The only ones to fight.”
Reaping.
Toul contains little to detain us except its fine cathedral; it is “dullest of the dull,” no movement in its streets; a railroad hurries past her gates, but few of the passengers enter them; her history alone is interesting: built before history for this portion of the globe began, she was, when visited by the Roman eagles, the capital of the warlike Leuci.
Erected at a very early period into a bishopric, its Bishops were its rulers; nominally subject to these Bishops and the Counts of Toul, the burghers seem actually to have enjoyed all the rights of a free city, and eventually the town was reckoned one of the free Imperial cities.
In a quarrel which arose between these burghers and their bishop, Gilles de Sorcy, in the thirteenth century, three arbiters were named to settle the dispute. It appeared, that formerly the townspeople had been obliged to find food for the Bishop’s table during the month of April; this custom had fallen into disuse, but now Gilles claimed arrears and its continuance: the burghers, in their turn, claimed certain gifts from the Bishop on his entrance into the city.
It was agreed that the town should pay to the Bishop sixteen pounds, money of Toul, each year; and he, on his part, was to distribute, on his solemn entry into the city, forty measures of wine, eight hundred pounds of bread, and an ox boiled (?) whole, with parsnips.
By this award it would appear that neither party had the upper hand, but that the power was nearly equally divided.
At the death of Gilles dissensions broke out, and in A.D. 1300 the people placed themselves under the protection of the King of France. Disputes now arose between the French monarchs and the German emperors, as Toul was an Imperial free city; but the French were the more active, and the city was considered under their protection.
Occasionally the citizens had to be recalled to a sense of their allegiance by burning their suburbs or occupying their town. Finally, in the sixteenth century, Toul was formally ceded to France, and in A.D. 1700 Louis XIV. pulled down the old walls, and erected the fortifications within which the town now stagnates.