CHAPTER VIII ETIENNE MARCEL--THE ENGLISH INVASIONS--THE MAILLOTINS--MURDER OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS--ARMAGNACS AND BURGUNDIANS

WITH the three sons of Philip who successively became kings of France, the direct line of the Capetian dynasty ends: with the accession of Philip VI. in 1328, the house of Valois opens the sad century of the English wars—a period of humiliation and defeat, of rebellious and treacherous princes, civil strife, famine and plague, illumined only by the heroism of a peasant-girl, who, when king and nobles were sunk in shameless apathy or sullen despair, saved France from utter extinction. Pope after pope sought to make peace, but in vain: Hui sont en paix, demain en guerre (“to-day peace, to-morrow war”) was the normal and inevitable situation until the English had wholly subjected France or the French driven the English to their natural boundary of the Channel.

Never since the days of Charlemagne had the French Monarchy been so powerful as when the Valois came to the throne: in less than a generation Crecy and Poitiers had made the English name a terror in France, and a French king, John the Good, was led captive to England. Once again, as in the dark Norman times, Paris rose and determined to save herself. Etienne Marcel, provost of the merchants, whose statue now stands near the site of the Maison aux Piliers, the old Hostel de Ville which he bought for the citizens of Paris, became the leader of the movement. The Dauphin,[81] who had assumed the title of Lieutenant-General, convoked the States-General at Paris, but he was forced by Marcel and his party to grant some urgent reforms, and a Committee of National Defence was organised by the provost, who became virtually dictator of Paris. The Dauphin fled to CompiÈgne to rally the nobles. During the ensuing anarchy the poor, dumb, starving serfs of France, in their hopeless misery and despair, rose in insurrection and swept like a flame over the land. Froissart, who writes from the distorted stories told him by the seigneurs, has woefully exaggerated the atrocities of the Jacquerie.[82] There was much arson and pillage, but barely thirty of the nobles are known to have perished. Of the merciless vengeance taken by the seigneurs there is ample confirmation. The wretched peasants were easily out-manoeuvred and killed like rats by the mail-clad nobles and their men-at-arms; so many were butchered in the market-place of Meaux that weariness stayed the arms of the slaughterers, and fire completed their work. Twenty thousand are estimated to have perished between the Seine and the Marne. Meanwhile the Dauphin was marching on Paris: Marcel had seized the Louvre, repaired and extended the wall of Paris, and raised an army. The provost turned for support to the Jacques, and on their suppression essayed to win over King Charles of Navarre, whose aid would decide the issue. Plot and counterplot followed. On 31st July 1358, Marcel was inspecting the gates of Paris, and at the Bastille[83] St. Denis ordered the keys to be given up to the treasurer of the king of Navarre, who was with him. The guards refused, and Jean Maillart, Marcel’s sheriff and bosom friend, leapt on his horse, rode to the Halles, and crying;—“Au roi, au roi, mont-joie St. Denis,” called the king’s friends to arms, and hastened to intercept the provost at the Bastille St. Antoine. Marcel was holding the keys in his hand when they arrived. “Stephen, Stephen!” cried Maillart, “what dost thou here at this hour?” “I am here,” answered the provost, “to guard the city whose governor I am.” “Par Dieu,” retorted Maillart, “thou art here for no good,” and turning to his followers, said, “Behold the keys which he holds to the destruction of the city.” Each gave the other the lie. “Good people,” protested Marcel, “why would you do me ill? All I wrought was for your good as well as mine.” Maillart for answer smote at him, crying, “Traitor, À mort, À mort!” There was a stubborn fight, and Maillart felled the provost by a blow with his axe; six of the provost’s companions were slain, and the remainder haled to prison. Next day the Dauphin entered Paris in triumph, and the popular leaders were executed on the Place de GrÈve. The provost’s body was dragged to the court of the church of St. Catherine du Val des Ecoliers, where it lay naked that it might be seen of all: after a long exposure it was cast into the Seine. All the reforms were revoked by the king, but the remembrance of the time when the merchants and people of Paris had dared to speak to their royal lord face to face of justice and good government, was never obliterated.

Meanwhile the land was a prey to anarchy. Law there was none. Bands of routiers, or organised brigands, English and French, ravaged and pillaged without let or hindrance. Eustache d’Aubrecicourt, with 10,000 men-at-arms, raided Champagne at his will and held a dozen fortresses. The peasants posted sentinels in the church towers while they worked in the fields, and took refuge by night in boats moored in the rivers.

The English invasion of 1359 resembled a huge picnic or hunting expedition. The king of England and his barons brought their hunters, falcons, dogs and fishing tackle. They marched leisurely to Bourg-la-Reine, less than two leagues from Paris, pillaged the surrounding country and turned to Chartres, where tempest and sickness forced Edward III. to come to terms. After the treaty of Bretigny, in 1360, the Parisians saw their good King John again, who was ransomed for a sum equal to about ten million pounds of present-day value. The memory of this and other enormous ransoms exacted by the English endured for centuries, and when a Frenchman had paid his creditors he would say,—j’ai payÉ mes Anglais.[84] (“I have paid my English.”) A magnificent reception was accorded to the four English barons who came to sign the Peace at Paris. They were taken to the Sainte-Chapelle and shown the fairest relics and richest jewels in the world, and each was given a spine from the crown of thorns, which he deemed the noblest jewel that could be presented to him.

In 1364, after sowing dragons’ teeth in France by bestowing in appanage the duchy of Burgundy on his youngest son Philip the Bold, King John the Good returned to captivity and death at London in chivalrous atonement for the breaking of parole by his second son, Louis of Anjou, who had been interned at Calais as a hostage under the treaty of 1360. The Dauphin, now Charles V., by careful statesmanship succeeded in restoring order to the kingdom and to its finances[85] and in winning some successes against the English. The dread companies of routiers, after defeating and slaying Jacques de Bourbon and capturing one hundred French chevaliers, were bribed by Pope Innocent VI. to pass into Lombardy, or induced to follow du Guesclin, the national hero of the wars against the English, in a crusade against Pedro the Cruel in Spain.

In 1370 the English camp fires were again seen outside Paris: Charles refused battle and allowed them to ravage the suburbs with impunity. Before the army left, an English knight swore he would joust at the gates of the city, and spurred lance in hand against them. As he turned to ride back, a big butcher lifted his pole-axe, smote the knight on the neck and felled him; four others battered him to death, “their blows,” says Froissart, “falling on his armour like strokes on an anvil.”

By wise counsel rather than by war Charles won back much of his dismembered country. He was a great builder and patron of the arts. He employed Raymond of the Temple, his “beloved mason,” to transform the Louvre into a sumptuous palace with apartments for himself and his queen, the princes of the blood and the officers of the royal household. Each suite of apartments was furnished with a private chapel, those of the king and queen being carved with much “art and patience.” A gallery was built for the minstrels and players of instruments. A great garden was planted towards the Rue St. HonorÉ on the north, and the old wall of Philip Augustus on the east, in which were an “HÔtel des Lions,” or collection of wild beasts, and a tennis court, where the king and princes played. The palace accounts still exist, with details of payments for “wine for the stone-cutters which the king our lord gave them when he came to view the works.” Jean Callow and Geoffrey le Febre were paid for planting squares of strawberries, hyssop, sage, lavender, balsam, violets, and for making paths, weeding and carrying away stones and filth; others were paid for planting bulbs of lilies, double red roses and other good herbs. The first royal library was founded by Charles, and Peter the Cage-maker was employed to protect the library windows from birds and other beasts by trellises of wire. An interesting payment of six francs in gold, made to Jacqueline, widow of a mason “because she is poor and helpless and her husband met his death in working for the king at the Louvre,” demonstrates that royal custom had anticipated modern legislation.

Charles surrendered his palace in the CitÉ to the Parlement, and erected an immense palace (known as the HÔtel St. Paul) in the east of Paris, outside the old wall, where he could entertain the whole of the princes of the blood and their suites. It was an irregular group of exquisite Gothic mansions and chapels, furnished with sumptuous magnificence and surrounded by tennis courts, falconries, menageries, delightful and spacious gardens—a hostel solennel des grands esbattements (“a solemn palace of great delights.”) This royal city within a city covered a vast space, now roughly bounded by the Rue St. Paul, the river, the Rue de l’Arsenal and the Rue St. Antoine. Charles VII. was the last king who dwelt there; the buildings fell to ruin, and between 1519 and 1551 were gradually sold. No vestige of this palace of delight now remains, nothing but the memory of it in a few street names,—the streets of the Fair Trellis, of the Lions of St. Paul, of the Garden of St. Paul, and of the Cherry Orchard. To Charles V. is also due the beautiful chapel of Vincennes and the completion of Etienne Marcel’s wall. This fourth enclosure, began at the Tour de Billi, which stood at the angle formed by the Gare de l’Arsenal and the Seine, extended north by the Boulevard Bourdon, the Place de la Bastille, and the line of the inner Boulevards to the Porte St. Denis; it then turned south-west by the old Porte Montmartre, the Place des Victoires and across the garden of the Palais Royal to the Tour de Bois, opposite the present Pont du Carrousel. It was fortified by a double moat and square towers. The south portion was never begun. To defend the Porte St. Antoine, Charles laid the foundation of the Bastille of sinister fame—ever a hateful memory to the citizens, for it was completed by the royal provost when the provost of the merchants had been suppressed by Charles VI. in 1383.

“Woe to the nation whose king is a child!” During the minority and reign of Charles VI. France lay prostrate under a hail of evils that menaced her very existence, and Paris was reduced to the profoundest misery and humiliation. The breath had not left the old king’s body before his elder brother, the Count of Anjou, who was hiding in an adjacent room, hastened to seize the royal treasure and the contents of the public exchequer. No regent had been appointed, and the four royal dukes, the young king’s uncles of Anjou, Burgundy, Bourbon, and Berri, began to strive for power.

In 1382 Anjou, who had been suffered to hold the regency, sought to enforce an unpopular tax on the merchants of Paris. The people revolted, armed themselves with the loaded clubs (maillotins) stored in the HÔtel de Ville for use against the English, attacked the royal officers and opened the prisons. The court temporised, promised to remit the tax and to grant an amnesty; but with odious treachery caused the leaders of the movement to be seized, put them in sacks and flung them at dead of night into the Seine. The angry Parisians now barricaded their streets and closed their gates against the king. Negotiations followed and by payment of 100,000 francs to the Duke of Anjou the citizens were promised immunity and the king and his uncles entered the city. But the court nursed its vengeance, and after the victory over the Flemings at Rosebecque the king and his uncles with a powerful force marched on Paris. The Parisians, 20,000 strong, stood drawn up in arms at Montmartre to meet him. They were asked who were their chiefs and if the Constable de Clisson might enter Paris. “None other chiefs have we,” they answered “than the king and his lords: we are ready to obey their orders.” “Good people of Paris,” said the Constable on his arrival at their camp, “what meaneth this? meseems you would fight against your king.” They replied that their purpose was but to show the king the puissance of his good city of Paris. “‘Tis well,” said the Constable, “if you would see the king return to your homes and put aside your arms.”

On the morrow, 11th January 1383, the king and his court, with 12,000 men-at-arms, appeared at the Porte St. Denis, and there stood the provost of the merchants with the chief citizens in new robes, holding a canopy of cloth of gold. The king, with a fierce glance, ordered them back. The gates were unhinged and flung down: the royal army entered as in a conquered city. A terrible vengeance ensued. The President of the Parlement and other civil officers, with three hundred prominent citizens, were arrested and cast into prison. In vain was the royal clemency entreated by the Duchess of Orleans, the rector of the university and chief citizens all clothed in black. The bloody diurnal work of the executioner began and continued until a general pardon was granted on March 1st on payment of an enormous fine. The liberties of the city met the same fate. The provostship of the merchants, and all the privileges of the Parisians, were suppressed, and the hateful taxes reimposed. Never had the heel of despotism ground them down so mercilessly.

On the Quai des Grands Augustins.
On the Quai des Grands Augustins.

After cruelty and debauchery came madness. As Charles one sultry August day was riding in the forest of le Mans he suddenly drew his sword, wounded some of his escort and attacked the Duke of Orleans. The demented king was seized by the Duke of Burgundy and carried senseless and bound into the city. In 1393, when he had somewhat recovered, a grand masked ball was given to celebrate the wedding of one of the ladies of honour who was a widow. The marriage of a widow was always the occasion of riotous mirth, and the king disguised himself and five of his courtiers as satyrs. They were sewed up in tight-fitting vestments of linen, which were coated with resin and pitch and covered with rough tow; on their heads they wore hideous masks. While the ladies of the court were celebrating the marriage the king and his companions rushed in howling like wolves and indulged in the most uncouth gestures and jokes. The Duke of Orleans, drawing too near with a torch to discover their identity, set fire to the tow and in a second they were enveloped in so many shirts of Nessus. Unable to fling off their blazing dresses they madly ran hither and thither, suffering the most excruciating agony and uttering piteous cries. The king happened to be near the young Duchess of Berri who, with admirable presence of mind, flung her robe over him and rescued him from the flames. One knight saved himself by plunging into a large tub of water in the kitchen, one died on the spot, two died on the second day, another lingered for three days in awful torment. The horror of the scene[86] so affected Charles that his madness returned more violently than ever.

TOWER AT THE CORNER OF THE RUE VIEILLE DU TEMPLE AND THE RUE BARBETTE.
TOWER AT THE CORNER OF THE RUE VIEILLE DU TEMPLE AND THE RUE BARBETTE.

The bitterness of the avuncular factions was now intensified. The House of Burgundy by marriage and other means had grown to be one of the most powerful in Europe and was at bitter enmity with the House of Orleans. At the death of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, his son Jean sans Peur, sought to assume his father’s supremacy as well as his title: the Duke of Orleans, strong in the queen’s support, determined to foil his purpose. Each fortified his hÔtel in Paris and assembled an army. Friends, however, intervened; they were reconciled, and in November 1407 the two dukes attended mass at the Church of the Grands Augustins, took the Holy Sacrament and dined together. As Jean rose from table the Duke of Orleans placed the Order of the Porcupine round his neck; swore bonne amour et fraternitÉ, and they kissed each other with tears of joy. On 23rd November a forged missive was handed to the Duke of Orleans, requiring his attendance on the queen at the HÔtel St. Paul, whither he often went to visit her. He set forth, attended only by two squires and five servants carrying torches. It was a sombre night, and as the unsuspecting prince rode up the Rue Vieille du Temple behind his little escort, humming a tune and playing with his glove, a band of assassins fell upon him from the shadow of the postern La Barbette,[87] crying “À mort, À mort,” and he was hacked to death. Then issued from a neighbouring house at the sign of Our Lady, a tall figure concealed in a red cloak, lantern in hand, who gazed at the mutilated corpse. “C’est bien,” said he, “let’s away.” They set fire to the house to divert attention and escaped. Four months before, Jean sans Peur had hired the house on the pretext of storing provisions, and for two weeks a score of assassins had been concealed there, biding their time. On the morrow, Jean with the other princes went to asperse the dead body with holy water in the church of the Blancs Manteaux, and as he drew nigh, exclaiming against the foul murder, blood is said to have issued from the wounds. At the funeral Jean held a corner of the pall, but his guilt was an open secret, and though he braved it out for a time he was forced to flee to his lands in Flanders for safety. In a few months, however, he was back in force at Paris, and a doctor of the Sorbonne pleaded an elaborate justification of the deed before the assembled princes, nobles, clergy and citizens at the HÔtel St. Paul. The poor demented king was made to declare publicly that he bore no ill-will to his dear cousin of Burgundy and later, on the failure of a conspiracy of revenge by the queen and the Orleans party, to grant full pardon for a deed “committed for the welfare of the kingdom.” The cutting of the Rue Etienne Marcel has exposed the strong machicolated tower still bearing the arms of Burgundy (two planes and a plumb line), which Jean sans Peur built to fortify the HÔtel de Bourgogne, as a defence and refuge against the Orleans faction and the people of Paris. The Orleans family had for arms a knotted stick, with the device “Je l’ennuis”: the Burgundian arms with the motto, “Je le tiens,” implied that the knotted stick was to be planed and levelled.

The arrival of Jean sans Peur, and the fortification of his hÔtel were the prelude to civil war, for the Orleanists and their allies had rallied to the Count of Armagnac, whose daughter the new Duke of Orleans had married, and fortified themselves in their stronghold on the site now occupied by the Palais Royal.

The Armagnacs, for so the Orleanists were now called, thirsted for revenge, and for five years Paris was the scene of frightful atrocities as each faction gained the upper hand and took a bloody vengeance on its rivals. At length the infamous policy of an alliance with the English was resorted to. The temptation was too great for the English king, and in 1415 Henry V. met the French army, composed almost entirely of the Armagnacs, at Agincourt, and inflicted on it a defeat more disastrous than Crecy or Poitiers. The famous oriflamme of St. Denis passed from history in that fatal year of 1415. The Count of Armagnac hurried to Paris, seized the mad king and the Dauphin, and held the capital.

In 1417 the English returned under Henry V. The Burgundians had promised neutrality, and the defeated Armagnacs were forced in their need to “borrow[88] of the saints.” But hateful memories clung to them in Paris and they were betrayed. On the night of 29th May 1418, the son of an ironmonger on the Petit Pont, who had charge of the wicket of the Porte St. Germain, crept into his father’s room and stole the keys while he slept. The gate was then opened to the Burgundians, who seized the person of the helpless and imbecile king. Some Armagnacs escaped, bearing the dauphin with them, and the remainder were flung into prison. The Burgundian partisans in the city, among whom was the powerful corporation of the butchers and fleshers, now rose, and on Sunday, 14th June, ran to the prisons.

Before dawn fifteen hundred Armagnacs were indiscriminately butchered under the most revolting circumstances. The count himself perished, and a strip of his skin was carried about Paris in mockery of the white scarf of the Armagnacs. Jean sans Peur and Queen Isabella[89] entered the city, amid the acclamation of the people, and soon after a second massacre followed, in spite of Jean’s efforts to prevent it. He was now master of Paris, but the Armagnacs were swarming in the country around and the English marching without let on the city. In these straits he sought a reconciliation with the dauphin and his Armagnac counsellors at Melun, on 11th July 1419. On 10th September a second conference was arranged, and duke and dauphin, each with ten attendants, met in a wicker enclosure on the bridge at Montereau. Jean doffed his cap and knelt to the dauphin, but before he could rise was felled by a blow from an axe and stabbed to death.[90] In 1521 a monk at Dijon showed the skull of Jean sans Peur to Francis I., and pointing to a hole made by the assassin’s axe, said: “Sire, it was through this hole that the English entered France.”

On receipt of the news of his father’s murder, the new Duke of Burgundy, Philip le Bon, thirsting for vengeance, flung himself into the arms of the English, and by the treaty of Troyes on May 20, 1420, Henry V. was given a French princess to wife and the reversion of the crown of France, which, after Charles’ death, was to be united ever more to that of England. But the French crown never circled Henry’s brow: on August 31, 1422, he lay dead at Vincennes. He was buried with great pomp in the royal abbey of St. Denis, leaving an infant son of nine months to inherit the dual monarchy. Within a few weeks of Henry’s death the hapless king of France was entombed under the same roof; a royal herald cried “for God’s pity on the soul of the most high and most excellent Charles, king of France, our natural sovereign lord,” and in the next breath hailed “Henry of Lancaster, by the grace of God, king of France and of England, our sovereign lord.” All the royal officers reversed their maces, wands and swords as a token that their functions were at an end. At the next festival the Duke of Bedford was seen in the Sainte Chapelle of the palace of St. Louis, exhibiting the crown of thorns to the people as Regent of France, and a statue of Henry V. of England was raised in the great hall, following on the line of the kings of France from Pharamond to Charles.