Next day the outraged Chapter excommunicated the town and _banlieue_. No services were held; the altar of Notre-Dame was stripped of its ornaments; and even the curfew bell was not allowed to ring. Every day from the top of the jubé a priest pronounced the terrible curse known as ‘the great excommunication, the anathema and fulmination.’ At this solemn moment the candles were lit and the bells rung confusedly, and, as the priest finished his malediction, all became silent again and the candles were extinguished. But this demonstration, usually so effective, was received with shouts of laughter and screams of abuse. However, a fire which destroyed the lower streets on the banks of the Eure filled the rioters with fear. The revolutionists, thinking that they beheld the finger of God, were ready to submit, but the Dean and Chapter had already summoned the King, who came incontinent to Chartres, and after inquiry ordered the Count’s people to make _amende honorable_ and to pay for the damage they had done. But the bishop returning from abroad was not satisfied, and at his request Phillippe-Auguste ordered the offenders to pay a heavy fine and to make _amende honorable_ in full church, on a feast day, _nuds en chemise_, and bringing rods with which they were to be scourged before the altar of the Virgin. And this was actually done. Thus, says the chronicler, the Church by the aid of Heaven emerged from this tribulation. But the quarrel between the two parties was not quenched. It broke out five years later, and was settled again to the disadvantage of the Counts. Later, in a collision between the _bourgeois_ and the men attached to the Cathedral, two of the latter were killed. The murderers were pursued by some canons and protected by others. One canon was assassinated by his brethren. A new excommunication was pronounced upon the town. The synod appointed to judge the matter, not thinking itself safe in the presence of the growing power of the Third Estate, removed to Mantes. The banishment of the murderers and the intervention of S. Louis succeeded in producing an apparent calm. But the storm soon broke out afresh, and the people plundered and the Chapter excommunicated as vigorously as ever. Troublesome as these perpetual conflicts between the rival authorities were, it is to be observed that the liberty of the cloister and the privileges of the clergy, which were in dispute, were institutions which led to the emancipation of some Chartrain families formerly subject to the Counts. The ecclesiastical corporations, in fact, set an example in this matter of enfranchisement which the Counts were slow to follow. And it was probably due to this antagonism that the feudal lords of Chartres delayed for so long the grants of a communal charter to the town.