France after the battle of Poitiers—The Jacquerie—The MarchÉ de Meaux—The Comte de Foix and the Captal de Buch—Rescue of the Dauphine—Vengeance of the nobles.

The captivity of the King and the flight of the Queen, who took refuge with her two children in her son’s duchy of Burgundy, placed Charles and Jeanne at the head of the court and kingdom. The Dauphin, or, as he preferred to call himself, the Duc de Normandie, assumed the government, and, in consideration of his youth, a council was appointed to assist him. Confusion and dismay had taken possession of the country. The three estates were convoked to deliberate on the means to be adopted to provide the ransom of the King. They sat for a fortnight in the hÔtel of the FrÈres Mineurs,12 but Etienne Marcel, at the head of a strong party, demanded the redress of various grievances, and amongst others the immediate release of the King of Navarre, then imprisoned at Arleux. No conclusion, however, was arrived at; the estates were dissolved and Charles summoned the three estates of the Languedoc, or southern part of France, but without much more success.13 In December he went to Metz to see his uncle, the son of the King of Bohemia, now the Emperor Charles IV., to take counsel with him; leaving his brother Louis lieutenant at Paris in his place.

Charles IV. had been brought up in the court of Philippe de Valois; his sister, Bonne, had been the first wife of Jean, and he regarded the Valois family with strong affection. But he was too much like them to be of any use as an adviser, although he is said to have reproached his nephew with having, at this time of general distress, ordered for himself a new and splendid crown of gold. He, and probably the Duchesse de Normandie, spent Christmas with their uncle amidst a succession of fÊtes, and returned to Paris towards the end of January to find the discontent of the people increased; which was not surprising, for there had been a still further depreciation of the coin of the realm; the seigneurs and knights who had been taken prisoners at Poitiers were returning in crowds to collect their ransoms, which were enormously heavy, and as the Jews and Lombards had been banished they could not borrow money on usury from them, as they might otherwise have done, so that there was no way of getting it but to wring it out of the peasants. As there was scarcely a family that had not at least one member a prisoner, a system of universal extortion was going on. They seized the property of their vassals and in many cases endeavoured, by imprisonment and other cruelty, to force them to give up any money they supposed them to have concealed,14 in order that it might be sent to the English to buy back those, many of whom they did not at all wish to see.

And they were profoundly irritated by this new misfortune. At CrÉcy, at any rate, they grumbled, every one had fought bravely and done their best; no shadow of dishonour had rested on the lilies of France. The nobles might have been proud and extortionate, but in the hour of danger they did not flinch. They lay in heaps on the field of battle, and a life of extravagance and dissipation was redeemed by a hero’s death.

But now there were suspicions of panic; there had been confusion and mismanagement, and there appeared to be an extraordinary number of prisoners. The early flight of four out of the five young princes also displeased the people, who now began to despise the nobles whom hitherto they had only feared and hated. And whereas it had formerly been the custom for them to serve the King in time of war at their own cost and without pay, they had, in the reign of Philippe de Valois, begun to demand money while in the field, and the sums granted by Philippe had to be increased by Jean just at the time when they seemed to be least deserved.

The Hundred Years’ War between France and England in the fourteenth century was destructive to the prosperity and civilisation which, in spite of many drawbacks, had characterised the thirteenth. There could be no liberty while the country was full of armed bands led by powerful barons; agriculture was not likely to flourish in such a state of things as has been described; the nobles had no leisure to encourage or interest themselves in literary pursuits while their whole lives were spent in warfare. It was in the monasteries that learning was chiefly cultivated and protected, but many of those great religious establishments in the country, though always possessing some sort of fortification, had been sacked and burned by brigands, and others deserted by their inhabitants, who no longer found that security which the cloister had formerly afforded. The towns had become less free, and many of them had lost the liberties and privileges accorded them by the CapÉtiens Kings. For the Valois and their followers held the traders and unwarlike citizens in the deepest contempt, and so, as time went on, grew and strengthened a bitter hatred of the lower classes for those of gentle blood, making men the deadly enemies of their own countrymen and causing national calamities far more dreadful and disgraceful than any brought about by foreign invaders.

In other countries nobles and people, united in their sentiments and aspirations, developed in peaceful and harmonious progress to the accomplishment of their destinies;15 whilst in France the deplorable separation that began in the fourteenth century caused the frightful excesses of the Jacquerie, and having produced the Reign of Terror in the days of our great-grandfathers and the Commune in our own, is still so fatal an injury to the power, stability, and prestige of the French nation.

The first child of the Duke and Duchess of Normandy was born in September of this year (1357), a daughter, named Jeanne.

It was on the 28th of May, 1358,16 that the Jacquerie, or rising of the peasants, broke out at the little town of Saint-Leu, where a number of labourers, joined by small tradesmen, artisans, and other persons of the lower classes, assembled in revolt; and having murdered nine gentlemen who happened to be in the town, spread themselves over the surrounding country, putting to death every man, woman, and child of good blood who came in their way, and plundering and burning the chÂteaux. They attacked the villages at each end of the forest of Ermenonville, and went to the castle of Beaumont-sur-Oise, where the Duchesse d’OrlÉans then was. Warned just in time of the approach of the murderers, she fled for her life, was out of the castle before they arrived and set it on fire, and escaped to Meaux, a town on the Marne, where the Duchess of Normandy, the Princess Isabelle de France and more than three hundred ladies had taken refuge, some having escaped in their nightdresses without having had time to dress themselves.

The rebellion spread rapidly over Picardy, Champagne, and the Ile-de-France, and the horrors of it have never been equalled in any Christian country. It was like a revolt of savages. Hordes of bloodthirsty miscreants went about burning castles, murdering and torturing men, women, and children. None who fell into their power might escape dishonour and death; any village refusing to join them was exposed to their vengeance.

A band of three thousand Jacques having just destroyed the ChÂteau de Poix, were marching on Aumale when they met a hundred and twenty Norman and Picards men-at-arms, led by Guillaume de Picquigny. The latter came forward to parley with them but was treacherously slain by one Jean Petit Cardaine. His followers fell upon the Jacques, killed two thousand of them, and put the remainder to flight. The Jacques had cause to repent of this murder, for Guillaume de Picquigny was a relation of that Jean de Picquigny who delivered the King of Navarre from Arleux. And Charles of Navarre, who was always ready to protect his friends and punish his enemies, took ample vengeance for his death. The ChÂteau d’Ermenonville belonged to Robert de Lorris, who had risen from humble life in the village from which he took his name. It is a mistaken notion that in the middle ages people could not and did not rise from the ranks to the highest social position. It was, of course, less frequent than in our own days, but in the fourteenth century there were hundreds of cases of the kind, both ecclesiastic and secular.17

Robert de Lorris was one of them. He was a great authority on French law, and a favourite both of Philippe de Valois and Jean, by whom he had been ennobled, made Chamberlain, Vicomte de Montreuil, and Seigneur d’Ermenonville. The Jacques besieged, took, and plundered the ChÂteau d’Ermenonville, and the chamberlain only saved his own life and those of his wife and children by renouncing his nobility and declaring himself one of the people.

The atrocities of the Jacquerie did not, fortunately, extend over the whole of France. An attempt was made to produce an insurrection at Caen by one Pierre de Montfort, who paraded the streets with the model of a plough in his hat, proclaiming himself a Jacque, and calling on the people to follow him. This, luckily for themselves, they had too much sense to do, and Pierre de Montfort was soon afterwards slain by three burghers whom he had insulted.18

The rebellion was worst about Amiens, CompiÈgne, Senlis, Beauvais, and Soissons. The Jacques made an attack upon CompiÈgne, but were repulsed by the inhabitants and some nobles who had taken refuge in the town. The atrocities committed all over that part of the country which was the scene of the revolt were too frightful to relate. Hundreds of castles were burnt, an immense amount of property destroyed, and numbers of men, women, and children tortured, dishonoured, and slain.

The leader of the Jacques, Guillaume Cale, is said to have disapproved of the most horrible of the excesses of his followers, but to have been unable to restrain them. And Etienne Marcel, with many of the bourgeois of his party, encouraged and gave assistance to these miscreants, though forbidding the murder of women and children, which of course he was powerless to prevent. But a letter of remission given subsequently to one Jaquin de ChenneviÈres expressly declares that he had orders from the PrÉvÔt to burn and destroy the chÂteaux of Beaumont-sur-Oise, Bethemont, Javerny, Montmorency, Enghien, Chaton, and all the houses and fortresses of the nobles between the Seine and the Oise, from Chaton to Beaumont.19

And whatever may be our opinion of the policy of the celebrated PrÉvÔt des Marchands, the murder of the Marshals of Normandy and Champagne (which had already taken place in the presence of the Dauphin) and the assistance he rendered to these wretches are stains which neither good intentions nor expediency can excuse.

Jeanne meanwhile, and her companions, were in the most awful peril. The smaller bourgeoisie, as a rule, hated the gentlemen and sympathised with the Jacques. The Mayor of Meaux, Jean Soulas, was on their side. The gentlemen with them were few in number, the Jacques were coming, and the Duc de Normandie had, a short time before, taken sudden possession of the MarchÉ de Meaux, to the great discontent of the inhabitants of that town. The Mayor had even had the insolence to say to the Comte de Joigny, whom the Duke had sent to perform this duty, that if he had known what he came for he should never have set foot in the place. Informed of this insubordination the Regent had reprimanded and fined the Mayor, which only increased his hostility. However, he and the principal officials and burghers had sworn to be faithful to the Regent, and not to allow anything to be done to injure him, and Charles had left Meaux some time in May, leaving his wife and the rest of the ladies in the MarchÉ with a much smaller garrison to protect them than he would have done had he realised the treachery and disloyalty of Soulas and his friends. The Duc d’OrlÉans was there, the BÈgue de Vilaine, the Sires de Trocy and Revel, HÉron de Mail, Philippe d’Aulnoy, Regnaud d’Arcy, and Louis de Chambly called Le Borgne.

Scarcely had the Regent quitted Meaux when discord and strife broke out between the inhabitants, led by the Mayor, and the nobles shut up in the MarchÉ. The exasperated bourgeois laid siege to the fortress and sent to Paris to ask for assistance, at the same time summoning all the peasants in the neighbourhood to join them in attacking the MarchÉ.20

They were not slow in answering to the invitation. From all parts of the country round they came swarming to Meaux. The PrÉvÔt des Marchands had responded to their appeal by sending Pierre Gilles, a grocer of Paris and one of the leaders of the insurrection, with a body of armed men from Paris to Meaux. He knew the Regent was absent and the garrison weak, and thought the MarchÉ would fall into their hands by assault. Pierre Gilles and his troop burned all the chÂteaux on their way, and forced the inhabitants of the villages through which they passed to join them.

The Mayor and burghers threw open the gates, and about nine thousand furious ruffians, armed with scythes, pitchforks, and knives, rushed into the town.

The towns people received them with open arms, supplied them with abundance of food and wine, which excited them to still greater ferocity, and joined in the tumult of fearful shouts and cries as the bloodthirsty savages swarmed through the streets looking up with murderous eyes to the towers and walls of the MarchÉ.

Now the MarchÉ de Meaux was on an island formed by the Marne, which flowed on one side of it, and a canal that went round it, coming out of the river on one side of the MarchÉ and going back into it on the other. On the side of Meaux there was a bridge over the Marne from the MarchÉ to the town, and on the opposite side of the MarchÉ another bridge, across the canal to the other shore. Most fortunately, the Dauphin had recently caused the island to be strongly fortified, and his having done so now saved his wife and sister from a horrible death. All round the MarchÉ were high strong walls and towers. Trees could be seen above the parapet inside, and the ground rose high in the middle. It was a strong place, but they were so few to defend it against the furious hordes outside. In it were the young Dauphine, the Princess Isabelle de France, daughter of the King, then about ten or eleven years old; Blanche de France, Duchesse d’OrlÉans, who had just escaped from Beaumont-sur-Oise; and, as was before said, at least three hundred women, girls, and children of the noblest families in France. The gates were closed, the walls guarded as well as could be done with their few defenders, but the position grew every moment more alarming. The streets were crowded to overflowing with these bloodthirsty wretches, and all down them were spread tables with bread, meat and wine for their refreshment. All over the town they were thronging and feasting, while their horrible cries and brutal threats rose to the ears of the besieged women and children who waited in terror and despair, all hope of deliverance seeming to be at an end.

The fortress was always attacked from the town side, and from this direction, when the Jacques had finished feasting, the assault would certainly come.

But the MarchÉ was fortunately not surrounded by the town. On the other side, across the canal, lay the open country of Brie. And suddenly a troop of men in armour was seen approaching at full speed. It was Gaston, Comte de Foix, and Jean de Grailly, Captal de Buch, two of the most famous soldiers in France, with about sixty lances, who rode under the gateway into the beleaguered fortress, and were received with acclamations by those within its walls. The troop was a small one, but a few tried soldiers under such leaders counted for more than hundreds of the rabble outside, and the Dauphine and her companions must have felt that they were saved.

Having no particular fighting to do just then, the two knights had employed their leisure in an expedition against some heathen tribes still to be found in Prussia; and on their way back, passing through ChÂlons, had heard of what was going on at Meaux and of the perilous position of the ladies shut up in the MarchÉ. The Comte de Foix was brother-in-law of the King of Navarre; and the Captal de Buch, a Gascon gentleman, was a subject and follower of King Edward of England. Etienne Marcel, on the other hand, was a strong partisan of Charles of Navarre. But the project of the bourgeois prÉvÔt to throw the wives and children of French gentlemen into the power of a mob of brutal savages was not likely to recommend itself to the two knights, who at once turned their horses’ heads towards Meaux, and pushed on with desperate haste to save the MarchÉ before it fell. The white banner still floated from its walls,21 but they were only just in time. The Jacques, having done feasting, now ranged themselves in order of battle, and in immense numbers, with frightful yells, pressed towards the MarchÉ and began the attack. The shrieks of the terrified women and children mingled with the tumult outside,22 but Jean de Grailly and Gaston de Foix ordered the gate on the side of the town to be thrown open. Then, raising the pennon of the Captal and the banners of OrlÉans and Foix, they rushed out and fell upon the enemy. Down to the bridge they rode, over which was thronging a multitude like ferocious wild beasts. But before the charge of the knights the Jacques went down in heaps; those behind them hesitated, then drew back and fled before the cavaliers, who pursued them with levelled lances and drawn swords through the streets of the town. Several of the nobles were killed, amongst others Louis de Chambly, called Le Borgne, but thousands of the Jacques were slain. Many of the citizens of Meaux were killed in the battle that raged all over the city; the rest were carried prisoners to the citadel. Jean Soulas, the traitorous mayor, was taken during the fighting and hanged when it was over. The nobles then set fire to the town, which was burning for a fortnight. The royal chÂteau, with many houses and churches, perished in the flames. Froissart says that seven thousand Jacques were killed. The inhabitants of Meaux, “for their detestable deed,” were declared guilty of high treason, and the town condemned to be and for ever remain uninhabited. The Regent, in consideration of the Dean and Chapter of Meaux, and at the petition of some other towns who interceded with him on behalf of the place, afterwards remitted this sentence. But the commune of Meaux was suppressed and united to the prÉvÔtÉ de Paris.23

Jeanne and her companions watched from the MarchÉ the victory of their friends and the destruction of their enemies, and it must soon have been evident to them that their danger was at an end. The destruction of the Jacques on that day, June 9, 1358, arrested the course of the rebellion. The nobles scoured the country, putting to death all the Jacques they could find. Learning that some of them had taken refuge at Sens, they resolved to inflict on that city the same punishment as on Meaux, and for that purpose a party of them, on the 13th of June, presented themselves at the Paris gate of the town, demanding the keys in the name of the Regent. But the inhabitants had received notice beforehand of what was intended, and had taken measures accordingly. Therefore, when the nobles, having been admitted, and thinking themselves masters of the place, advanced with drawn swords and cries of “Ville gagnÉe! ville prise!” the citizens, and even those nobles who belonged to Sens, pushed down from the top of the street, which was very steep, carts with scythes fastened to the wheels which they had prepared for the purpose, while armed men issued from the houses, and women threw stones, lime, and boiling water from the windows, by which means some were killed and the rest escaped out of the city.

But the defeat at Meaux broke the head of the insurrection. From the terror, the slaughter, and the discouragement of that day the Jacques never recovered, and the finishing stroke was given by the King of Navarre, on whose support some of them had been foolish enough to reckon, because of his hostility to the King and Dauphin.

The gentlemen of Normandy and Picardy sent an invitation to Charles de Navarre, who was then at his castle at Longueville, to be their leader in this contest; he “who was the first gentleman in the world.”24

The King of Navarre was ready enough. He placed himself at the head of four hundred lances, and by the time he came up with the Jacques, near Clermont, his troop had increased to a thousand men, many of whom were English. The Jacques were put to flight with great slaughter, and their leader, Guillaume Cale, put to death. Some say that he was arrested by treachery; at any rate Charles of Navarre declared that the Jacques were furious wild beasts, with whom it was not possible to treat or make any terms. The Regent had been in arms ever since the insurrection had broken out, and the attack upon his wife rendered it more hateful to him.

The Jacquerie was soon at an end; it only lasted about a month, and when once the nobles had recovered from the surprise and shock of its outbreak, it was put down and punished with tremendous severity. Pierre Gilles was beheaded at the Halles on the 4th of August. He appears to have been a man of considerable wealth, and in the inventory of his merchandise was a large quantity of sugar in loaves and in powder from Cairo, or, as it was called, Babylon. It came chiefly from Egypt at that time.

That part of Champagne, Ile-de-France, and other districts which had been the scene of these atrocities of the Jacques, was so devastated with fire and sword that for some time it remained almost without inhabitants.25 The towns and villages which had taken part in the Jacquerie were heavily fined, as may be seen by the records in the “TrÉsor des Chartes.” Chavanges, for instance, was fined a thousand gold florins.26 A note, tome vi. p. 117, of the “Grandes Chroniques de France,” M. Paulin Paris, makes the following remarks and gives the following quotation respecting the complicity of Etienne Marcel in the Jacquerie, and the fallacious hopes in which the rebels indulged with regard to the King of Navarre:—

“C’est que ces Marseillais du XIV^me siÉcle avoient ÉtÉ bien rÉellement soulevÉs par les anarchistes de Paris. Je demande la permission de citer À l’appui de cette opinion la prÉcieuse chronique manuscrite conservÉe sous le No. 530, SupplÉment franÇois. A l’occasion de l’expÉdition du roi de Navarre contre les Jacques, on y lit: En ce temps assembla le roy de Navarre grans gens et ala vers Clermont-en-Beauvoisie, et en tuÊrent plus de huit cens et fist copper la teste À leur cappitaine qui se vouloit tenir pour roy; et dient aucuns que les Jacques s’attendoient que le roy de Navarre leur deust aidier, pour l’alliance, qu’il avoit au prÉvost des marchans, par lequel prÉvost la Jacquerie s’esmeut, si comme on dit.”