Circumstanced as they were, what other means had they to attain this end but ramparts and gates, a common treasury, a permanent military force, and magistrates who were both administrators, judges, and captains?  The hotel de ville, or mansion-house, immediately became a sort of civic temple, where the banner of the Commune, the emblems of unity, and the seal which sanctioned the municipal acts were preserved.  Then arose the watch-towers, where the watchmen were unceasingly posted night and day, and whence the alarm signal was ever 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.