tor
inculpated the abbot, and each appealed to Rome, with what result is
unknown. After nearly a century of strained relations and minor
troubles, Abbot Gerard in 1278 had walls and other buildings erected
on the way to the meadow: the scholars met in force and demolished
them. The abbot, who was equal to the occasion, rang his bells, called
his vassals to arms and sent a force to seize the gates of the city
that gave on the suburb, to prevent reinforcements reaching the
scholars; his retainers then attacked the rioters, killed several and
wounded many. The rector complained to the papal legate and threatened
to close the schools if reparation were not made and justice done
within fifteen days, whereupon the legate ordered the provost of the
monastery to be expelled for five years. The royal council forced the
abbot to exile ten of his vassals, to endow two chantries for the
repose of the souls of slain _clercs_ and compensate their fathers by
fines of two hundred and four hundred livres respectively, and to pay
the rector two hundred livres to be distributed among poor scholars.
In 1345 another bloody fight took place between the monks and the
scholars over the right to fish there.

[Footnote 70: There were two Pres, the Petit Pre roughly represented
by the area now enclosed by the Rues de Seine, Jacob and Bonaparte;
and the Grand Pre which extended nearly to the Champ de Mars. A narrow
stream, the Petite Seine, divided them.]

Many circumstances contributed to make Paris the capital of the
intellectual world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. France has
ever been the home of great enthusiasms and has not feared to "follow
where airy voices lead." The conception and enforcement of a Truce of
God (_Treve de Dieu_) whereby all acts of hostility in private or
public wars ceased during certain days of the week or on church
festivals; the noble ideal of Christian chivalry; the first
crusade--all had their origin in France. The crusaders carried the
prestige of the French name and diffused the French idiom over Europe.
It was a French monk preaching in France who gave voice to the general
enthusiasm; a French pope approved his impassioned oration; a French
shout "_Dieu le veut_" became the crusader's war-cry. The conquest of
the Holy Land was organised by the French, its first Christian king
was a French knight, its laws were indited in French, and to this day
every Christian in the East is a Frank whatever tongue he