A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume II Part 6

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 n.o.ble origin, but most ign.o.ble 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, n.o.bles, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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, a.s.suredly, 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 pa.s.s into the possession of women, but it should belong altogether to the virile s.e.x." 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, a.s.sembled 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 G.o.d. 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.n.a.logous in their aim, and in every case neither a.s.suming nor pretending to a.s.sume 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 munic.i.p.al 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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.sumed 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 ent.i.tle 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 subst.i.tute, or would fain subst.i.tute, 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 doc.u.ments 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, a.s.sembling 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.semblage. 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sages 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 munic.i.p.al 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, Ma.r.s.eilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne, Toulouse, &c. At Arles the munic.i.p.ality actually bore the name of commune (_communitas_), Toulouse gave her munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.alities appears but rarely and confusedly in history; but in this there is nothing peculiar to the towns and the munic.i.p.al regimen, for confusion and obscurity were at that time universal, and the nascent feudal system was plunged therein as well as the dying little munic.i.p.al systems were. Many Roman munic.i.p.alities 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 munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.ality 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 ill.u.s.trious parents who, as worldly dignity is accounted, were notable by reason of senatorial rank; and Gregory of Tours quotes a judgment delivered by the princ.i.p.als (_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 munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.al 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 a.s.sumed 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 munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.al franchises and its privileges; they never raised it to a commune, properly so called, by a charter sworn to and guaranteed by independent inst.i.tutions, 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 t.i.tle 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 inst.i.tution of communes. He saw in this inst.i.tution a sort of necessity beneath which it would be inevitable sooner or later, w.i.l.l.y 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 doc.u.ments ent.i.tled _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 n.o.ble idea before the word commune had served at Noyon as the rallying cry of popular insurrection. Of his own mere motion he convoked in a.s.sembly all the inhabitants of the town, clergy, knights, traders, and craftsmen. He presented them with a charter which const.i.tuted the body of burghers an a.s.sociation 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 munic.i.p.al 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 G.o.d 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, const.i.tuted by the counsel and in an a.s.sembly 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.bles 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 a.s.suredly have been considered the height of wickedness, in the judgment even of those who recognize no law. On Sat.u.r.day 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 emanc.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sembled; 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 rea.s.sured, 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 rea.s.sured, 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 a.s.sistance 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 the a.s.saults of the populace, a.s.sumed the dress of one of his own domestics, fled to the cellar of the church, shut himself in, and ensconced himself in a cask, the bung-hole of which was stopped up by a faithful servitor. The crowd wandered about everywhere in search of him on whom they wished to wreak their vengeance. A bandit named Teutgaud, notorious in those times for his robberies, a.s.saults, and murders of travellers, had thrown himself headlong into the cause of the commune.

The bishop, who knew him, had by way of pleasantry and on account of his evil mien given him the nickname of _Isengrin_. This was the name which was given in the fables of the day to the wolf, and which corresponded to that of Master Reynard. Teutgaud and his men penetrated into the cellar of the church; they went along tapping upon all the casks; and on what suspicion there is no knowing, but Teutgaud halted in front of that in which the bishop was huddled up, and had it opened, crying, "Is there any one here?" "Only a poor prisoner," answered the bishop, trembling. "Ha!

ha!" said the playful bandit, who recognized the voice, "so it is you, Master Isengrin, who are hiding here! "And he took him by the hair, and dragged him out of his cask. The bishop implored the conspirators to spare his life, offering to swear on the Gospels to abdicate the bishopric, promising them all the money he possessed, and saying that if they pleased he would leave the country. The reply was insults and blows. He was immediately despatched; and Teutgaud, seeing the episcopal ring glittering on his finger, cut off the finger to get possession of the ring. The body, stripped of all covering, was thrust into a corner, where pa.s.sers-by threw stones or mud at it, accompanying their insults with ribaldry and curses.

[Bishop Gaudri dragged from the Cask----224]

Murder and arson are contagious. All the day of the insurrection and all the following night armed bands wandered about the streets of Laon searching everywhere for relatives, friends, or servitors of the bishop, for all whom the angry populace knew or supposed to be such, and wreaking on their persons or their houses a ghastly or a brutal vengeance. In a fit of terror many poor innocents fled before the blind wrath of the populace; some were caught and cut down pell-mell amongst the guilty; others escaped through the vineyards planted between two hills in the outskirts of the town. "The progress of the fire, kindled on two sides at once, was so rapid," says Guibert of Nogent, "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." Some insurgents stopped a young man who had been body-servant to the bishop, and asked him whether the bishop had been killed or not; they knew nothing about it, nor did he know any more; he helped them to look for the corpse, and when they came upon it, it had been so mutilated that not a feature was recognizable. "I remember," said the young man, "that when the prelate was alive he liked to talk of deeds of war, for which to his hurt he always showed too much bent; and he often used to say that one day in a sham-fight, just as he was, all in the way of sport, attacking a certain knight, the latter hit him with his lance, and wounded him under the neck, near the tracheal artery." The body of Gaudri was eventually recognized by this mark, and "Archdeacon Anselm went the next day," says Guibert of Nogent, "to beg of the insurgents permission at least to bury it, if only because it had once borne the t.i.tle and worn the insignia of bishop. They consented, but reluctantly. It were impossible to tell how many threats and insults were launched against those who undertook the obsequies, and what outrageous language was vented against the dead himself. His corpse was thrown into a half-dug hole, and at church there was none of the prayers or ceremonies prescribed for the burial of, I will not say a bishop, but the worst of Christians." A few days afterwards, Raoul, Archbishop of Rheims, came to Laon to purify the church. "The wise and venerable archbishop," says Guibert, "after having, on his arrival, seen to more decently disposing the remains of some of the dead and celebrated divine service in memory of all, amidst the tears and utter grief of their relatives and connections, suspended the holy sacrifice of the ma.s.s, in order to deliver a discourse, touching those execrable inst.i.tutions of communes, whereby we see serfs, contrary to all right and justice, withdrawing themselves by force from the lawful authority of their masters."

Here is a striking instance of the changeableness of men's feelings and judgments; and it causes a shock even when it is natural and almost allowable. Guibert of Nogent, the contemporary historian, who was but lately loud in his blame of the bishop of Laon's character and conduct, now takes sides with the reaction aroused by popular excesses and vindictiveness, and is indignant with "those execrable inst.i.tutions of communes," the source of so many disturbances and crimes. The burghers of Laon themselves, "having reflected upon the number and enormity of the crimes they had committed, shrank up with fear," says Guibert, "and dreaded the judgment of the king." To protect themselves against the consequences of his resentment, they added a fresh wound to the old by summoning to their aid Thomas de Marle, son of Lord Enguerrand de Coucy.

"This Thomas, from his earliest youth, enriched himself by plundering the poor and the pilgrim, contracted several incestuous marriages, and exhibited a ferocity so unheard of in our age, that certain people, even amongst those who have a reputation for cruelty, appear less lavish of the blood of common sheep than Thomas was of human blood. Such was the man whom the burghers of Laon implored to come and put himself at their head, and whom they welcomed with joy when he entered their town. As for him, when he had heard their request, he consulted his own people to know what he ought to do; and they all replied that his forces were not sufficiently numerous to defend such a city against the king. Thomas then induced the burghers to go out and hold a meeting in a field where he would make known to them his plan. When they were about a mile from the town, he said to them, 'Laon is the head of the kingdom; it is impossible for me to keep the king from making himself master of it. If you dread his arms, follow me to my own land, and you will find in me a protector and a friend.' These words threw them into an excess of consternation; soon, however, the popular party, troubled at the recollection of the crime they had committed, and fancying they already saw the king threatening their lives, fled away to the number of a great many in the wake of Thomas. Teutgaud himself, that murderer of Bishop Gaudri, hastened to put himself under the wing of the Lord of Marie.

Before long the rumor spread abroad amongst the population of the country-places near Laon that that town was quite empty of inhabitants; and all the peasants rushed thither and took possession of the houses they found without defenders. Who could tell, or be believed if he were to attempt to tell, how much money, raiment, and provision of all kinds was discovered in this city? Before long there arose between the first and last comers disputes about the part.i.tion of their plunder; all that the small folks had taken soon pa.s.sed 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 burned the houses of the clergy and grandees whom they hated; and now the grandees, escaped from the ma.s.sacre, carried off in their turn from the houses of the fugitives all means of subsistence and all movables to the very hinges and bolts."

The rumor of so many disasters, crimes, and reactions succeeding one another spread rapidly throughout all districts. Thomas de Marle was put under the ban of the kingdom, and visited with excommunication "by a general a.s.sembly of the Church of the Gauls," says Guibert of Nogent, "a.s.sembled at Beauvais; "and this sentence was read every Sunday after ma.s.s in all the metropolitan and parochial churches. Public feeling against Thomas de Marle became so strong that Enguerrand de Bowes, Lord of Coucy, who pa.s.sed, says Suger, for his father, joined those who declared war against him in the name of Church and King. Louis the Fat took the field in person against him. "Men-at-arms, and in very small numbers, too," says Guibert of Nogent, "were with difficulty induced to second the king, and did not do so heartily; but the light-armed infantry made up a considerable force, and the Archbishop of Rheims and the bishops had summoned all the people to this expedition, whilst offering to all absolution from their sins. Thomas de Marle, though at that time helpless and stretched upon his bed, was not sparing of scoffs and insults towards his a.s.sailants; and at first he absolutely refused to listen to the king's summons." But Louis persisted without wavering in his enterprise, exposing himself freely, and in person leading his infantry to the attack when the men-at-arms did not come on or bore themselves slackly. He carried successively the castles of Crecy and Nogent, domains belonging to Thomas de Marle, and at last reduced him to the necessity of buying himself off at a heavy ransom, indemnifying the churches he had spoiled, giving guarantees for future behavior, and earnestly praying for re-admission to the communion of the faithful. As for those folks of Laon, perpetrators of or accomplices in the murder of Bishop Gaudri, who had sought refuge with Thomas de Marle, the king showed them no mercy. "He ordered them," says Suger, "to be strung up to the gibbet, and left for food to the voracity of kites, and crows, and vultures."

There are certain discrepancies between the two accounts, both contemporaneous, which we possess of this incident in the earliest years of the twelfth century, one in the Life of Louis the Fat, by Suger, and the other in the Life of Guibert of Nogent, by himself. They will be easily recognized on comparing what was said, after Suger, in Chapter XVIII. of this history, with what has just been said here after Guibert.

But these discrepancies are of no historical importance, for they make no difference in respect of the essential facts characteristic of social condition at the period, and of the behavior and position of the actors.

Louis the Fat, after his victory over Thomas de Marle and the fugitives from Laon, went to Laon with the Archbishop of Rheims; and the presence of the king, whilst restoring power to the foes of the commune, inspired them, no doubt, with a little of the spirit of moderation, for there was an interval of peace, during which no attention was paid to anything but expiatory ceremonies and the restoration of the churches which had been a prey to the flames. The archbishop celebrated a solemn ma.s.s for the repose of the souls of those who had perished during the disturbances, and he preached a sermon exhorting serfs to submit themselves to their masters, and warning them on pain of anathema from resisting by force.

The burghers of Laon, however, did not consider every sort of resistance forbidden, and the lords had, no doubt, been taught not to provoke it, for in 1128, sixteen years after the murder of Bishop Gaudri, fear of a fresh insurrection determined his successor to consent to the inst.i.tution of a new commune, the charter of which was ratified by Louis the Fat in an a.s.sembly held at Compiegne. Only the name of commune did not recur in this charter; it was replaced by that of Peace-establishment; the territorial boundaries of the commune were called peace-boundaries, and to designate its members recourse was had to the formula, _All those who have signed this peace_. The preamble of the charter runs, "In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, we Louis, by the grace of G.o.d king of the French, do make known to all our lieges present and to come that, with the consent of the barons of our kingdom and the inhabitants of the city of Laon, we have set up in the said city a peace-establishment."

And after having enumerated the limits, forms, and rules of it, the charter concludes with this declaration of amnesty: "All former trespa.s.ses and offences committed before the ratification of the present treaty are wholly pardoned. If any one, banished for having trespa.s.sed in past time, desire to return to the town, he shall be admitted and shall recover possession of his property. Excepted from pardon, however, are the thirteen whose names do follow; "and then come the names of the thirteen excepted from the amnesty and still under banishment.