Teutgaud himself, that murderer of Bishop Gaudri, hastened to put himself under the wing of the Lord of Marie.
Before long the rumor spread abroad amongst the population of the country-places near Laon that that town was quite empty of inhabitants; and all the peasants rushed thither and took possession of the houses they found without defenders.

Who could tell, or be believed if he were to attempt to tell, how much money, raiment, and provision of all kinds was discovered in this city?
Before long there arose between the first and last comers disputes about the partition of their plunder; all that the small folks had taken soon passed into the hands of the powerful; if two men met a third quite alone they stripped him; the state of the town was truly pitiable.

The burghers who had quitted it with Thomas de Marle had beforehand destroyed and burned the houses of the clergy and grandees whom they hated; and now the grandees, escaped from the massacre, carried off in their turn from the houses of the fugitives all means of subsistence and all movables to the very hinges and bolts." The rumor of so many disasters, crimes, and reactions succeeding one another spread rapidly throughout all districts.

Thomas de Marle was put under the ban of the kingdom, and visited with excommunication "by a general assembly of the Church of the Gauls," says Guibert of Nogent, "assembled at Beauvais; "and this sentence was read every Sunday after mass in all the metropolitan and parochial churches.

Public feeling against Thomas de Marle became so strong that Enguerrand de Bowes, Lord of Coucy, who passed, says Suger, for his father, joined those who declared war against him in the name of Church and King.