opposition made head more extensively and effectually; and it produced
two results: ten ordinances of Louis the Quarreller for redressing the
grievances of the feudal aristocracy, for one; and, for the other, the
trial and condemnation of Enguerrand de Marigny "coadjutor and rector of
the kingdom" under Philip the Hand-some.  Marigny, at the death of the
king his master, had against him, rightly or wrongly, popular clamor and
feudal hostility, especially that of Charles of Valois, Philip the
Handsome's brother, who acted as leader of the barons.  "What has become
of all those subsidies, and all those sums produced by so much tampering
with the coinage?  "asked the new king one day in council.  "Sir," said
Prince Charles, "it was Marigny who had the administration of everything;
and it is for him to render an account."  "I am quite ready," said
Marigny.  "This moment, then," said the prince.  "Most willingly, my
lord: I gave a great portion to you."  "You lie!" cried Charles.  "Nay,
you, by God!" replied Marigny.  The prince drew his sword, and Marigny
was on the point of doing the same.  The quarrel was, however, stifled
for the moment; but, shortly afterwards, Marigny was accused, condemned
by a commission assembled at Vincennes, and hanged on the gibbet of
Montfaucon which he himself, it is said, had set up.  He walked to
execution with head erect, saying to the crowd, "Good folks, pray for
me."  Some months afterwards, the young king, who had indorsed the
sentence reluctantly, since he did not well know, between his father's
brother and minister, which of the two was guilty, left by will a
handsome legacy to Marigny's widow "in consideration of the great
misfortune which had befallen her and hers;" and Charles of Valois
himself, falling into a decline, and considering himself stricken by the
hand of God "as a punishment for the trial of Enguerrand de Marigny," had
liberal alms distributed to the poor with this injunction: "Pray God for
Euguerrand de Marigny and for the Count of Valois."  None can tell, after
this lapse of time, whether this remorse proceeded from weakness of mind
or sincerity of heart, and which of the two personages was really guilty;
but, ages afterwards, such is the effect of blind, popular clamor and
unrighteous judicial proceedings, that the condemned lives in history as
a victim and all but a guileless being.

[Illustration: The Hanging of Marigny----200]

Whilst the feudal aristocracy was thus avenging itself of kingly tyranny,
the spirit of Christianity was noiselessly pursuing its work, the general
enfranchisement of men.  Louis the Quarreller had to keep up the war with
Flanders, which was continually being renewed; and in order to find,
without hateful exactions, the necessary funds, he was advised to offer
freedom to the serfs of his domains.  Accordingly he issued, on the 3d of
July, 1315, an edict to the following effect: "Whereas, according to
natural right, every one should be born free, and whereas, by certain
customs which, from long age, have been introduced into and preserved to
this day in our kingdom  .  .  .  many persons amongst our common people
have fallen into the bonds of slavery, which much displeaseth us; we,
considering that our kingdom is called and named the kingdom of the Free
(Franks), and willing that the matter should in verity accord with the
name .  .  .  have by our grand council decreed and do decree that
generally throughout our whole kingdom .  .  .  such serfdoms be redeemed
to freedom, on fair and suitable conditions .  .  .  and we will,
likewise, that all other lords who have body-men (or serfs) do take
example by us to bring them to freedom."  Great credit has very properly
been given to Louis the Quarreller for this edict; but it has not been
sufficiently noticed that Philip the Handsome had himself set his sons
the example, for, on confirming the enfranchisement granted by his
brother Charles to the serfs in the countship of Valois, he had based his
decree on the following grounds: "Seeing that every human being, which is
made in the image of Our Lord, should generally be free by natural
right."  The history of Christian communities is full of these happy
inconsistencies; when a moral and just principle is implanted in the
soul, absolute power itself does not completely escape from its healthy
influence, and the good makes its way athwart the evil, just as a source
of fresh and pure water ceases not to flow through and spread over a land
wasted by the crimes or follies of men.

It is desirable to give an idea and an example of the conduct which was
already beginning to be adopted and of the authority which was already
beginning to be exercised in France, amidst the feudal reaction that set
in against Philip the Handsome and amidst the feeble government of his
sons, by that magistracy, of such recent and petty origin, which was
called upon to defend, in the king's name, order and justice against the
count-less anarchical tyrannies scattered over the national territory.
During the early years of the fifteenth century, a lord of Gascony,
Jordan de Lisle, "of most noble origin, but most ignoble deeds," says a
contemporary chronicler, "abandoned himself to all manner of
irregularities and crimes."  Confident in his strength and his
connections,--for Pope John XXII. had given his niece to him in
marriage,--"he committed homicides, entertained evil-doers and murderers,
countenanced robbers, and rose against the king.  He killed, with the
man's own truncheon, one of the king's servants who was wearing the royal
livery according to the custom of the royal servants.  When his misdeeds
were known, he was summoned for trial to Paris; and he went thither
surrounded by a stately retinue of counts, nobles, and barons of
Aquitaine.  He was confined, at first, in the prison of Chatelet; and
when a hearing had been accorded to his reply and to what he alleged in
his defence against the crimes of which he was accused, he was finally
pronounced worthy of death by the doctors of the parliament, and on
Trinity-eve he was dragged at the tail of horses and hanged, as he
deserved, on the public gallows at Paris."  It was, assuredly, a
difficult and a dangerous task for the obscure members of this
parliament, scarcely organized as it was and quite lately established
for a permanence in Paris, to put down such disorders and such men.
In the course of its long career the French magistracy has committed many
faults; it has more than once either aspired to overstep its proper
limits or failed to fulfil all its duties; but history would be
ungrateful and untruthful not to bring into the light the virtues this
body has displayed from its humble cradle, and the services it has
rendered to France, to her security at home, to her moral dignity, to her
intellectual glory, and to the progress of her civilization with all its
brilliancy and productiveness, though it is still so imperfect and so
thwarted.

Another fact which has held an important place in the history of France,
and exercised a great influence over her destinies, likewise dates from
this period; and that is the exclusion of women from the succession to
the throne, by virtue of an article, ill understood, of the Salic law.
The ancient law of the Salian Franks, drawn up, probably, in the seventh
century, had no statute at all touching this grave question; the article
relied upon was merely a regulation of civil law prescribing that "no
portion of really Salic land (that is to say, in the full territorial
ownership of the head of the family) should pass into the possession of
women, but it should belong altogether to the virile sex."  From the time
of Hugh Capet heirs male had never been wanting to the crown, and the
succession in the male line had been a fact uninterrupted indeed, but not
due to prescription or law.  Louis the Quarreller, at his death, on the
5th of June, 1316, left only a daughter, but his second wife, Queen
Clemence, was pregnant.  As soon as Philip the Long, then Count of
Poitiers, heard of his brother's death, he hurried to Paris, assembled a
certain number of barons, and got them to decide that he, if the queen
should be delivered of a son, should be regent of the kingdom for
eighteen years; but that if she should bear a daughter he should
immediately take possession of the crown.  On the 15th of November, 1316,
the queen gave birth to a son, who was named John, and who figures as
John I.  in the series of French kings; but the child died at the end of
five days, and on the 6th of January, 1317, Philip the Long was crowned
king at Rheims.  He forthwith summoned--there is no knowing exactly where
and in what numbers--the clergy, barons, and third estate, who declared,
on the 2d of February, that "the laws and customs, inviolably observed
among the Franks, excluded daughters from the crown."  There was no doubt
about the fact; but the law was not established, nor even in conformity
with the entire feudal system or with general opinion.  And "thus the
kingdom went," says Froissart, "as seemeth to many folks, out of the
right line."  But the measure was evidently wise and salutary for France
as well as for the king-ship; and it was renewed, after Philip the Long
died on the 3d of January, 1322, and left daughters only, in favor of his
brother Charles the Handsome, who died, in his turn, on the 1st of
January, 1328, and likewise left daughters only.  The question as to the
succession to the throne then lay between the male line represented by
Philip, Count of Valois, grandson of Philip the Bold through Charles of
Valois, his father, and the female line represented by Edward III., King
of England, grandson, through his mother, Isabel, sister of the late King
Charles the Handsome, of Philip the Handsome.  A war of more than a
century's duration between France and England was the result of this
lamentable rivalry, which all but put the kingdom of France under an
English king; but France was saved by the stubborn resistance of the
national spirit and by Joan of Arc, inspired by God.  One hundred and
twenty-eight years after the triumph of the national cause, and four
years after the accession of Henry IV., which was still disputed by the
League, a decree of the parliament of Paris, dated the 28th of June,
1593, maintained, against the pretensions of Spain, the authority of the
Salic law, and on the 1st of October, 1789, a decree of the National
Assembly, in conformity with the formal and unanimous wish of the
memorials drawn up by the states-general, gave a fresh sanction to that
principle, which, confining the heredity of the crown to the male line,
had been salvation to the unity and nationality of the monarchy in
France.





CHAPTER XIX.----THE COMMUNES AND THE THIRD ESTATE.

The history of the Merovingians is that of barbarians invading Gaul
and settling upon the ruins of the Roman empire.  The history of the
Carlovingians is that of the greatest of the barbarians taking upon
himself to resuscitate the Roman empire, and of Charlemagne's descendants
disputing amongst themselves for the fragments of his fabric, as fragile
as it was grand.  Amidst this vast chaos and upon this double ruin was
formed the feudal system, which by transformation after transformation
became ultimately France.  Hugh Capet, one of its chieftains, made
himself its king.  The Capetians achieved the French kingship.  We have
traced its character and progressive development from the eleventh to the
fourteenth century, through the reigns of Louis the Fat, of Philip
Augustus, of St. Louis, and of Philip the Handsome, princes very diverse
and very unequal in merit, but all of them able and energetic.  This
period was likewise the cradle of the French nation.  That was the time
when it began to exhibit itself in its different elements, and to arise
under monarchical rule from the midst of the feudal system.  Its earliest
features and its earliest efforts in the long and laborious work of its
development are now to be set before the reader's eyes.

The two words inscribed at the head of this chapter, the Communes and the
Third-Estate, are verbal expressions for the two great facts at that time
revealing that the French nation was in labor of formation.  Closely
connected one with the other and tending towards the same end, these two
facts are, nevertheless, very diverse, and even when they have not been
confounded, they have not been with sufficient clearness distinguished
and characterized, each of them apart.  They are diverse both in their
chronological date and their social importance.  The Communes are the
first to appear in history.  They appear there as local facts, isolated
one from another, often very different in point of origin, though
analogous in their aim, and in every case neither assuming nor pretending
to assume any place in the government of the state.  Local interests and
rights, the special affairs of certain populations agglomerated in
certain spots, are the only objects, the only province of the communes.
With this purely municipal and individual character they come to their
birth, their confirmation, and their development from the eleventh to the
fourteenth century; and at the end of two centuries they enter upon their
decline, they occupy far less room and make far less noise in history.
It is exactly then that the Third Estate comes to the front, and uplifts
itself as a general fact, a national element, a political power.  It is
the successor, not the contemporary, of the Communes; they contributed
much towards, but did not suffice for its formation; it drew upon other
resources, and was developed under other influences than those which gave
existence to the communes.  It has subsisted, it has gone on growing
throughout the whole course of French history; and at the end of five
centuries, in 1789, when the Communes had for a long while sunk into
languishment and political insignificance, at the moment at which France
was electing her Constituent Assembly, the Abbe Sicyes, a man of powerful
rather than scrupulous mind, could say, "What is the Third Estate?
Everything.  What has it hitherto been in the body politic?  Nothing.
What does it demand?  To be something."

These words contain three grave errors.  In the course of government
anterior to 1789, so far was the third estate from being nothing, that it
had been every day becoming greater and stronger.  What was demanded for
it in 1789 by M. Sicyes and his friends was not that it might become
something, but that it should be everything.  That was a desire beyond
its right and its strength; and the very Revolution, which was its own
victory, proved this.  Whatever may have been the weaknesses and faults
of its foes, the third estate had a terrible struggle to conquer them;
and the struggle was so violent and so obstinate that the third estate
was broken up therein, and had to pay dearly for its triumph.  At first
it obtained thereby despotism instead of liberty; and when liberty
returned, the third estate found itself confronted by twofold hostility,
that of its foes under the old regimen and that of the absolute democracy
which claimed in its turn to be everything.  Outrageous claims bring
about in-tractable opposition and excite unbridled ambition.  What there
was in the words of the Abbe Sicyes in 1789 was not the verity of
history; it was a lying programme of revolution.

We have anticipated dates in order to properly characterize and explain
the facts as they present themselves, by giving a glimpse of their scope
and their attainment.  Now that we have clearly marked the profound
difference between the third estate and the communes, we will return to
the communes alone, which had the priority in respect of time.  We will
trace the origin and the composition of the third estate, when we reach
the period at which it became one of the great performers in the history
of France by reason of the place it assumed and the part it played in the
states-general of the kingdom.

In dealing with the formation of the communes from the eleventh to the
fourteenth century, the majority of the French historians, even
M. Thierry, the most original and clear-sighted of them all, often
entitle this event the communal revolution.  This expression hardly gives
a correct idea of the fact to which it is applied.  The word revolution,
in the sense, or at least the aspect, given to it amongst us by
contemporary events, points to the overthrow of a certain regimen, and of
the ideas and authority predominant thereunder, and the systematic
elevation in their stead of a regimen essentially different in principle,
and in fact.  The revolutions of our day substitute, or would fain
substitute, a republic for a monarchy, democracy for aristocracy,
political liberty for absolute power.  The struggles which from the
eleventh to the fourteenth century gave existence to so many communes
had no such profound character; the populations did not pretend to any
fundamental overthrow of the regimen they attacked; they conspired
together, they swore together, as the phrase is according to the
documents of the time--they rose to extricate themselves from the
outrageous oppression and misery they were enduring, but not to abolish
feudal sovereignty and to change the personality of their masters.  When
they succeeded they obtained those treaties of peace called charters,
which brought about in the condition of the insurgents salutary changes
accompanied by more or less effectual guarantees.  When they failed or
when the charters were violated, the result was violent reactions, mutual
excesses; the relations between the populations and their lords were
tempestuous and full of vicissitudes; but at bottom neither the political
regimen nor the social system of the communes was altered.  And so there
were, at many spots without any connection between them, local revolts
and civil wars, but no communal revolution.

One of the earliest facts of this kind which have been set forth with
some detail in history clearly shows their primitive character; a fact
the more remarkable in that the revolt described by the chroniclers
originated and ran its course in the country among peasants with a view
of recovering complete independence, and not amongst an urban population
with a view of resulting in the erection of a commune.  Towards the end
of the tenth century, under Richard II., Duke of Normandy, called the
Good, and whilst the good King Robert was reigning in France, "In several
countships of Normandy," says William of Jumiege, "all the peasants,
assembling in their conventicles, resolved to live according to their
inclinations and their own laws, as well in the interior of the forests
as along the rivers, and to reck nought of any established right.  To
carry out this purpose these mobs of madmen chose each two deputies, who
were to form at some central point an assembly charged to see to the
execution of their decrees.  As soon as the duke (Richard II.) was
informed thereof, he sent a large body of men-at-arms to repress this
audaciousness of the country districts and to scatter this rustic
assemblage.  In execution of his orders, the deputies of the peasants and
many other rebels were forthwith arrested, their feet and hands were cut
off, and they were sent away thus mutilated to their homes, in order to
deter their like from such enterprises, and to make them wiser, for fear
of worse.  After this experience the peasants left off their meetings and
returned to their ploughs."

[Illustration: The Peasants resolved to Live according to their own
Inclinations and their own Laws----209]

It was about eighty years after the event when the monk William of
Jumiege told the story of this insurrection of peasants so long anterior,
and yet so similar to that which more than three centuries afterwards
broke out in nearly the whole of Northern.  France, and which was called
the Jacquery.  Less than a century after William of Jumiege, a Norman
poet, Robert Wace, told the same story in his Romance of Rou, a history
in verse of Rollo and the first dukes of Normandy: "The lords do us
nought but ill," he makes the Norman peasants say: with them we have nor
gain nor profit from our labors; every day is for us a day of suffering,
of travail, and of fatigue; every day our beasts are taken from us for
forced labor and services .  .  . why put up with all this evil, and why
not get quit of travail?  Are not we men even as they are?  Have we not
the same stature, the same limbs, the same strength--for suffering?  Bind
we ourselves by oath; swear we to aid one another; and if they be minded
to make war on us, have we not for every knight thirty or forty young
peasants ready and willing to fight with club, or boar-spear, or arrow,
or axe, or stones, if they have not arms?  Learn we to resist the
knights, and we shall be free to hew down trees, to hunt game, and to
fish after our fashion, and we shall work our will on flood and in field
and wood."

These two passages have already been quoted in Chapter XIV. of this
history in the course of describing the general condition of France under
the Capetians before the crusades, and they are again brought forward
here because they express and paint to the life the chief cause which
from the end of the tenth century led to so many insurrections amongst
the rural as well as urban populations, and brought about the
establishment of so many communes.

We say the chief cause only, because oppression and insurrection were not
the sole origin of the communes.  Evil, moral and material, abounds in
human communities, but it never has the sole dominion there; force never
drives justice into utter banishment, and the ruffianly violence of the
strong never stifles in all hearts every sympathy for the weak.  Two
causes, quite distinct from feudal oppression, viz., Roman traditions and
Christian sentiments, had their share in the formation of the communes
and in the beneficial results thereof.

The Roman municipal regimen, which is described in M. Guizot's _L'Essais
sur l'Histoire de France_ (1st Essay, pp. 1-44), did not everywhere
perish with the empire; it kept its footing in a great number of towns,
especially in those of Southern Gaul, Marseilles, Arles, Nismes,
Narbonne, Toulouse, &c.  At Arles the municipality actually bore the name
of commune (_communitas_), Toulouse gave her municipal magistrates the
name of _Capitouls,_ after the Capitol of Rome, and in the greater part
of the other towns in the south they were called Consuls.  After the
great invasion of barbarians from the seventh to the end of the eleventh
century, the existence of these Roman municipalities appears but rarely
and confusedly in history; but in this there is nothing peculiar to the
towns and the municipal regimen, for confusion and obscurity were at that
time universal, and the nascent feudal system was plunged therein as well
as the dying little municipal systems were.  Many Roman municipalities
were still subsisting without influencing any event of at all a general
kind, and without leaving any trace; and as the feudal system grew and
grew they still went on in the midst of universal darkness and anarchy.
They had penetrated into the north of Gaul in fewer numbers and with a
weaker organization than in the south, but still keeping their footing
and vaunting themselves on their Roman origin in the face of their
barbaric conquerors.  The inhabitants of Rheims remembered with pride
that their municipal magistracy and its jurisdiction were anterior to
Clovis, dating as they did from before the days of St. Remigius, the
apostle of the Franks.  The burghers of Metz boasted of having enjoyed
civil rights before there was any district of Lorraine: "Lorraine," said
they, "is young, and Metz is old."  The city of Bourges was one of the
most complete examples of successive transformations and denominations
attained by a Roman municipality from the sixth to the thirteenth century
under the Merovingians, the Carlovingians, and the earliest Capetians.
At the time of the invasion it had arenas, an amphitheatre, and all that
characterized a Roman city.  In the seventh century, the author of the
life of St. Estadiola, born at Bourges, says that "she was the child of
illustrious parents who, as worldly dignity is accounted, were notable by
reason of senatorial rank; and Gregory of Tours quotes a judgment
delivered by the principals (_primores_) of the city of Bourges.  Coins
of the time of Charles the Bald are struck with the name of the city of
Bourges and its inhabitants (_Bituriges_).  In 1107, under Philip I., the
members of the municipal body of Bourges are named _prud'hommes_.  In two
charters, one of Louis the Young, in 1145, and the other of Philip
Augustus, in 1218, the old senators of Bourges have the name at one time
of _bons hommes,_ at another of _barons_ of the city.  Under different
names, in accordance with changes of language, the Roman municipal
regimen held on and adapted itself to new social conditions.

In our own day there has been far too much inclination to dispute, and
M. Augustin Thierry has, in M. Guizot's opinion, made far too little of,
the active and effective part played by the kingship in the formation and
protection of the French communes.  Not only did the kings, as we shall
presently see, often interpose as mediators in the quarrels of the
communes with their laic or ecclesiastical lords, but many amongst them
assumed in their own domains and to the profit of the communes an
intelligent and beneficial initiative.  The city of Orleans was a happy
example of this.  It was of ancient date, and had prospered under the
Roman empire; nevertheless the continuance of the Roman municipal regimen
does not appear there clearly as we have just seen that it did in the
case of Bourges; it is chiefly from the middle ages and their kings that
Orleans held its municipal franchises and its privileges; they never
raised it to a commune, properly so called, by a charter sworn to and
guaranteed by independent institutions, but they set honestly to work
to prevent local oppression, to reform abuses, and make justice prevail
there.  From 1051 to 1281 there are to be found in the _Recueil des
ordonnances des rois_ seven important charters relating to Orleans.  In
1051, at the demand of the people of Orleans and its bishop, who appears
in the charter as the head of the people, the defender of the city, Henry
I. secures to the inhabitants of Orleans freedom of labor and of going to
and fro during the vintages, and interdicts his agents from exacting
anything upon the entry of wines.  From 1137 to 1178, during the
administration of Suger, Louis the Young in four successive ordinances
gives, in respect of Orleans, precise guarantees for freedom of trade,
security of person and property, and the internal peace of the city; and
in 1183 Philip Augustus exempts from all talliage, that is, from all
personal impost, the present and future inhabitants of Orleans, and
grants them divers privileges, amongst others that of not going to
law-courts farther from their homes than Etampes.  In 1281 Philip the
Bold renews and confirms the concessions of Philip Augustus.  Orleans was
not, within the royal domain, the only city where the kings of that
period were careful to favor the progress of the population, of wealth,
and of security; several other cities, and even less considerable burghs,
obtained similar favor; and in 1155 Louis the Young, probably in
confirmation of an act of his father, Louis the Fat, granted to the
little town of Lorris, in Gatinais (nowadays chief place of a canton in
the department of the Loiret), a charter, full of detail, which regulated
its interior regimen in financial, commercial, judicial, and military
matters, and secured to all its inhabitants good conditions in respect of
civil life.  This charter was in the course of the twelfth century
regarded as so favorable that it was demanded by a great number of towns
and burghs; the king was asked for _the customs of Lorris_
(_consuetudines Lauracienses_), and in the space of fifty years they were
granted to seven towns, some of them a considerable distance from
Orleanness.  The towns which obtained them did not become by this
qualification communes properly so called in the special and historical
sense of the word; they had no jurisdiction of their own, no independent
magistracy; they had not their own government in their hands; the king's
officers, provosts, bailiffs, or others, were the only persons who
exercised there a real and decisive power.  But the king's promises to
the inhabitants, the rights which he authorized them to claim from him,
and the rules which he imposed upon his officers in their government,
were not concessions which were of no value or which remained without
fruit.  As we follow in the course of our history the towns which,
without having been raised to communes properly so called, had obtained
advantages of that kind, we see them developing and growing in population
and wealth, and sticking more and more closely to that kingship from
which they had received their privileges, and which, for all its
imperfect observance and even frequent violation of promises, was
nevertheless accessible to complaint, repressed from time to time the
misbehavior of its officers, renewed at need and even extended
privileges, and, in a word, promoted in its administration the progress
of civilization and the counsels of reason, and thus attached the
burghers to itself without recognizing on their side those positive
rights and those guarantees of administrative independence which are in a
perfect and solidly constructed social fabric the foundation of political
liberty.

[Illustration: Insurrection in favor of the Commune at Cambrai----214]

Nor was it the kings alone who in the middle ages listened to the
counsels of reason, and recognized in their behavior towards their towns
the rights of justice.  Many bishops had become the feudal lords of the
episcopal city; and the Christian spirit enlightened and animated many
amongst them just as the monarchical spirit sometimes enlightened and
guided the kings.  Troubles had arisen in the town of Cambrai between the
bishops and the people.  "There was amongst the members of the
metropolitan clergy," says M. Augustin Thierry, "a certain Baudri de
Sarchainville, a native of Artois, who had the title of chaplain of the
bishopric.  He was a man of high character and of wise and reflecting
mind.  He did not share the violent aversion felt by most of his order
for the institution of communes.  He saw in this institution a sort of
necessity beneath which it would be inevitable sooner or later, Willy
nilly, to bow, and he thought it was better to surrender to the wishes of
the citizens than to shed blood in order to postpone for a while an
unavoidable revolution.  In 1098 he was elected Bishop of Noyon.  He
found this town in the same state in which he had seen that of Cambrai.
The burghers were at daily loggerheads with the metropolitan clergy, and
the registers of the Church contained a host of documents entitled _Peace
made between us and the burghers of Noyon._ But no reconciliation was
lasting; the truce was soon broken, either by the clergy or by the
citizens, who were the more touchy in that they had less security for
their persons and their property.  The new bishop thought that the
establishment of a commune sworn to by both the rival parties might
become a sort of compact of alliance between them, and he set about
realizing this noble idea before the word commune had served at Noyon as
the rallying cry of popular insurrection.  Of his own mere motion he
convoked in assembly all the inhabitants of the town, clergy, knights,
traders, and craftsmen.  He presented them with a charter which
constituted the body of burghers an association forever under magistrates
called jury-men, like those of Cambrai.  'Whosoever,' said the charter,
'shall desire to enter this commune shall not be able to be received as a
member of it by a single individual, but only in the presence of the
jurymen.  The sum of money he shall then give shall be employed for the
benefit of the town, and not for the private advantage of any one
whatsoever.  If the commune be outraged, all those who have sworn to it
shall be bound to march to its defence, and none shall be empowered to
remain at home unless he be infirm or sick, or so poor that he must needs
be himself the watcher of his own wife and children lying sick.  If any
one have wounded or slain any one on the territory of the commune, the
jurymen shall take vengeance therefor.'"

The other articles guarantee to the members of the commune of Noyon the
complete ownership of their property, and the right of not being handed
over to justice save before their own municipal magistrates.  The bishop
first swore to this charter, and the inhabitants of every condition took
the same oath after him.  In virtue of his pontifical authority he
pronounced the anathema, and all the curses of the Old and New Testament,
against whoever should in time to come dare to dissolve the commune or
infringe its regulations.  Furthermore, in order to give this new pact a
stronger warranty, Baudri requested the hing of France.  Louis the Fat,
to corroborate it, as they used to say at the time, by his approbation
and by the great seal of the crown.  The king consented to this request
of the bishop, and that was all the part taken by Louis the Fat in the
establishment of the commune of Noyon.  The king's charter is not
preserved, but, under the date of 1108, there is extant one of the
bishop's own, which may serve to substantiate the account given:--

"Baudri, by the grace of God Bishop of Noyon, to all those who do
preserve and go on in the faith:

"Most dear brethren, we learn by the example and words of-the holy
Fathers, that all good things ought to be committed to writing, for fear
lest hereafter they come to be forgotten.  Know, then, all Christians
present and to come, that I have formed at Noyon a commune, constituted
by the counsel and in an assembly of clergy, knights, and burghers; that
I have confirmed it by oath, by pontifical authority, and by the bond of
anathema; and that I have prevailed upon our lord King Louis to grant
this commune and corroborate it with the king's seal.  This establishment
formed by me, sworn to by a great number of persons, and granted by the
king, let none be so bold as to destroy or alter; I give warning thereof,
on behalf of God and myself, and I forbid it in the name of pontifical
authority.  Whosoever shall transgress and violate the present law, be
subjected to excommunication; and whosoever, on the contrary, shall
faithfully keep it, be preserved forever amongst those who dwell in the
house of the Lord."

This good example was not without fruit.  The communal regimen was
established in several towns, notably at St. Quentin and at Soissons,
without trouble or violence, and with one accord amongst the laic and
ecclesiastical lords and the inhabitants.

We arrive now at the third and chief source of the communes, at the case
of those which met feudal oppression with energetic resistance, and
which, after all the sufferings, vicissitudes, and outrages, on both
sides, of a prolonged struggle, ended by winning a veritable
administrative, and, to a certain extent, political independence.  The
number of communes thus formed from the eleventh to the thirteenth
century was great, and we have a detailed history of the fortunes of
several amongst them, Cambrai, Beauvais, Laon, Amiens, Rheims, Etampes,
Vezelay, &c.  To give a correct and vivid picture of them we will choose
the commune of Laon, which was one of those whose fortunes were most
checkered as well as most tragic, and which after more than two centuries
of a very tempestuous existence was sentenced to complete abolition,
first by Philip the Handsome, then by Philip the Long and Charles the
Handsome, and, finally, by Philip of Valois, "for certain misdeeds and
excesses notorious, enormous, and detestable, and on full deliberation of
our council."  The early portion of the history connected with the
commune of Laon has been narrated for us by Guibert, an abbot of Nogent-
sous-Coucy, in the diocese of Laon, a contemporary writer, sprightly and
bold.  "In all that I have written and am still writing," says he, "I
dismiss all men from my mind, caring not a whit about pleasing anybody.
I have taken my side in the opinions of the world, and with calmness and
indifference on my own account I expect to be exposed to all sorts of
language, to be as it were beaten with rods.  I proceed with my task,
being fully purposed to bear with equanimity the judgments of all who
come snarling after me."

Laon was at the end of the eleventh century one of the most important
towns in the kingdom of France.  It was full of rich and industrious
inhabitants; the neighboring people came thither for provisions or
diversion; and such concourse led to the greatest disturbances.  "The
nobles and their servitors," says M. Augustin Thierry, "sword in hand,
committed robbery upon the burghers; the streets of the town were not
safe by night or even by day, and none could go out without running a
risk of being stopped and robbed or killed.  The burghers in their turn
committed violence upon the peasants, who came to buy or sell at the
market of the town."  "Let me give as example," says Guibert of Nogent,
"a single fact, which, had it taken place amongst the Barbarians or the
Scythians, would assuredly have been considered the height of wickedness,
in the judgment even of those who recognize 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."

In 1106 the bishopric of Laon had been two years vacant.  It was sought
after and obtained for a sum of money, say contemporaries, by Gaudri, a
Norman by birth, referendary of Henry I., King of England, and one of
those Churchmen who, according to M. Augustin Thierry's expression, "had
gone in the train of William the Bastard to seek their fortunes amongst
the English by seizing the property of the vanquished."  It appears that
thenceforth the life of Gaudri had been scarcely edifying; he had, it is
said, the tastes and habits of a soldier; he was hasty and arrogant, and
he liked beyond everything to talk of fighting and hunting, of arms, of
horses, and of hounds.  When he was repairing with a numerous following
to Rome, to ask for confirmation of his election, he met at Langres Pope
Pascal II., come to France to keep the festival of Christmas at the abbey
of Cluny.  The pope had no doubt heard something about the indifferent
reputation of the new bishop, for, the very day after his arrival at
Langres, he held a conference with the ecclesiastics who had accompanied
Gaudri, and plied them with questions concerning him.  "He asked us
first," says Guibert of Nogent, who was in the train, "why we had chosen
a man who was unknown to us.  As none of the priests, some of whom did
not know even the first rudiments of the Latin language, made any answer
to this question, he turned to the abbots.  I was seated between my two
colleagues.  As they likewise kept silence, I began to be urged, right
and left, to speak.  I was one of those whom this election had
displeased; but with culpable timidity I had yielded to the authority of
my superiors in dignity.  With the bashfulness of youth I could only with
great difficulty and much blushing prevail upon myself to open my mouth.
The discussion was carried on, not in our mother tongue, but in the
language of scholars.  I therefore, though with great confusion of mind
and face, betook myself to speaking in a manner to tickle the palate of
him who was questioning us, wrapping up in artfully arranged form of
speech expressions which were softened down, but were not entirely
removed from the truth.  I said that we did not know, it was true, to the
extent of having been familiar by sight and intercourse with him, the man
of whom we had made choice, but that we had received favorable reports of
his integrity.  The pope strove to confound my arguments by this
quotation from the Gospel: 'He that hath seen giveth testimony.'  But as
he did not explicitly raise the objection that Gaudri had been elected by
desire of the court, all subtle subterfuge on any such point became
useless; so I gave it up, and confessed that I could say nothing in
opposition to the pontiff's words; which pleased him very much, for he
had less scholarship than would have become his high office.  Clearly
perceiving, however, that all the phrases I had piled up in defence of
our election had but little weight, I launched out afterwards upon the
urgent straits wherein our Church was placed, and on this subject I gave
myself the more rein in proportion as the person elected was unfitted for
the functions of the episcopate."

[Illustration: Burghers of Laon----220]

Gaudri was indeed very scantily fitted for the office of bishop, as the
town of Laon was not slow to perceive.  Scarcely had he been installed
when he committed strange outrages.  He had a man's eyes put out on
suspicion of connivance with his enemies; and he tolerated the murder of
another in the metropolitan church.  In imitation of rich crusaders on
their return from the East, he kept a black slave, whom he employed upon
his deeds of vengeance.  The burghers began to be disquieted, and to wax
wroth.  During a trip the bishop made to England, they offered a great
deal of money to the clergy and knights who ruled in his absence, if they
would consent to recognize by a genuine Act the right of the commonalty
of the inhabitants to be governed by authorities of their own choice.
"The clergy and knights," says a contemporary chronicler, "came to an
agreement with the common folk in hopes of enriching themselves in a
speedy and easy fashion."  A commune was therefore set up and proclaimed
at Laon, on the model of that of Noyon, and invested with effective
powers.  The bishop, on his return, was very wroth, and for some days
abstained from re-entering the town.  But the burghers acted with him, as
they had with his clergy and the knights: they offered him so large a sum
of money that "it was enough," says Guibert of Nogent, "to appease the
tempest of his words."  He accepted the commune, and swore to respect it.
The burghers wished to have a higher warranty; so they sent to Paris, to
King Louis the Fat, a deputation laden with rich presents.  "The king,"
says the chronicler, "won over by this plebeian bounty, confirmed the
commune by his own oath," and the deputation took back to Laon their
charter sealed with the great seal of the crown, and augmented by two
articles to the following purport: "The folks of Laon shall not be liable
to be forced to law away from their town; if the king have a suit against
any one amongst them, justice shall be done him in the episcopal court.
For these advantages, and others further granted to the aforesaid
inhabitants by the king's munificence, the folks of the commune have
covenanted to give the king, besides the old plenary court dues, and
man-and-horse dues [dues paid for exemption from active service in case
of war], three lodgings a year, if he come to the town, and, if he do not
come, they will pay him instead twenty livres for each lodging."

For three years the town of Laon was satisfied and tranquil; the burghers
were happy in the security they enjoyed, and proud of the liberty they
had won.  But in 1112 the knights, the clergy of the metropolitan church,
and the bishop himself had spent the money they had received, and keenly
regretted the power they had lost; and they meditated reducing to the old
condition the serfs emancipated from the yoke.  The bishop invited King
Louis the Fat to come to Laon for the keeping of Holy Week, calculating
upon his presence for the intimidation of the burghers.  "But the
burghers, who were in fear of ruin, says Guibert of Nogent, "promised the
king and those about him four hundred livres, or more, I am not quite
sure which; whilst the bishop and the grandees, on their side, urged the
monarch to come to an understanding with them, and engaged to pay him
seven hundred livres.  King Louis was so striking in person that he
seemed made expressly for the majesty of the throne; he was courageous in
war, a foe to all slowness in business, and stout-hearted in adversity;
sound, however, as he was on every other point, he was hardly
praiseworthy in this one respect, that he opened too readily both heart
and ear to vile fellows corrupted by avarice.  This vice was a fruitful
source of hurt, as well as blame, to himself, to say nothing of
unhappiness to many.  The cupidity of this prince always caused him to
incline towards those who promised him most.  All his own oaths, and
those of the bishops and the grandees, were consequently violated."  The
charter sealed with the king's seal was annulled; and on the part of the
king and the bishop, an order was issued to all the magistrates of the
commune to cease from their functions, to give up the seal and banner of
the town, and to no longer ring the belfry chimes which rang out the
opening and closing of their audiences.  But at this proclamation, so
violent was the uproar in the town, that the king, who had hitherto
lodged in a private hotel, thought it prudent to leave, and go to pass
the night in the episcopal palace, which was surrounded by strong walls.
Not content with this precaution, and probably a little ashamed of what
he had done, he left Laon the next morning at daybreak, with all his
train, without waiting for the festival of Easter, for the celebration
of which he had undertaken his journey.

All the day after his departure the shops of the tradespeople and the
houses of the innkeepers were kept closed; no sort of article was offered
for sale; everybody remained shut up at home.  But when there is wrath at
the bottom of men's souls, the silence and stupor of the first paroxysm
are of short duration.  Next day a rumor spread that the bishop and the
grandees were busy "in calculating the fortunes of all the citizens, in
order to demand that, to supply the sum promised to the king, each should
pay on account of the destruction of the commune as much as each had
given for its establishment."  In a fit of violent indignation the
burghers assembled; and forty of them bound themselves by oath, for life
or death, to kill the bishop and all those grandees who had labored for
the ruin of the commune.  The archdeacon, Anselm, a good sort of man, of
obscure birth, who heartily disapproved of the bishop's perjury, went
nevertheless and warned him, quite privately, and without betraying any
one, of the danger that threatened him, urging him not to leave his
house, and particularly not to accompany the procession on Easter-day.
"Pooh!" answered the bishop, "I die by the hands of such fellows!"  Next
day, nevertheless, he did not appear at matins, and did not set foot
within the church; but when the hour for the procession came, fearing to
be accused of cowardice, he issued forth at the head of his clergy,
closely followed by his domestics and some knights with arms and armor
under their clothes.  As the company filed past, one of the forty
conspirators, thinking the moment favorable for striking the blow, rushed
out suddenly from under an arch, with a shout of "_Commune! commune!_"
A low murmur ran through the throng; but not a soul joined in the shout
or the movement, and the ceremony carne to an end without any explosion.
The day after, another solemn procession was to take place to the church
of St. Vincent.  Somewhat reassured, but still somewhat disquieted, the
bishop fetched from the domains of the bishopric a body of peasants, some
of whom he charged to protect the church, others his own palace, and once
more accompanied the procession without the conspirators daring to attack
him.  This time he was completely reassured, and dismissed the peasants
he had sent for.  "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's, and prayed him to put a
stop to this state of violence.  'What do you suppose,' said he to me,
'those 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."

Three days later all seemed quiet; and the bishop was busy with his
archdeacon in discussing the sums to be exacted from the burghers.  All
at once a tumult arose in the town; and a crowd of people thronged the
streets, shouting "_Commune! commune!_" Bands of burghers armed with
swords, axes, bows, hatchets, clubs, and lances, rushed into the
episcopal palace.  At the news of this, the knights who had promised the
bishop to go to his assistance if he needed it came up one after another
to his protection; and three of them, in succession, were hotly attacked
by the burgher bands, and fell after a short resistance.  The episcopal
palace was set on fire.  The bishop, not being in a condition to repulse