the price agreed upon; and then the seller would say to the
buyer, 'Come with me to my house to see and examine the whole of the
articles I am selling you.' The other would go; and then, when they came
to the bin containing the goods, the honest seller would take off and
hold up the lid, saying to the buyer, 'Step hither and put your head or
arms into the bin to make quite sure that it is all exactly the same
goods as I showed you outside.' And then when the other, jumping on to
the edge of the bin, remained leaning on his belly, with his head and
shoulders hanging down, the worthy seller, who kept in the rear, would
hoist up the thoughtless rustic by the feet, push him suddenly into the
bin, and, clapping on the lid as he fell, keep him shut up in this safe
prison until he had bought himself out."

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

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

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

Taking advantage of the absence of Bishop Gaudri in England, the
burghers bribed the clergy and knights who governed in his stead, and
obtained from them the privi