In the communes which adopted the Beaumont law, the burghers, exempt from all military burdens, were only compelled to take arms in the event of a sudden invasion of their territory, and this forced service was only of twenty-four hours’ duration. After that, the lord had to provide for the ordinary protection of the inhabitants in return for the trifling taxes which they paid him. In the commune of Escombes, for instance, which, being a frontier village, was very exposed to attack, the right of safe-guard (_le droit de sauvement_) consisted of two measures of oats, a hen, and a French denier for each burgher. A charter of an archbishop of Rheims, successor of William the White-handed, recounts how a good chevalier, in return for the gift of a piece of land belonging to the bishopric, undertook to bring together, train, and maintain a body of armed men for the protection of the burghers of Beaumont, who were thus enabled safely to carry on the tillage of the land and their commercial operations. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, the Archbishop of Rheims exchanged with the King of France the sovereignty over the towns of Mouzon and Beaumont-en-Argonne against the lordship of Vailly and its dependencies; but the law of Beaumont was respected, and by letters patent, “given at Montargis in the month of September, the year of grace one thousand three hundred and seventy-nine,” King Charles V. solemnly recognised and sanctioned all the advantages which the law of Beaumont assured to the inhabitants. “By these presents,” said the king, “we approve and confirm all their charters and liberties, franchises, usages, privileges, and customs which they have been granted by our above-mentioned Archbishops of Rheims in times past, to enjoy and use without deducting, innovating, or diminishing anything, and in the same manner and fashion as they have formerly enjoyed and used them before our acquisition.”