, and were not ready to lose their dearly-bought independence. So violent were they that the king himself was frightened, and hastily left his hotel for the stronger walls of the episcopal palace. At dawn of the next day, partly in fear and perhaps partly in shame, he departed from Laon with all his train, leaving the Easter festival to take place without him.

It was destined to be a serious festival for Bishop Gaudri and his crew of base-souled followers. The king had left a harvest of indignation behind him. On the day after his going all shops and taverns were kept closed and nothing was sold; every one remained at home, nursing his wrath. The next day the anger of the citizens grew more demonstrative. A rumor spread that the bishop and grandees were busy calculating the fortunes of the citizens, that they might force from them the sum promised the king. The burghers assembled in burning indignation, and forty of them bound themselves by oath to kill the bishop and all those who had aided him to destroy the commune.

Some rumor of this got afloat. Anselm, the arch-deacon, warned the bishop that his life was in danger, and urged him not to leave his house, and, in particular, not to accompany the procession on Easter-day. Thus Cæsar had been warned, and had contemned the warning. Gaudri emulated him, and answered, with a sneer of contempt,—

"Pooh! I die by the hands of such fellows!"

Easter-day came. The bishop did not appear at matins, or at the later church service. But, lest he should be called coward, he joined the procession, followed by his clergy and domestics, and by a number of knights with arms and armor concealed under their clothes. Slowly through the streets moved the procession, the people looking on in lowering silence. As it passed a dark arch one of the forty rushed suddenly out, crying, "Commune! commune!" No one joined him; the crowd seemed intimidated; their feelings subsided in a murmur; the procession continued on its way undisturbed.

The next day another procession took place. This day the bishop had filled the town with peasants, who were charged to protect his church, his palace, and himself. The people kept quiet. All went well. Bishop Gaudri, satisfied that the talk of danger was all a myth, now dismissed the peasants, feeling quite secure.

"On the fourth day after Easter," says Guibert of Nogent, "my corn having been pillaged in consequence of the disorder that reigned in the town, I repaired to the bishop, and prayed him to put a stop to this state of violence.

"'What do you suppose,' said he to me, 'these fellows can do with all their outbreaks? Why, if my blackamoor, John, were to pull the nose of the most formidable amongst them, the poor devil durst not even grumble. Have I not forced them to give up what they called their commune, for the whole duration of my life?'

"I held my tongue," adds Guibert; "many folks besides me warned him of his danger, but he would not deign to believe anybody."

For three days all kept quiet. The bishop and his myrmidons busied themselves in calculating how much cash they could squeeze from the people. The people lowered like a gathering storm. All at once the storm broke. A sudden tumult arose; crowds filled the streets. "Commune! commune!" was the general cry; as if by magic, swords, lances, axes, bows, and clubs appeared in the hands of the people; with wild shouts of vengeance they rushed through the streets and burst into the bishop's palace. The knights who had promised to protect him hastened thither and faced the infuriated populace. The first three who appeared were hotly attacked and fell before the axes of the burghers. The others held back. In a few minutes more flames appeared in the palace, and in no long time it was a mass of seething fire. The day of vengeance had come.

The bishop had fled to the church. Here, having no means of defence, he hastily put on the dress of one of his servants and repaired to the church cellar, where were a number of empty casks. One of these he got into, a faithful follower then heading him in, and even stopping up the bung-hole. Meanwhile, the crowd were in eager quest for the object of their wrath. The palace had been searched before being set on fire; the church and all accompanying buildings now swarmed with revengeful burghers. Among these was a bandit named Teutgaud, a fellow notorious for his robberies and murders of travellers, but now hand and glove with the commune. The bishop had named him Isengrin, the by-word then for wolf.

This worthy made his way into the cellar, followed by an armed crowd. Through this they went, tapping the casks as they proceeded. Teutgaud halted in front of that in which the bishop was concealed—on what suspicion does not appear.

"Knock in the head of this," he ordered.

He was quickly obeyed.

"Is there any one here?" he asked.

"Only a poor prisoner," came a quavering voice from the depths of the cask.

"Ha! ha!" laughed Teutgaud; "so it is you, Master Isengrin, who are hiding here!"

Seizing the trembling bishop by the hair, he dragged him without ceremony from the cask. The frightened culprit fell on his knees and begged piteously for his life. He would do anything; he would give up the bishopric, yield them all the money he had, and leave the country.

Insults and blows were the only replies. In a minute more the unfortunate man was dead. Teutgaud, true to his profession, cut off his ringer to obtain the episcopal ring that glittered on it. Stripped of its clothing, the body was hurled into a corner, and the furious throng flung stones and mud at it, as the only vent remaining to their revengeful passions.

All that day and the night that followed the armed and maddened townsmen searched the streets and houses of Laon for the supporters of the murdered bishop, and numbers of them shared his fate. Not the guilty alone, but many of the innocent, perished before the blind wrath of the multitude. "The progress of the fire," says Guibert, "kindled on two sides at once, was so rapid, and the winds drove the flames so furiously in the direction of the convent of St. Vincent, that the monks were afraid of seeing all they possessed become the fire's prey, and all the persons who had taken refuge in this monastery trembled as if they had seen swords hanging over their heads."

It was a day and night of frightful excess, one of those dread occasions which arise when men are roused to violence by injustice, and for the time break all the bonds of mercy and moderation which ordinarily control them. Regret at their insensate rage is sure to succeed all such outbreaks. Retribution is likely to follow. Consternation came to the burghers of Laon when calm thought returned to them. They had defied the king. What would he do? To protect themselves they added to the burden of their offences, summoning to their aid Thomas de Marle, the son of Lord Enguerraud de Coucy, a man who was little better than a brigand, and with a detestable reputation for cruelty and ferocity.

De Marle was not quite ready to undertake this task. He consulted his people, who declared that it would be folly for their small force to seek to defend such a city against the king. He thereupon induced the burghers to meet him in a field, about a mile from the city, where he would make answer to their request. When they had come, he said,—

"Laon is the head of the kingdom; it is impossible for me to keep the king from making himself master of it. If you fear his arms, follow me to my own land, and you will find in me a protector and a friend."

Their consternation was extreme at this advice. For the time being they were in a panic, through fear of the king's vengeance, and the conference ended in many of them taking the advice of the Lord of Marle, and flying with him to his stronghold. Teutgaud was among the number that accepted his protection.

The news of their flight quickly spread to the country places around Laon. The story went that the town was quite deserted. The peasants, filled with hopes of plunder, hastened to the town, took possession of what empty houses they found, and carried off what money and other valuables they could discover. "Before long," says Guibert, "there arose between the first and last comers disputes about the partition of their plunder; all that the small folks had taken soon passed into the hands of the powerful; if two men met a third quite alone they stripped him; the state of the town was truly pitiable. The burghers who had quitted it with Thomas de Marle had beforehand destroyed and burnt the houses of the clergy and grandees whom they hated; and now the grandees, escaped from the massacre, carried off in their turn from the houses of the fugitives all means of subsistence and all movables to the very hinges and bolts."

What succeeded must be briefly told. The story of the events here described spread through the kingdom. Thomas de Marle was put under ban by the king and excommunicated by the church. Louis raised an army and marched against him. De Marle was helpless with illness, but truculent in temper. He defied the king, and would not listen to his summons. Louis attacked his castles, took two of them, Crecy and Nogent, and in the end forced him to buy pardon by a heavy ransom and an indemnity to the church. As for the burghers who had taken refuge with him, the king showed them no mercy. They had had a hand in the murder of Bishop Gaudri, and all of them were hung.

The remaining story of Laon is too long for our space. The burghers continued to demand their liberties, and in 1128 a new charter was granted them. This they retained, except during some intervals, until that later period when the mediæval system of municipal government came to an end, and all the cities and towns fell under the direct control of the deputies of the king.