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 20 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. the commune was destroyed, and the townspeople after- wards taxed to pay the expenses of their own ruin. A great insurrection was the consequence, in which the bishop was murdered, and in the uproar the peasants broke in upon the city, doing such damage that the burghers called in the aid of TJiomas of iManie, heir of Coucy. This house of Coucy was one of the proudest of the old nobles. Their castle was a wonder of massive strength and ingenuity, and they hardly owned any superior. According to their favourite saying : Ne suis roy ni comte aussi, Je suis le Sire de Coucy. This Thomas, having no fear of king or priest, was the chosen protector of the men of Laon, although at Amiens, of which his father, Engiierra)id de Coucy, was count, he was playing a contrary part. The burghers of that city had, with the consent of their bishop, obtained a charter from the king, and formed a commune, whereupon the father and son made war on them, and on all who travelled to and fro. Thomas was in effect a regular freebooter, seizing all who fell in his way, and torturing them in his dungeons till he could obtain a ransom ; but at length the king besieged him in his castle of Crecy in Picardy, and sufficiently broke his strength to force him to restrain his ferocities : and then began the first steps towards raising the burghers and taming the nobles. 3. Abailard and St. Bernard, 11 20 — 1 1 36. — Paris already was the seat of a highly-esteemed university, where the course of sciences was taught by doctors and masters to scholars assembled from every country round, who lived a strange wild life, between study, beggary, and robbery. Here studied and taught the Breton Piter Abai- lard, who plunged deep into the mysteries of philosophy and theology, until, at a synod held at Soissons in 11 20, his theology was condenmed and liis writings burned. He submitted for a while, but after some years he returned to Paris, and put forth the same opinions. A synod was convoked at Sens, at which the chief of the opposite side was St. Bcriiard, the most lemarl-.able man of his time. Son of a noljle family in Ikirgundy, his longing for holi- ness had led him to retire to the monastery of Citeaux, the head of the Cistercian order, and his example had brought thither hi-; six brothers and his aged father. Being sent to found the abbey of ClaivTiXux, an offshoot of Citeaux, he there became the leading spirit of the