Charters usually promised more than they gave. In spite of remonstrances, the citizens did have to supply considerable sums in tribute from time to time in the ensuing centuries. Whether under the name of loans, or advances, or _octrois_, Kings like François I. and Henry IV. bled the merchants freely, and, if they protested too loudly, quickly brought them to their senses by the threat of force. But, in the meantime, whilst Charles de Valois, with the aid of the Chartrain contribution, was asserting the rights of his wife to the throne of Constantinople, or earning, at Florence, a place in Dante’s _Inferno_, the town of Chartres, profiting by his absence, was quietly organising and ameliorating its administration. The development of the municipality and the subsequent absorption of the domain of Chartres by the Crown by no means diminished the loyalty of its citizens. A worthy reception was given to Philippe-le-Bel when he came with his son, the boy Prince Charles, after his victory over the Flemish at Mons-en-Puelle, to render thanks and offer his armour at the shrine of the Vierge-Noire. The King also founded in commemoration of his victory a service in honour of Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire. Down to the year 1793 the martial ex-voto of the royal father and son was shown from the pulpit on each anniversary of the defeat of the Flemings. In that year, however, the rich armour was stripped of the precious metals with which it was adorned. The gold was sent to the mint in Paris. The remaining fragments, pieced together, may be seen in the town museum (_see_ p. 317). The example of Philippe-le-Bel was followed some years later by Philippe de Valois after his similar victory at Cassel. Fully armed, he rode into the Cathedral, knelt before the ancient statue, and left a thousand pounds to redeem the armour and steel which he had dedicated to the Virgin. It was at this period that Chartres may be said to have reached the zenith of its prosperity. From this time forward we have to trace the process of its decay. For not only was Chartres, like all provincial towns, destined to suffer from the centralising tendency of the new era which succeeded that of feudalism, but it was also condemned by its position at the gates of Paris not to escape any of the catastrophes attendant upon the political and social developments of the day. Its history, however, becomes on that account more rather than less interesting. It was taken and retaken in the fifteenth century by the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the English and the French, twice besieged in the sixteenth century by the Huguenots of the Prince de Condé and of Henry IV., and torn asunder by the passions of the Fronde in the seventeenth.