And yet the bishops had contributed in a material degree to the establishment of the communes; for, if history tells us of some towns being at war with their ecclesiastical lord, in order to declare themselves independent, we find, on the other hand, that a great number of the charters of enfranchisement were due to the initiative of the bishops. The two most interesting of these documents which have been preserved to us in their integrity, are the charter and the law of Beaumont-en-Argonne, formerly a fortified place, but almost forgotten in the present day, until brought into prominence by the war of 1870. This town had the satisfaction, not of imposing its law, but of seeing it adopted by numerous communes, amongst which may be cited Nancy, Lunéville, Verdun, Luxemburg, and Longwy, together with all the Duchy of Bar, Montmédy, &c. A lord-bishop, William, whose love of equity earned him the appellation of William the White-handed, was the author both of this law and of this charter, in the twelfth century (Fig. 234). By the charter, the lord-bishop made all the inhabitants of the commune of Beaumont proprietors of a sufficient quantity of land to give them the means of subsistence, with the use of the woods and water-courses; every precaution was taken to prevent fraud in commerce and trade, especially in regard to the millers, the bakers, and the butchers; and the administration of the commune was entrusted to so many burghers elected by the most notable citizens; while intrigue was powerless in its attempts to bias the free and independent suffrages of the burgher-electors. The time that the Beaumont law has lasted is a proof of its merits, for, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of time, five hundred communes were being governed by it in the eighteenth century. [Illustration: Fig. 234.--Reduced fac-simile from the commencement of the Charter of William the White-handed, Archbishop of Rheims (Twelfth Century).--From the work of M. Defourny.]