or accomplices in the murder of
Bishop Gaudri, who had sought refuge with Thomas de Marle, the king
showed them no mercy. "He ordered them," says Suger, "to be strung up to
the gibbet, and left for food to the voracity of kites, and crows, and
vultures."

There are certain discrepancies between the two accounts, both
contemporaneous, which we possess of this incident in the earliest years
of the twelfth century, one in the Life of Louis the Fat, by Suger, and
the other in the Life of Guibert of Nogent, by himself. They will be
easily recognized on comparing what was said, after Suger, in Chapter
XVIII. of this history, with what has just been said here after Guibert.
But these discrepancies are of no historical importance, for they make no
difference in respect of the essential facts characteristic of social
condition at the period, and of the behavior and position of the actors.

Louis the Fat, after his victory over Thomas de Marle and the fugitives
from Laon, went to Laon with the Archbishop of Rheims; and the presence
of the king, whilst restoring power to the foes of the commune, inspired
them, no doubt, with a little of the spirit of moderation, for there was
an interval of peace, during which no attention was paid to anything but
expiatory ceremonies and the restoration of the churches which had been a
prey to the flames. The archbishop celebrated a solemn mass for the
repose of the souls of those who had perished during the disturbances,
and he preached a sermon exhorting serfs to submit themselves to their
masters, and warning them on pain of anathema from resisting by force.
The burghers of Laon, however, did not consider every sort of resistance
forbidden, and the lords had, no doubt, been taught not to provoke it,
for in 1128, sixteen years after the murder of Bishop Gaudri, fear of a
fresh insurrection determined his successor to consent to the institution
of a new commune, the charter of which was ratified by Louis the Fat in
an assembly held at Compiegne. Only the name of commune did not recur in
this charter; it was replaced by that of Peace-establishment; the
territorial boundaries of the commune were called peace-boundaries, and
to designate its members recourse was had to the formula, _All those who
have signed this peace_. The preamble of the charter runs, "In the name
of the holy and indivisible Trinity, we Louis, by the grace of God king
of the French, do make known to all our lieges present