nearly every
town in France tells of some such demand for chartered privileges,
ordinarily ending in the freeing of the town from the tyranny of the
nobles. Each town had its municipal government, the _Commune_. It was
this body which spoke for the burghers, which led in the struggle for
liberty, and which succeeded in gaining for most of the towns a charter
of rights and privileges. Many stirring incidents might be told of this
fight for freedom. We shall confine ourselves to the story of the revolt
of the Commune of Laon, of which a sprightly contemporary description
exists.

At the end of the eleventh century Laon was a bustling and important
city. It was the seat of a cathedral and under the government of a
bishop; was wealthy and prosperous, stirring and turbulent; was the
gathering-place of the surrounding people, the centre of frequent
disturbances. Thierry draws a vivid picture of the state of affairs
existing within its walls. "The nobles and their servitors," he says,
"sword in hand, committed robbery upon the burghers; the streets of the
town were not safe by night nor 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."

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

"Let me give as example," he says, "a single fact, which had it taken
place among the Barbarians or the Scythians would assuredly have been
considered the height of wickedness, in the judgment even of those who
know no law. On Saturday the inhabitants of the country places used to
leave their fields and come from all sides to Laon to get provisions at
the market. The townsfolk used then to go round the place carrying in
baskets or bowls or otherwise samples of vegetables or grain or any
other article, as if they wished to sell. They would offer them to the
first peasant who was in search of such things to buy; he would promise
to pay