r ready to issue its powerful sounds
when danger threatened the city. These watch-towers, the monuments of
liberty, became as necessary for the burghers as the clock-towers of
their cathedrals, whose brilliant peals and joyous chimes gave zest to the
popular feasts (Fig. 37). The mansion-houses built in Flanders from the
fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, under municipal influence, are
marvels of architecture.

[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Chimes of the Clock of St. Lambert of Liege.]

Who is there who could thoroughly describe or even appreciate all the
happy or unhappy vicissitudes relating to the establishment of the
Communes? We read of the Commune of Cambrai, four times created, four
times destroyed, and which was continually at war with the Bishops; the
Commune of Beauvais, sustained on the contrary by the diocesan prelate
against two nobles who possessed feudal rights over it; Laon, a commune
bought for money from the bishop, afterwards confirmed by the King, and
then violated by fraud and treachery, and eventually buried in the blood
of its defenders. We read also of St. Quentin, where the Count of
Vermandois and his vassals voluntarily swore to maintain the right of the
bourgeois, and scrupulously respected their oath. In many other localities
the feudal dignitaries took alarm simply at the name of Commune, and
whereas they would not agree to the very best arrangements under this
terrible designation, they did not hesitate to adopt them when called
either the "laws of friendship," the "peace of God," or the "institutions
of peace." At Lisle, for instance, the bourgeois magistrates took the name
of _appeasers_, or watchers over friendship. At Aire, in Artois, the
members of friendship mutually, not only helped one another against the
enemy, but also assisted one another in distress.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.--The Deputies of the burghers of Ghent, in revolt
against their Sovereign Louis II., Count of Flanders, come to beg him to
pardon them, and to return to their Town. 1397--Miniature from Froissart,
No. 2644 (National Library of Paris)]

Amiens deserves the first place amongst the cities which dearly purchased
their privileges. The most terrible and sanguinary war was sustained by
the bourgeois against their count and lord of the manor, assisted by King
Louis le Gros, who had under similar circumstances just taken the part of
the nobles of Laon.

From Amiens, which, having been triumphant, became a perfect