St. Louis showed a respectful firmness towards papal authority; we have seen that he did not recognise the pope’s right to dispose of crowns. There has even been attributed to him a pragmatic sanction, the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican church, which would have confirmed the liberty of canonical elections, restrained to the most urgent necessities the impositions which the court of Rome could levy upon the French churches and contained the king’s vow that they should be established. This ordinance is not authentic, but its principles are those of the government. When the bishops demanded that the king force the excommunicated to submit, he declared that he could not do so without knowing the reasons for excommunication, which made him a judge of the bishops. St. Louis’ lively faith assured him against all fear of the church’s wrath; and led him besides to severe practices which seem to us of to-day barbaric. “No one,” he said, “unless he be learned clerk or perfect theologian, should dispute with the Jews, but may do so with the layman who is heard to slander the Christian faith, and defend it not only with words but with his good drawn sword, striking the miscreant across the body or even letting it cut him.” He punished blasphemers by running red-hot irons through their tongues. He loved to recall that on one occasion during his minority, when pursued up to the very walls of Paris by rebel vassals, he had been saved by the city soldiers who came to his rescue. He always took great interest in the welfare of the large towns, but without sacrificing to them the new needs of society. He conferred a number of charters, and amended others. Communal independence never seemed to him better than feudal liberties, and he favoured the transformation of the communes into royal cities which were dependent on and watched over by the supreme power, while their internal affairs were attended to by officials chosen in free election. An ordinance of 1256 prescribes that the communes name four candidates among themselves from whom the king shall choose a mayor who shall come to Paris once a year to give account of his stewardship. Thus little by little was established the principle that it was the king’s prerogative to deal with the communes and that all owed him allegiance above everyone else. Thus the communes gradually disappeared and with them the proud sentiments, the strong ideas of right and liberty which sustained the men who had founded and defended them. The “third estate” was beginning.