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, assaults, 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 passers-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 title 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 mass, in order to deliver a discourse, touching those execrable institutions 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 institutions 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 partition of their plunder; all that the small folks had taken soon passed 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 massacre, 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 assembly of the Church of the Gauls,” says Guibert of Nogent, “assembled at Beauvais;” and this sentence was read every Sunday after mass in all the metropolitan and parochial churches. Public feeling against Thomas de Marle became so strong that Enguerrand de Bowes, Lord of Coucy, who passed, 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 assailants; 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
