If anyone slander the Mayor in the exercise of his functions, the slanderer's house shall be demolished, or he shall pay ransom for the same, or he shall deliver himself to the mercy of the Councilmen.
XVII.
No one shall molest or vex the strangers of the Commune. If any dare do so, he shall be deemed a violator of the Commune, and justice shall be enforced upon his person and his property.
XVIII.
Whosoever shall have wounded with arms any one who, like himself, shall have taken the oath of the Commune, then, unless he justifies his act under oath or with witnesses, he shall lose his hand, and shall pay nine livres; six for the fortifications of the city and of the Commune, three for the ransom of his hand. If he is unable to pay, he shall leave his hand at the mercy of the Commune.
Fergan had just finished transcribing the charter, when the door of his room opened. Colombaik stepped in. A young and comely wife of eighteen years at the most accompanied him. The son of the quarryman, a fine strapping young man of twenty-two, united in the expression of his face the sweetness of his mother and the energy of his father. Like the latter, he also was clad half townsman half soldier. His casque of black steel, ribbed with shining iron, imparted a martial air to his pleasing and open countenance. He carried a heavy cross-bow on his shoulder. From his right side hung a leather holster that held the bolts needed for his weapon. His wife, Martine, only daughter of the old age of Gildas, the elder brother of Bezenecq the Rich, was of the age and endowed with the charms of Isoline, a victim like her father of the cupidity of Neroweg VI.
"Father!" Colombaik cried out joyfully upon entering the room and alluding to his war-like outfit, "in your quality of constable of our bourgeois and artisan militia, do you find me worthy of figuring in the troop? Does Colombaik, the soldier, make you forget by his martial outfit Colombaik, the townsman and tanner?"
"Thank heaven, Colombaik the soldier will not, I hope, have occasion to blot out Colombaik the tanner," put in Joan with her sweet smile, "any more than Fergan the constable will have occasion to blot out Fergan the master quarryman. You will both continue to battle, you with your beaters against the hides in the tannery, your father with his pick against the stones of his quarry. Is not that your hope and desire, dear Martine?" Joan added, turning to the wife of her son.
"Certainly, my good mother," responded Martine. "Fortunately they are far behind, those evil days when the bourgeois and artisans of Laon, in order to escape the exactions of the bishop, of the clergymen, and of the knights, often had to barricade themselves in their houses and sustain a regular siege; and when, but too often, despite their resistance, their houses were entered and they were carried to the episcopal palace, where they were tortured for ransom. What a difference, my God, since we have been living under the Commune! We now are so free, so happy!" But Martine added with a sigh: "Oh, I regret that my poor father did not live to witness the change! His last moments would not have been saddened by the uneasiness that our future gave him. Seeing the terrible acts of violence indulged in by Bishop Gaudry, together with the nobles, against the inhabitants of Laon, acts that might any day have reached us as they reached so many others among our neighbors, my father always had before him the frightful fate of my uncle Bezenecq and his poor daughter Isoline!"
"Be at ease, my dear wife," rejoined Colombaik; "those accursed days shall not return! No, no! To-day old Gaul bristles with free Communes, as three hundred years ago it bristled with feudal castles. The Communes are our fortresses! Our belfry tower is our donjon. We no longer have to fear the seigneurs!"