If the communes of Flanders had been at one with themselves, and if their burghers had been agreed together, the timely concessions of their new Sovereign would perhaps have enabled the Flemish people to withstand the machinations of the feeble tyrant whom we shall presently see compassing their destruction. But the feuds which had so long hampered them in their conflicts with former rulers had not one whit abated; the little men still envied the big men, the petty towns the _bonnes villes_, the Franc Bruges, Bruges Ghent, and, added to this, there was a fresh source of disunion, a burning thirst for vengeance which could only be slaked by blood. The men who, under Philippe and Charles, had bartered liberty for pelf must pay on the scaffold the penalty of their offences, aye and if need be (for according to the law of Flanders no citizen could be put to death unless he had previously acknowledged the justice of the sentence which doomed him), if need be torture must wring from them the avowal of their guilt. The pleading of the greatest lady in the land was powerless to save them. Pale with anguish, alone and on foot, attired in deep mourning and with no headgear but a simple veil, Marie had made her way to the _Hooghuis_ and from a window there had addressed the vast throng of angry guildsmen assembled in the Marché au Vendredi. 'O men of Ghent,' she had besought them, 'remember that I forgave you, and for my sake forgive your enemies.' But the burghers refused to listen. It was the first duty of a Sovereign to administer justice with an even hand, and it should never be said that in Flanders there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. Whereupon, says Philippe de Commines, '_retourna cette pauvre demoiselle, bien dolente et descomfortée_.' In other towns besides Ghent the burghers were as firmly resolved to have their pound of flesh, and in exacting it they incurred the enmity of men no less cruel than themselves, as later on they learned to their cost. At Bruges the burning question for the moment was the question of the Franc. Would the bond after all be dishonoured, and would the _Franchosts_ submit? And when, on the 5th of April, Marie was receiving the homage of the burghers in the Church of St. Donatian, the mob burst into the cathedral with cries of 'What of the Franc?' In vain the Duchess once more proclaimed the overlordship of the city, in vain Louis of Gruthuise assured them that their apprehensions were unfounded; the guildsmen refused to disarm, nor was it until the 13th of April, when the men of the Franc sent in their submission, that peace was once more restored. [Illustration: OLD ROOFS BELOW THE BELFRY]