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The Commune Of Laon
by
The king came. The burghers were not long in suspecting the cause of his coming. They offered him some four hundred livres to confirm them in their liberties. The bishop and his party offered him seven hundred livres to restore their power. The higher offer prevailed. The charter was annulled, and the magistrates of the commune were ordered to cease from their functions, to give up the seal and the banner of the town, and no more to ring the belfry-chimes which indicated the beginning and the ending of their sessions.
Wrath and uproar succeeded this decree. The burghers had tasted the sweets of liberty, and were not ready to lose their dearly-bought independence. So violent were they that the king himself was frightened, and hastily left his hotel for the stronger walls of the episcopal palace. At dawn of the next day, partly in fear and perhaps partly in shame, he departed from Laon with all his train, leaving the Easter festival to take place without him.
It was destined to be a serious festival for Bishop Gaudri and his crew of base-souled followers. The king had left a harvest of indignation behind him. On the day after his going all shops and taverns were kept closed and nothing was sold; every one remained at home, nursing his wrath. The next day the anger of the citizens grew more demonstrative. A rumor spread that the bishop and grandees were busy calculating the fortunes of the citizens, that they might force from them the sum promised the king. The burghers assembled in burning indignation, and forty of them bound themselves by oath to kill the bishop and all those who had aided him to destroy the commune.
Some rumor of this got afloat. Anselm, the arch-deacon, warned the bishop that his life was in danger, and urged him not to leave his house, and, in particular, not to accompany the procession on Easter-day. Thus Caesar had been warned, and had contemned the warning. Gaudri emulated him, and answered, with a sneer of contempt,–
“Pooh! I die by the hands of such fellows!”
Easter-day came. The bishop did not appear at matins, or at the later church service. But, lest he should be called coward, he joined the procession, followed by his clergy and domestics, and by a number of knights with arms and armor concealed under their clothes. Slowly through the streets moved the procession, the people looking on in lowering silence. As it passed a dark arch one of the forty rushed suddenly out, crying, “Commune! commune!” No one joined him; the crowd seemed intimidated; their feelings subsided in a murmur; the procession continued on its way undisturbed.
The next day another procession took place. This day the bishop had filled the town with peasants, who were charged to protect his church, his palace, and himself. The people kept quiet. All went well. Bishop Gaudri, satisfied that the talk of danger was all a myth, now dismissed the peasants, feeling quite secure.
“On the fourth day after Easter,” says Guibert of Nogent, “my corn having been pillaged in consequence of the disorder that reigned in the town, I repaired to the bishop, and prayed him to put a stop to this state of violence.
“‘What do you suppose,’ said he to me, ‘these fellows can do with all their outbreaks? Why, if my blackamoor, John, were to pull the nose of the most formidable amongst them, the poor devil durst not even grumble. Have I not forced them to give up what they called their commune, for the whole duration of my life?’
“I held my tongue,” adds Guibert; “many folks besides me warned him of his danger, but he would not deign to believe anybody.”
For three days all kept quiet. The bishop and his myrmidons busied themselves in calculating how much cash they could squeeze from the people. The people lowered like a gathering storm. All at once the storm broke. A sudden tumult arose; crowds filled the streets. “Commune! commune!” was the general cry; as if by magic, swords, lances, axes, bows, and clubs appeared in the hands of the people; with wild shouts of vengeance they rushed through the streets and burst into the bishop’s palace. The knights who had promised to protect him hastened thither and faced the infuriated populace. The first three who appeared were hotly attacked and fell before the axes of the burghers. The others held back. In a few minutes more flames appeared in the palace, and in no long time it was a mass of seething fire. The day of vengeance had come.