Practically all these powers are exercised by the six echevins, with a higher dignitary, the mayor (_maire_), at their head.[110] There is little real democracy, however, in Pontdebois. The richer merchants, like Othon, and the more prosperous masters form practically an oligarchy, excluding the poor artisans and apprentices from any share in municipal affairs save that of paying taxes and listening to edicts by the magistrates. The same officers are re-elected year after year. They use the town money much as they see fit, refusing public reckoning and blandly announcing that "they render their accounts to one another." There are, therefore, certain discontented fellows who even murmur, "We 'free burghers' are worse taxed and oppressed than are Baron Conon's villeins at St. Aliquis." Nevertheless, there is often a great desire to become even a passive citizen of Pontdebois. If you can live there unmolested for "a year and a day," you escape the jurisdiction of the lord on whose estate you have been a villein. You are protected against those outrages which are possible on even the best seigneuries. Most of all, you gain a chance to become something more than a clodhopping plowman. Perhaps your grandchildren at least will become wealthy and powerful enough to receive a baron as their guest, even as does the rich Othon. So one may wander about the twisting streets of Pontdebois until nightfall, when the loud horns blow curfew--"cover fires." After that, the streets are deserted save for the occasional watchman rattling his iron-shod staff and calling through the darkness, "Pray for the dead!" FOOTNOTES: [103] Another abuse would be to levy a heavy toll on all travelers passing a castle, irrespective of whether there was any legal license to demand the same. [104] If Pontdebois really had as many as eight thousand permanent inhabitants, it was no mean community in feudal times. Many a city would have only two or three thousand, or even less. A place of ten thousand or more would rank as the most important center for a wide region. There were few of such size in France. [105] Even in Paris at this time the only paving was on the streets leading directly to the city gates. The remainder continued to be a mere slough, a choice breeding place for those contagious diseases against which precautions were assumed to be useless and to which men were bound to submit as to "the will of God." Supplications to some healing saint, like St. Firman or St. Antoine, usually seemed more efficacious than any real sanitary precautions. [106] Rouen had six severe fires between 1200 and 1225, and yet was not exceptionally unfortunate. If a city were close to a river, it was liable also to very serious freshets. Of course, every place was in fairly constant danger of being stormed, sacked, and burned down in war. [107] Modern travelers are to this day impressed by the amount of bellringing which goes on in such unspoiled mediæval-built Flemish towns as Bruges.