d 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
churches he had spoiled, giving guarantees for future behavior, and
earnestly praying for re-admission to the communion of the faithful. As
for those folks of Laon, perpetrators of