‘Thus, after fourteen days of struggle and vain assault,’ exclaims our triumphant chronicler Rouillard, ‘the enemy were compelled to retire with great loss and slaughter, and to give once more occasion for the name _des Reculés_ (_see_ p. 47), to the quarter in the midst of which they had proudly raised their accursed tents.’ Disappointed of the plunder of the Cathedral treasure and of the pillage of the town upon which they had counted--for Condé himself had sold beforehand the lead of the Cathedral roof--they retired discomfited, to conclude the Peace of Longjumeau--_La Paix boiteuse et mal assise_, as it was called, because one of the negotiators was named Malassise, and the other was lame.
In memory of this deliverance it was decreed at Chartres that a solemn annual procession should take place on the 15th of March; that part of the street S. André should take the name of Rue de la Brèche, and that a commemorative inscription should be graven on the reconstructed wall.
In connection with the procession referred to we must mention the _Tour de Ville_, as it is called, or _La Chandelle du Tour_, or _Le Tour de cire_. This was a huge yellow wax candle, rolled on a wooden cylinder, and weighing as much as 220 pounds. ‘From time immemorial,’ the archives record, ‘the town of Chartres has been wont to maintain this candle before the Black Virgin of the pillar in front of the jubé. It was instituted originally by the community of the said town as an oblation for the safety of the town, and was to burn before the said image.’ Every day a piece was cut off and burnt on the town candlestick. For many years the _Tour de la Ville_ was presented at one or other of the Church festivals indifferently, very often on the 17th of October, the Feast of the Dedication of the Cathedral. But in the seventeenth century it was decided that the presentation should take place on the 15th of March, the anniversary of the deliverance of the town from the siege of the Huguenots. The ceremony was very popular. All the officials of the town attended. Before the procession started the Mayor (for he had come into existence by that time), or, occasionally, some great man who happened to be the guest of the town at the time, lit the first candle before the shrine of the Black Virgin. Thereafter the _Tour de Ville_ was carried in the procession to the breach. This custom lasted on to the days of the Revolution.