The soul of the communal donjon, however, hovers around its bells. There in the dark tower hang shrill Jacqueline, loud Carolus, and, deepest and mightiest of all, Holy Trinity, and several others. A peal of powerful bells pertains to every free town. Of course, they ring lustily and merrily on holidays; indeed, strangers to the city think they are rung too often for repose.[107] But if they all begin leaping and thundering together, that is probably a sign for a mass meeting of the citizens in the open plaza before the donjon. The magistrates may wish to harangue the populace from the balcony, just above the council room, descanting upon some public danger or deliver a peaceful explanation of some new municipal ordinance. In any case, a commune without its donjon and bells is like a ship without its rudder, and if ever Pontdebois succumbs to superior power, the first step of the conqueror will probably be to "take away the bells"--that will be the same thing as annulling the city liberties. Pontdebois has been a Good Town with a charter of privileges for about a hundred years. As early as Charlemagne's day a village existed upon the site. The location proved good for trade, but the inhabitants, despite success in commerce and industry and increasing numbers, were for a long time mere villeins dependent upon the lord bishop of the town and region, and with no more rights than the peasants of the fields had. However, in dealing with men who were steadily becoming richer, and who were picking up strange ideas by foreign intercourse, it proved much harder to keep them content with their station than it did the run of villeins. Besides, the dukes of Quelqueparte, although very loath to grant privileges to their own villeins, were not averse to having privileges given to the subjects of such independent and unreliable vassals as the bishops of Pontdebois. Consequently, when the townspeople about A.D. 1100 began raising the cry, "Commune! Commune!" in the episcopal presence, the bishop could not look to his suzerain for much support. Indeed, it was being realized by intelligent seigneurs that granting a charter to a town often meant a great increase of wealth, so that if the lord's fiscal rights were carefully safeguarded, he was actually the gainer by an apparent cession of part of his authority. The upshot was that about A.D. 1110, when a certain bishop needed a large purse to cover his travel to the Holy Land, for a round sum the townsfolk bought from him a charter--a precious document which practically raised them out of the status of villeins and protected them against those executions and tyrannies which the run of peasants had to accept resignedly, as they did bad winters. [Sidenote: Charter of a Commune]