The advent of the year 1000 was regarded with universal terror in Christendom. A fear, based on a supposed apocalyptic prophecy that the end of the world was at hand, paralysed all political and social life. Churches were too small to contain the immense throngs of fearful penitents: legacies and donations from conscience-stricken worshippers poured wealth into their treasuries. But once the awe-inspiring night of the vernal equinox that began the year 1000 had passed, and the bright March sun rose again on the fair earth, unconsumed by the wrath of God, the old world "seemed to thrill with new life; the earth cast off her out-worn garments and clothed herself in a rich and white vesture of new churches." Everywhere in Europe, and especially in France, men strove in emulation to build the finest temples to God. The wooden roofs of the Merovingian and Carlovingian basilicas had ill withstood the ravage of war and fire. Stone took the place of wood, the heavy thrust of the roof led to increased mural strength, walls were buttressed, columns thickened. Massive towers of defence, at first round, then polygonal, then square, flanked the west fronts, veritable keeps, where the sacred vessels and relics might be preserved and defended in case of attack. Soon spaces are clamant for decoration, the stone soars into the beauty of Gothic vaulting and tracery, "the solid and lofty shafts ascend and press onward in agile files, and in the sacred gloom are like unto an army of giants that meditate war with invisible powers."[39] The Capets are more intimately associated with the growth of Paris than any of the earlier dynasties, and at no period in French history is the ecclesiastical expansion more marked. Under the long reign of Hugh's son, King Robert the Pious, no less than fourteen monasteries and seven churches were built or rebuilt in or around the city. A new and magnificent palace and hall of Justice, with its royal chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, rose on the site of the old Roman basilica and palace in the Cité. The king was no less charitable than pious. Troops of the poor and afflicted followed him when he went abroad, and he fed a thousand daily at his table. But notwithstanding his munificent piety, he was early made to feel the power of the Church. His union with Queen Bertha, a cousin of the fourth degree, whom he had married a year before his accession, was condemned by the pope as incestuous, and he was summoned to repudiate her. Robert, who loved his wife dearly, resisted the papal authority, and excommunication and interdict followed.[40] Everyone fled from him; only the servants are said to have remained, who purged with fire all the vessels which were contaminated by the guilty couple's touch. The misery of his people at length subdued the king's spirit, and he cast off his faithful and beloved queen.