In our own day there has been far too much inclination to dispute, and M. Augustin Thierry has, in M. Guizot’s opinion, made far too little of, the active and effective part played by the kingship in the formation and protection of the French communes.  Not only did the kings, as we shall presently see, often interpose as mediators in the quarrels of the communes with their laic or ecclesiastical lords, but many amongst them assumed in their own domains and to the profit of the communes an intelligent and beneficial initiative.  The city of Orleans was a happy example of this.  It was of ancient date, and had prospered under the Roman empire; nevertheless the continuance of the Roman municipal regimen does not appear there clearly as we have just seen that it did in the case of Bourges; it is chiefly from the middle ages and their kings that Orleans held its municipal franchises and its privileges; they never raised it to a commune, properly so called, by a charter sworn to and guaranteed by independent institutions, but they set honestly to work to prevent local oppression, to reform abuses, and make justice prevail there.  From 1051 to 1281 there are to be found in the Recueil des ordonnances des rois seven important charters relating to Orleans.  In 1051, at the demand of the people of Orleans and its bishop, who appears in the charter as the head of the people, the defender of the city, Henry I. secures to the inhabitants of Orleans freedom of labor and of going to and fro during the vintages, and interdicts his agents from exacting anything upon the entry of wines.  From 1137 to 1178, during the administration of Suger, Louis the Young in four successive ordinances gives, in respect of Orleans, precise guarantees for freedom of trade, security of person and property, and the internal peace of the city; and in 1183 Philip Augustus exempts from all talliage, that is, from all personal impost, the present and future inhabitants of Orleans, and grants them divers privileges, amongst others that of not going to law-courts farther from their homes than Etampes.  In 1281 Philip the Bold renews and confirms the concessions of Philip Augustus.  Orleans was not, within the royal domain, the only city where the kings of that period were careful to favor the progress of the population, of wealth, and of security; several other cities, and even less considerable burghs, obtained similar favor; and in 1155 Louis the Young, probably in confirmation of an act of his father, Louis the Fat, granted to the little town of Lorris, in Gatinais (nowadays chief place of a canton in the department of the Loiret), a charter, full of detail, which regulated its interior regimen in financial, commercial, judicial, and military matters, and secured to all its inhabitants good conditions in respect of civil life.  This charter was in the course of the twelfth century regarded as so favorable that it was demanded by a great number of towns and burghs; the king was asked for the customs of Lorris