A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times The States General Of The Fourteenth Century. byGuizot, M.
Let us turn back a little, in order to understand the government and
position of King John before he engaged in the war which, so far as he
was concerned, ended with the battle of Poitiers and imprisonment in
England.
A valiant and loyal knight, but a frivolous, hare-brained, thoughtless,
prodigal, and obstinate as well as impetuous prince, and even more
incapable than Philip of Valois in the practice of government, John,
after having summoned at his accession, in 1351, a states-assembly
concerning which we have no explicit information left to us, tried
for a space of four years to suffice in himself for all the perils,
difficulties, and requirements of the situation he had found bequeathed
to him by his father. For a space of four years, in order to get money,
he debased the coinage, confiscated the goods and securities of foreign
merchants, and stopped payment of his debts; and he went through several
provinces, treating with local councils or magistrates in order to obtain
from them certain subsidies which he purchased by granting them new
privileges. He hoped by his institution of the order of the Star to
resuscitate the chivalrous zeal of his nobility. All these means were
vain or insufficient. The defeat of Crecy and the loss of Calais had
caused discouragement in the kingdom and aroused many doubts as to the
issue of the war with England. Defection and even treason brought
trouble into the court, the councils, and even the family of John. To
get the better of them he at one time heaped favors upon the men he
feared, at another he had them arrested, imprisoned, and even beheaded in
his presence. He gave his daughter Joan in marriage to Charles the Bad,
King of Navarre, and, some few months afterwards, Charles himself, the
real or presumed head of all the traitors, was seized, thrown into
prison, and treated with extreme rigor, in spite of the supplications of
his wife, who vigorously took the part of her husband against her father.
After four years thus consumed in fruitless endeavors, by turns violently
and feebly enforced, to reorganize an army and a treasury, and to
purchase fidelity at any price or arbitrarily strike down treason, John
was obliged to recognize his powerlessness and to call to his aid the
French nation, still so imperfectly formed, by convoking at Paris, for
the 30th of November, 1355, the states-general of Langue d'oil. that
is, Northern France, separated by the Dordogne and the Garonne from
Langue d'oc, which had its own assembly distinct. Auvergne belonged to
Langue d'oil.
It is certain that neither this assembly nor the king who convoked it had
any clear and fixed idea of what they were meeting together to do. The
kingship was no longer competent for its own government and its own
perils; but it insisted none the less, in principle, on its own all but
unregulated and unlimited power. The assembly did not claim for the
country the right of self-government, but it had a strong leaven of
patriotic sentiment, and at the same time was very much discontented with
the king's government: it had equally at heart the defence of France
against England and against the abuses of the kingly power. There was no
notion of a social struggle and no systematic idea of political
revolution; a dangerous crisis and intolerable sufferings constrained
king and nation to come together in order to make an attempt at an
understanding and at a mutual exchange of the supports and the reliefs of
which they were in need.
On the 2d of December, 1355, the three orders, the clergy, the nobility,
and the deputies from the towns assembled at Paris in the great hall of
the Parliament. Peter de la Forest, Archbishop of Rouen and Chancellor
of France, asked them in the king's name "to consult together about
making him a subvention which should suffice for the expenses of the
war," and the king offered to "make a sound and durable coinage." The
tampering with the coinage was the most pressing of the grievances for
which the three orders solicited a remedy. They declared that "they were
ready to live and die with the king, and to put their bodies and what
they had at his service;" and they demanded authority to deliberate
together—which was granted them. John de Craon, Archbishop of Rheims;
Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens; and Stephen Marcel, provost of the
tradesmen of Paris, were to report the result, as presidents, each of his
own order. The session of the states lasted not more than a week. They
replied to the king "that they would give him a subvention of thirty
thousand men-at-arms every year," and, for their pay, they voted an
impost of fifty hundred thousand livres (five millions of livres), which
was to be levied "on all folks, of whatever condition they might be,
Church folks, nobles, or others," and the gabel or tax on salt "over the
whole kingdom of France." On separating, the states appointed beforehand
two fresh sessions at which they would assemble, one, in the month of
March, to estimate the sufficiency of the impost, and to hear, on that
subject, the report of the nine superintendents charged with the
execution of their decision; the other, in the month of November
following, "to examine into the condition of the kingdom."
They assembled, in fact, on the 1st of March, and on the 8th of May, 1356
[N. B. As the year at that time began with Easter, the 24th of April was
the first day of the year 1356: the new style, however, is here in every
case adopted]; but they had not the satisfaction of finding their
authority generally recognized and their patriotic purpose effectually
accomplished. The impost they had voted, notably the salt-tax, had met
with violent opposition. "When the news thereof reached Normandy," says
Froissart, "the country was very much astounded at it, for they had not
learned to pay any such thing. The Count d'Harcourt told the folks of
Rouen, where he was puissant, that they would be very serfs and very
wicked if they agreed to this tax, and that, by God's help, it should
never be current in his country." The King of Navarre used much the same
language in his countship of Evreux. At other spots the mischief was
still more serious. Close to Paris itself, at Malun, payment was
peremptorily refused; and at Arras, on the 5th of March, 1356, "the
commonalty of the town," says Froissart, "rose upon the rich burghers and
slew fourteen of the most substantial, which was a pity and loss; and so
it is when wicked folk have the upper hand of valiant men. However, the
people of Arras paid for it afterwards, for the king sent thither his
cousin, my lord James of Bourbon, who gave orders to take all them by
whom the sedition had been caused, and, on the spot, had their heads cut
off."
The states-general at their re-assembly on the 1st of March, 1356,
admitted the feebleness of their authority and the insufficiency of their
preceding votes for the purpose of aiding the king in the war. They
abolished the salt-tax and the sales-duty, which had met with such
opposition; but, stanch in their patriotism and loyalty, they substituted
therefor an income-tax, imposed on every sort of folk, nobles or
burghers, ecclesiastical or lay, which was to be levied "not by the high
justiciers of the king, but by the folks of the three estates
themselves." The king's ordinance, dated the 12th of March, 1356, which
regulates the execution of these different measures, is (article 10) to
this import: "there shall be, in each city, three deputies, one for each
estate. These deputies shall appoint, in each parish, collectors, who
shall go into the houses to receive the declaration which the persons who
dwell there shall make touching their property, their estate, and their
servants. When a declaration shall appear in conformity with truth, they
shall be content therewith; else they shall have him who has made it sent
before the deputies of the city in the district whereof he dwells, and
the deputies shall cause him to take, on this subject, such oaths as they
shall think proper. . . . The collectors in the villages shall cause
to be taken therein, in the presence of the pastor, suitable oaths on the
subject of the declarations. If, in the towns or villages, any one
refuse to take the oaths demanded, the collectors shall assess his
property according to general opinion, and on the deposition of his
neighbors." (Ordonnances des Bois de France, t. iv. pp. 171 175.)
In return for so loyal and persevering a co-operation on the part of the
states-general, notwithstanding the obstacles en-countered by their votes
and their agents, King John confirmed expressly, by an ordinance of May
26, 1356 [art. 9: Ordonnances des Bois de France, t. iii. p. 55], all
the promises he had made them and all the engagements he had entered into
with them by his ordinance of December 28, 1355, given immediately after
their first session (Ibidem, t. iii. pp. 19 37): a veritable reformatory
ordinance, which enumerated the various royal abuses, administrative,
judicial, financial, and military, against which there had been a public
clamor, and regulated the manner of redressing them.
After these mutual concessions and promises the states-general broke up,
adjourning until the 30th of November following (1356); but two months
and a half before this time King John, proud of some success obtained by
him in Normandy and of the brilliant army of knights remaining to him
after he had dismissed the burgher-forces, rushed, as has been said, with
conceited impetuosity to encounter the Prince of Wales, rejected with
insolent demands the modest proposals of withdrawal made to him by the
commander of the little English army, and, on the 19th of September,
lost, contrary to all expectation, the lamentable battle of Poitiers.
We have seen how he was deserted before the close of the action by his
eldest son, Prince Charles, with his body of troops, and how he himself
remained with his youngest son, Prince Philip, a boy of fourteen years, a
prisoner in the hands of his victorious enemies. "At this news," says
Froissart, "the kingdom of France was greatly troubled and excited, and
with good cause, for it was a right grievous blow and vexatious for all
sorts of folk. The wise men of the kingdom might well predict that great
evils would come of it, for the king, their head, and all the chivalry of
the kingdom were slain or taken; the knights and squires who came back
home were on that account so hated and blamed by the commoners that they
had great difficulty in gaining admittance to the good towns; and the
king's three sons who had returned, Charles, Louis, and John, were very
young in years and experience, and there was in them such small resource
that none of the said lads liked to undertake the government of the said
kingdom."
The eldest of the three, Prince Charles, aged nineteen, who was called
the Dauphin after the cession of Dauphiny to France, nevertheless assumed
the office, in spite of his youth and his anything but glorious retreat
from Poitiers. He took the title of lieutenant of the king, and had
hardly re-entered Paris, on the 29th of September, when he summoned, for
the 15th of October, the states-general of Langue d'oil, who met, in
point of fact, on the 17th, in the great chamber of parliament. "Never
was seen," says the report of their meeting, "an assembly so numerous, or
composed of wiser folk." The superior clergy were there almost to a man;
the nobility had lost too many in front of Poitiers to be abundant at
Paris, but there were counted at the assembly four hundred deputies from
the good towns, amongst whom special mention is made, in the documents,
of those from Amiens, Tournay, Lille, Arras, Troyes, Auxerre, and Sens.
The total number of members at the assembly amounted to more than eight
hundred.
The session was opened by a speech from the chancellor, Peter de la
Forest, who called upon the estates to aid the dauphin with their
counsels under the serious and melancholy circumstances of the kingdom.
The three orders at first attempted to hold their deliberations each in a
separate hall; but it was not long before they felt the inconveniences
arising from their number and their separation, and they resolved to
choose from amongst each order commissioners who should examine the
questions together, and afterwards make their report and their proposals
to the general meeting of the estates. Eighty commissioners were
accordingly elected, and set themselves to work. The dauphin appointed
some of his officers to be present at their meetings, and to furnish them
with such information as they might require. As early as the second day
"these officers were given to understand that the deputies would not work
whilst anybody belonging to the king's council was with them." So the
officers withdrew; and a few days afterwards, towards the end of October,
1356, the commissioners reported the result of their conferences to each
of the three orders. The general assembly adopted their proposals, and
had the dauphin informed that they were desirous of a private audience.
Charles repaired, with some of his councillors, to the monastery of the
Cordeliers, where the estates were holding their sittings, and there he
received their representations. They demanded of him "that he should
deprive of their offices such of the king's councillors as they should
point out, have them arrested, and confiscate all their property.
Twenty-two men of note, the chancellor, the premier president of the
Parliament, the king's stewards, and several officers in the household of
the dauphin himself, were thus pointed out. They were accused of having
taken part to their own profit in all the abuses for which the government
was reproached, and of having concealed from the king the true state of
things and the misery of the people. The commissioners elected by the
estates were to take proceedings against them: if they were found guilty,
they were to be punished; and if they were innocent, they were at the
very least to forfeit their offices and their property, on account of
their bad counsels and their bad administration."
The chronicles of the time are not agreed as to these last demands. We
have, as regards the events of this period, two contemporary witnesses,
both full of detail, intelligence, and animation in their narratives,
namely, Froissart and the continuer of William of Nangis' Latin
Chronicle. Froissart is in general favorable to kings and princes; the
anonymous chronicler, on the contrary, has a somewhat passionate bias
towards the popular party. Probably both of them are often given to
exaggeration in their assertions and impressions; but, taking into
account none but undisputed facts, it is evident that the claims of the
states-general, though they were, for the most part, legitimate enough at
bottom, by reason of the number, gravity, and frequent recurrence of
abuses, were excessive and violent, and produced the effect of complete
suspension in the regular course of government and justice. The dauphin,
Charles, was a young man, of a naturally sound and collected mind, but
without experience, who had hitherto lived only in his father's court,
and who could not help being deeply shocked and disquieted by such
demands. He was still more troubled when the estates demanded that the
deputies, under the title of reformers, should traverse the provinces as
a check upon the malversations of the royal officials, and that
twenty-eight delegates, chosen from amongst the three orders, four
prelates, twelve knights, and twelve burgesses, should be constantly
placed near the king's person, "with power to do and order everything in
the kingdom, just like the king himself, as well for the purpose of
appointing and removing public officers as for other matters." It was
taking away the entire government from the crown, and putting it into
the hands of the estates.
The dauphin's surprise and suspicion were still more vivid when the
deputies spoke to him about setting at liberty the King of Navarre, who
had been imprisoned by King John, and told him that "since this deed of
violence no good had come to the king or the kingdom, because of the sin
of having imprisoned the said King of Navarre." And yet Charles the Bad
was already as infamous as he has remained in history; he had labored to
embroil the dauphin with his royal father; and there was no plot or
intrigue, whether with the malcontents in France or with the King of
England, in which he was not, with good reason, suspected of having been
mixed up, and of being ever ready to be mixed up. He was clearly a
dangerous enemy for the public peace, as well as for the crown, and,
for the states-general who were demanding his release, a bad associate.
In the face of such demands and such forebodings, the dauphin did all he
could to gain time. Before he gave an answer he must know, he said, what
subvention the states-general would be willing to grant him. The reply
was a repetition of the promise of thirty thousand men-at-arms, together
with an enumeration of the several taxes whereby there was a hope of
providing for the expense. But the produce of these taxes was so
uncertain, that both parties doubted the worth of the promise. Careful
calculation went to prove that the subvention would suffice, at the very
most, for the keep of no more than eight or nine thousand men. The
estates were urgent for a speedy compliance with their demands. The
dauphin persisted in his policy of delay. He was threatened with a
public and solemn session, at which all the questions should be brought
before the people, and which was fixed for the 3d of November. Great was
the excitement in Paris; and the people showed a disposition to support
the estates at any price. On the 2d of November, the dauphin summoned at
the Louvre a meeting of his councillors and of the principal deputies;
and there he announced that he was obliged to set out for Metz, where he
was going to follow up the negotiations entered into with the Emperor
Charles IV. and Pope Innocent VI. for the sake of restoring peace between
France and England. He added that the deputies, on returning for a while
to their provinces, should get themselves enlightened as to the real
state of affairs, and that he would not fail to recall them so soon as he
had any important news to tell them, and any assistance to request of
them.
It was not without serious grounds that the dauphin attached so much
importance to gaining time. When, in the preceding month of October, he
had summoned to Paris the states-general of Langue d'oil, he had
likewise convoked at Toulouse those of Langue d'oc, and he was informed
that the latter had not only just voted a levy of fifty thousand
men-at-arms, with an adequate subsidy, but that, in order to show their
royalist sentiments, they had decreed a sort of public mourning, to last
for a year, if King John were not released from his captivity. The
dauphin's idea was to summon other provincial assemblies, from which he
hoped for similar manifestations. It was said, moreover, that several
deputies, already gone from Paris, had been ill received in their towns,
at Soissons amongst others, on account of their excessive claims, and
their insulting language towards all the king's councillors. Under such
flattering auspices the dauphin set out, according to the announcement
he had made, from Paris, on the 5th of December, 1356, to go and meet
the Emperor Charles IV. at Metz; but, at his departure, he committed
exactly the fault which was likely to do him the most harm at Paris:
being in want of money for his costly trip, he subjected the coinage to
a fresh adulteration, which took effect five days after his departure.
The leaders in Paris seized eagerly upon so legitimate a grievance for
the support of their claims. As early as the 3d of the preceding
November, when they were apprised of the dauphin's approaching departure
for Metz, and the adjournment of their sittings, the states-general had
come to a decision that their remonstrances and demands, summed up in
twenty-one articles, should be read in general assembly, and that a
recital of the negotiations which had taken place on that subject between
the estates and the dauphin should be likewise drawn up, "in order that
all the deputies might be able to tell in their districts wherefore the
answers had not been received." When, after the dauphin's departure, the
new debased coins were put in circulation, the people were driven to an
outbreak thereby, and the provost of tradesmen, "Stephen Marcel, hurried
to the Louvre to demand of the Count of Anjou, the dauphin's brother and
lieutenant, a withdrawal of the decree. Having obtained no answer, he
returned the next day, escorted by a throng of the inhabitants of Paris.
At length, on the third day, the numbers assembled were so considerable
that the young prince took alarm, and suspended the execution of the
decree until his brother's return. For the fist time Stephen Marcel had
got himself supported by an outbreak of the people; for the first time
the mob had imposed its will upon the ruling power; and from this day
forth pacific and lawful resistance was transformed into a violent
struggle."
At his re-entry into Paris, on the 19th of January, 1357, the dauphin
attempted to once more gain possession of some sort of authority. He
issued orders to Marcel and the sheriffs to remove the stoppage they had
placed on the currency of the new coinage. This was to found his
opposition on the worst side of his case. "We will do nothing of the
sort," replied Marcel; and in a few moments, at the provost's orders, the
work-people left their work, and shouts of "To arms!" resounded through
the streets. The prince's councillors were threatened with death. The
dauphin saw the hopelessness of a struggle; for there were hardly a
handful of men left to guard the Louvre. On the morrow, the 20th of
January, he sent for Marcel and the sheriffs into the great hall of
parliament, and giving way on almost every point, bound himself to no
longer issue new coin, to remove from his council the officers who had
been named to him, and even to imprison them until the return of his
father, who would do full justice to them. The estates were at the same
time authorized to meet when they pleased: on all which points the
provost of tradesmen requested letters, which were granted him; "and he
demanded that the dauphin should immediately place sergeants in the
houses of those of his councillors who still happened to be in Paris, and
that proceedings should be taken without delay for making an inventory of
their goods, with a view to confiscation of them."
The estates met on the 5th of February. It was not without surprise that
they found themselves less numerous than they had hitherto been. The
deputies from the duchy of Burgundy, from the countships of Flanders and
Alencon, and several nobles and burghers from other provinces, did not
repair to the session. The kingdom was falling into anarchy; bands of
plunderers roved hither and thither, threatening persons and ravaging
lands; the magistrates either could not or would not exercise their
authority; disquietude and disgust were gaining possession of many honest
folks. Marcel and his partisans, having fallen into somewhat of
disrepute and neglect, keenly felt how necessary, and also saw how easy,
it was for them to become completely masters. They began by drawing up a
series of propositions, which they had distributed and spread abroad far
and wide in the provinces. On the 3d of March, they held a public
meeting, at which the dauphin and his two brothers were present. A
numerous throng filled the hall. The Bishop of Laon, Robert Lecoeq, the
spokesman of the party, made a long and vehement statement of all the
public grievances, and declared that twenty-two of the king's officers
should be deprived forever of all offices, that all the officers of the
kingdom should be provisionally suspended, and that reformers, chosen by
the estates, and commissioned by the dauphin himself, should go all over
France, to hold inquiries as to these officers, and, according to their
deserts, either reinstate them in their offices or condemn them. At the
same time, the estates bound themselves to raise thirty thousand
men-at-arms, whom they themselves would pay and keep; and as the produce
of the impost voted for this purpose was very uncertain, they demanded
their adjournment to the fortnight of Easter, and two sessions certain,
for which they should be free to fix the time, before the 15th of
February in the following year. This was simply to decree the
permanence of their power. To all these demands the dauphin offered no
resistance. In the month of March following, a grand ordinance, drawn
up in sixty-one articles, enumerated all the grievances which had been
complained of, and prescribed the redress for them. A second ordinance,
regulating all that appertained to the suspension of the royal officers,
was likewise, as it appears, drawn up at the same time, but has not come
down to us. At last a grand commission was appointed, composed of
thirty-six members, twelve elected by each of the three orders. "These
thirty-six persons," says Froissart, "were bound to often meet together
at Paris, for to order the affairs of the kingdom, and all kinds of
matters were to be disposed of by these three estates, and all prelates,
all lords, and all commonalties of the cities and good towns were bound
to be obedient to what these three estates should order." Having their
power thus secured in their absence, the estates adjourned to the 25th
of April.
The rumor of these events reached Bordeaux, where, since the defeat at
Poitiers, King John had been living as the guest of the Prince of Wales,
rather than as a prisoner of the English. Amidst the galas and pleasures
to which he abandoned himself, he was indignant to learn that at Paris
the royal authority was ignored, and he sent three of his comrades in
captivity to notify to the Parisians that he rejected all the claims of
the estates, that he would not have payment made of the subsidy voted by
them, and that he forbade their meeting on the 25th of April following.
This strange manifesto on the part of imprisoned royalty excited in Paris
such irritation amongst the people, that the dauphin hastily sent out of
the city the king's three envoys, whose lives might have been threatened,
and declared to the thirty-six commissioners of the estates that the
subsidy should be raised, and that the general assembly should be
perfectly free to meet at the time it had appointed.
And it did meet towards the end of April, but in far fewer numbers than
had been the case hitherto, and with more and more division from day to
day. Nearly all the nobles and ecclesiastics were withdrawing from it;
and amongst the burgesses themselves many of the more moderate spirits
were becoming alarmed at the violent proceedings of the commission of the
thirty-six delegates, who, under the direction of Stephen Marcel, were
becoming a small oligarchy, little by little usurping the place of the
great national assembly. A cry was raised in the provinces "against the
injustice of those chief governors who were no more than ten or a dozen;"
and there was a refusal to pay the subsidy voted. These symptoms and the
disorganization which was coming to a head throughout the whole kingdom
made the dauphin think that the moment had arrived for him to seize the
reins again. About the middle of August, 1357, he sent for Marcel and
three sheriffs, accustomed to direct matters at Paris, and let them know
"that he intended thence-forward to govern by himself, without curators."
He at the same time restored to office some of the lately dismissed royal
officers. The thirty-six commissioners made a show of submission; and
their most faithful ecclesiastical ally, Robert Lecocq, Bishop of Laon,
returned to his diocese. The dauphin left Paris and went a trip into
some of the provinces, halting at the principal towns, such as Rouen and
Chartres, and everywhere, with intelligent but timid discretion, making
his presence and his will felt, not very successfully, however, as
regarded the re-establishment of some kind of order on his route in the
name of the kingship.
Marcel and his partisans took advantage of his absence to shore up their
tottering supremacy. They felt how important it was for them to have a
fresh meeting of the estates, whose presence alone could restore strength
to their commissioners; but the dauphin only could legally summon them.
They, therefore, eagerly pressed him to return in person to Paris, giving
him a promise that, if he agreed to convoke there the deputies from
twenty or thirty towns, they would supply him with the money of which he
was in need, and would say no more about the dismissal of royal officers,
or about setting at liberty the king of Navarre. The dauphin, being
still young and trustful, though he was already discreet and reserved,
fell into the snare. He returned to Paris, and summoned thither, for the
7th of November following, the deputies from seventy towns, a sufficient
number to give their meeting a specious resemblance to the
states-general. One circumstance ought to have caused him some
glimmering of suspicion. At the same time that the dauphin was sending
to the deputies his letters of convocation, Marcel himself also sent to
them, as if he possessed the right, either in his own name or in that of
the thirty-six delegate-commissioners, of calling them together. But a
still more serious matter came to open the dauphin's eyes to the danger
he had fallen into. During the night between the 8th and 9th of
November, 1357, immediately after the re-opening of the states, Charles
the Bad, King of Navarre, was carried off by a surprise from the castle
of Arleux in Cambresis, where he had been confined; and his liberators
removed him first of all to Amiens and then to Paris itself, where the
popular party gave him a triumphant reception. Marcel and his sheriffs
had decided upon and prepared, at a private council, this dramatic
incident, so contrary to the promises they had but lately made to the
dauphin. Charles the Bad used his deliverance like a skilful workman;
the very day after his arrival in Paris he mounted a platform set against
the walls of St. Germain's abbey, and there, in the presence of more than
ten thousand persons, burgesses and populace, he delivered a long speech,
"seasoned with much venom," says a chronicler of the time. After having
denounced the wrongs which he had been made to endure, he said, for
eighteen months past, he declared that the would live and die in defence
of the kingdom of France, giving it to be understood that "if he were
minded to claim the crown, he would soon show by the laws of right and
wrong that he was nearer to it than the King of England was." He was
insinuating, eloquent, and an adept in the art of making truth subserve
the cause of falsehood. The people were moved by his speech. The
dauphin was obliged not only to put up with the release and the triumph
of his most dangerous enemy, but to make an outward show of
reconciliation with him, and to undertake not only to give him back the
castles confiscated after his arrest, but "to act towards him as a good
brother towards his brother." These were the exact words made use of in
the dauphin's name, "and without having asked his pleasure about it," by
Robert Lecocq, Bishop of Laon, who himself also had returned from his
diocese to Paris at the time of the recall of the estates.
The consequences of this position were not slow to exhibit themselves.
Whilst the King of Navarre was re-entering Paris and the dauphin
submitting to the necessity of a reconciliation with him, several of the
deputies who had but lately returned to the states-general, and amongst
others nearly all those from Champagne and Burgundy, were going away
again, being unwilling either to witness the triumphal re-entry of
Charles the Bad or to share the responsibility for such acts as they
foresaw. Before long the struggle, or rather the war, between the King
of Navarre and the dauphin broke out again; several of the nobles in
possession of the castles which were to have been restored to Charles the
Bad, and especially those of Breteuil, Pacy-sur-Eure, and Pont-Audemer,
flatly refused to give them back to him; and the dauphin was suspected,
probably not without reason, of having encouraged them in their
resistance. Without the walls of Paris it was really war that was going
on between the two princes. Philip of Navarre, brother of Charles the
Bad, went marching with bands of pillagers over Normandy and Anjou, and
within a few leagues of Paris, declaring that he had not taken, and did
not intend to take, any part in his brother's pacific arrangements, and
carrying fire and sword all through the country. The peasantry from the
ravaged districts were overflowing Paris. Stephen Marcel had no mind to
reject the support which many of them brought him; but they had to be
fed, and the treasury was empty. The wreck of the states-general,
meeting on the 2d of January, 1358, themselves had recourse to the
expedient which they had so often and so violently reproached the king
and the dauphin with employing: they notably depreciated the coinage,
allotting a fifth of the profit to the dauphin, and retaining the other
four fifths for the defence of the kingdom. What Marcel and his party
called the defence of the kingdom was the works of fortification round
Paris, begun in October, 1356, against the English, after the defeat of
Poitiers, and resumed in 1358 against the dauphin's party in the
neighboring provinces, as well as against the robbers that were laying
them waste. Amidst all this military and popular excitement the dauphin
kept to the Louvre, having about him two thousand men-at-arms, whom he
had taken into his pay, he said, solely "on account of the prospect of a
war with the Navarrese." Before he went and plunged into a civil war
outside the gates of Paris, he resolved to make an effort to win back the
Parisians themselves to his cause. He sent a crier through the city to
bid the people assemble in the market-place, and thither he repaired on
horseback, on the 11th of January, with five or six of his most trusty
servants. The astonished mob thronged about him, and he addressed them
in vigorous language. He meant, he said, to live and die amongst the
people of Paris; if he was collecting his men-at-arms, it was not for the
purpose of plundering and oppressing Paris, but that he might march
against their common enemies; and if he had not done so sooner, it was
because "the folks who had taken the government gave him neither money
nor arms; but they would some day be called to strict account for it."
The dauphin was small, thin, delicate, and of insignificant appearance;
but at this juncture he displayed unexpected boldness and eloquence; the
people were deeply moved; and Marcel and his friends felt that a heavy
blow had just been dealt them.
They hastened to respond with a blow of another sort. It was everywhere
whispered abroad that if Paris was suffering so much from civil war and
the irregularities and calamities which were the concomitants of it, the
fault lay with the dauphin's surroundings, and that his noble advisers
deterred him from measures which would save the people from their
miseries.
"Provost Marcel and the burgesses of Paris took counsel together and
decided that it would be a good thing if some of those attendants on the
regent were to be taken away from the midst of this world. They all put
on caps, red on one side and blue on the other, which they wore as a sign
of their confederation in defence of the common weal. This done, they
reassembled in large numbers on the 22d of February, 1358, with the
provost at their head, and marched to the palace where the duke was
lodged." This crowd encountered on its, way, in the street called
Juiverie (Jewry), the advocate-general Regnault d'Aci, one of the
twenty-two royal officers denounced by the estates in the preceding year;
and he was massacred in a pastry-cook's shop. Marcel, continuing his
road, arrived at the palace, and ascended, followed by a band of armed
men, to the apartments of the dauphin, "whom he requested very sharply,"
says Froissart, "to restrain so many companies from roving about on all
sides, damaging and plundering the country. The duke replied that he
would do so willingly if he had the wherewithal to do it, but that it was
for him who received the dues belonging to the kingdom to discharge that
duty. I know not why or how," adds Froissart, "but words were multiplied
on the part of all, and became very high." "My lord duke," suddenly said
the provost, "do not alarm yourself; but we have somewhat to do here;"
and turning towards his fellows in the caps, he said, "Dearly beloved, do
that for the which ye are come." Immediately the Lord de Conflans,
Marshal of Champagne, and Robert de Clermont, Marshal of Normandy, noble
and valiant gentlemen, and both at the time unarmed, were massacred so
close to the dauphin and his couch, that his robe was covered with their
blood. The dauphin shuddered; and the rest of his officers fled. "Take
no heed, lord duke," said Marcel; "you have nought to fear." He handed
to the dauphin his own red and blue cap, and himself put on the
dauphin's, which was of black stuff with golden fringe. The corpses of
the two marshals were dragged into the court-yard of the palace, where
they remained until evening without any one's daring to remove them; and
Marcel with his fellows repaired to the mansion-house, and harangued from
an open window the mob collected on the Place de Greve. "What has been
done is for the good and the profit of the kingdom," said he; "the dead
were false and wicked traitors." "We do own it, and will maintain it!"
cried the people who were about him.
The house from which Marcel thus addressed the people was his own
property, and was called the Pillar-house. There he accommodated the
town-council, which had formerly held its sittings in divers parlors.
For a month after this triple murder, committed with such official
parade, Marcel reigned dictator in Paris. He removed from the council
of thirty-six deputies such members as he could not rely upon, and
introduced his own confidants. He cited the council, thus modified, to
express approval of the blow just struck; and the deputies, "some from
conviction and others from doubt (that is, fear), answered that they
believed that for what had been done there had been good and just cause."
The King of Navarre was recalled from Nantes to Paris, and the dauphin
was obliged to assign to him, in the king's name, "as a make-up for his
losses," ten thousand livres a year on landed property in Languedoc.
Such was the young prince's condition that, almost every day, he was
reduced to the necessity of dining with his most dangerous and most
hypocritical enemy. A man of family, devoted to the dauphin, who was now
called regent, Philip de Repenti by name, lost his head on the 19th of
March, 1358, on the market-place, for having attempted, with a few bold
comrades, "to place the regent beyond the power and the reach of the
people of Paris." Six days afterwards, however, on the 25th of March,
the dauphin succeeded in escaping, and repaired first of all to Senlis,
and then to Provins, where he found the estates of Champagne eager to
welcome him. Marcel at once sent to Provins two deputies with
instructions to bind over the three orders of Champagne "to be at one
with them of Paris, and not to be astounded at what had been done."
Before answering, the members of the estates withdrew into a garden to
parley together, and sent to pray the regent to come and meet them. "My
lord," said the Count de Braine to him in the name of the nobility, "did
you ever suffer any harm or villany at the hands of De Conflans, Marshal
of Champagne, for which he deserved to be put to death as he hath been by
them of Paris?" The prince replied that he firmly held and believed that
the said marshal and Robert de Clermont had well and loyally served and
advised him. "My lord," replied the Count de Braine, "we Champagnese who
are here do thank you for that which you have just said, and do desire
you to do full justice on those who have put our friend to death without
cause;" and they bound themselves to support him with their persons and
their property, for the chastisement of them who had been the authors of
the outrage.
The dauphin, with full trust in this manifestation and this promise,
convoked at Compiegne, for the 4th of May, 1858, no longer the estates of
Champagne only, but the states-general in their entirety, who, on
separating at the close of their last session, had adjourned to the 1st
of May following. The story of this fresh session, and of the events
determined by it, is here reproduced textually, just as it has come down
to us from the last continuer of the Chronicle of William of Nangis, the
most favorable amongst all the chroniclers of the time to Stephen Marcel
and the popular party in Paris. "All the deputies, and especially the
friends of the nobles slain, did with one heart and one mind counsel the
lord Charles, Duke of Normandy, to have the homicides stricken to death;
and, if he could not do so by reason of the number of their defenders,
they urged him to lay vigorous siege to the city of Paris, either with an
armed force or by forbidding the entry of victuals thereinto, in such
sort that it should understand and perceive for a certainty that the
death of the provost of tradesmen and of his accomplices was intended.
The said provost and those who, after the regent's departure, had taken
the government of the city, clearly understood this intention, and they
then implored the University of studies at Paris to send deputies to the
said lord-regent, to humbly adjure him, in their name and in the name of
the whole city, to banish from his heart the wrath he had conceived
against their fellow-citizens, offering and promising, moreover, a
suitable reparation for the offence, provided that the lives of the
persons were spared. The University, concerned for the welfare of the
city, sent several deputies of weight to treat about the matter. They
were received by the lord Duke Charles and the other lords with great
kindness; and they brought back word to Paris that the demand made at
Compiegne was, that ten or a dozen, or even only five or six, of the men
suspected of the crime lately committed at Paris should be sent to
Compiegne, where there was no design of putting them to death, and, if
this were done, the duke-regent would return to his old and intimate
friendship with the Parisians. But Provost Marcel and his accomplices,
who were afeard for themselves, did not believe that if they fell into
the hands of the lord duke they could escape a terrible death, and they
had no mind to run such a risk. Taking, therefore, a bold resolution,
they desired to be treated as all the rest of the citizens, and to that
end sent several deputations to the lord-regent either to Compiegne or to
Meaux, whither he sometimes removed; but they got no gracious reply, and
rather words of bitterness and threatening. Thereupon, being seized with
alarm for their city, into the which the lord-regent and his noble
comrades were so ardently desirous of re-entering, and being minded to
put it out of reach from the peril which threatened it, they began to
fortify themselves therein, to repair the walls, to deepen the ditches,
to build new ramparts on the eastern side, and to throw up barriers at
all the gates. . . . As they lacked a captain, they sent to Charles
the Bad, King of Navarre, who was at that time in Normandy, and whom they
knew to be freshly embroiled with the regent; and they requested him to
come to Paris with a strong body of men-at-arms, and to be their captain
there and their defender against all their foes, save the lord John, King
of, France, a prisoner in England. The King of Navarre, with all his
men, was received in state, on the 15th of June, by the Parisians, to the
great indignation of the prince-regent, his friends, and many others.
The nobles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to ride about in
the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a
sortie from Paris to attack them. . . . On a certain day the
besiegers came right up to the bridge of Charenton, as if to draw out the
King of Navarre and the Parisians to battle. The King of Navarre issued
forth, armed, with his men, and drawing near to the besiegers, had long
conversations with them without fighting, and afterwards went back into
Paris. At sight hereof the Parisians suspected that this king, who was
himself a noble, was conspiring with the besiegers, and was preparing to
deal some secret blow to the detriment of Paris; so they conceived
mistrust of him and his, and stripped him of his office of captain. He
went forth sore vexed from Paris, he and his; and the English especially,
whom he had brought with him, insulted certain Parisians, whence it
happened that before they were out of the city several of them were
massacred by the folks of Paris, who afterwards confined themselves
within their walls, carefully guarding the gates by day, and by night
keeping up strong patrols on the ramparts."
Whilst Marcel inside Paris, where he reigned supreme, was a prey, on his
own account and that of his besieged city, to these anxieties and perils,
an event occurred outside which seemed to open to him a prospect of
powerful aid, perhaps of decisive victory. Throughout several provinces
the peasants, whose condition, sad and hard as it already was under the
feudal system, had been still further aggravated by the outrages and
irregularities of war, not finding any protection in their lords, and
often being even oppressed by them as if they had been foes, had recourse
to insurrection in order to escape from the evils which came down upon
them every day and from every quarter.
They bore and would bear anything, it was said, and they got the name of
Jacques Bonhomme (Jack Goodfellow); but this taunt they belied in a
terrible manner. We will quote from the last continuer of William of
Nangis, the least declamatory and the least confused of all the
chroniclers of that period: "In this same year 1358," says he, "in the
summer [the first rising took place on the 28th of May], the peasants in
the neighborhood of St. Loup de Cerent and Clermont, in the diocese of
Beauvais, took up arms against the nobles of France. They assembled in
great numbers, set at their head a certain peasant named William Karle
[or Cale, or Callet], of more intelligence than the rest, and marching by
companies under their own flag, roamed over the country, slaying and
massacring all the nobles they met, even their own lords. Not content
with that, they demolished the houses and castles of the nobles; and,
what is still more deplorable, they villanously put to death the noble
dames and little children who fell into their hands; and afterwards they
strutted about, they and their wives, bedizened with the garments they
had stripped from their victims. The number of men who had thus risen
amounted to five thousand, and the rising extended to the outskirts of
Paris. They had begun it from sheer necessity and love of justice, for
their lords oppressed instead of defending them; but before long they
proceeded to the most hateful and criminal deeds. They took and
destroyed from top to bottom the strong castle of Ermenonville, where
they put to death a multitude of men and dames of noble family who had
taken refuge there. For some time the nobles no longer went about as
before; none of them durst set a foot outside the fortified places."
Jacquery had taken the form of a fit of demagogic fury, and the Jacks [or
Goodfellows] swarming out of their hovels were the terror of the castles.
Had Marcel provoked this bloody insurrection? There is strong
presumption against him; many of his contemporaries say he had; and the
dauphin himself wrote on the 30th of August, 1359, to the Count of Savoy,
that one of the most heinous acts of Marcel and his partisans was
exciting the folks of the open country in France, of Beauvaisis and
Champagne, and other districts, against the nobles of the said kingdom;
"whence so many evils have proceeded as no man should or could conceive."
It is quite certain, however, that, the insurrection having once broken
out, Marcel hastened to profit by it, and encouraged and even supported
it at several points. Amongst other things he sent from Paris a body of
three hundred men to the assistance of the peasants who were besieging
the castle of Ermenonville. It is the due penalty paid by reformers who
allow themselves to drift into revolution, that they become before long
accomplices in mischief or crime which their original design and their
own personal interest made it incumbent on them to prevent or repress.
The reaction against Jaequery was speedy and shockingly bloody. The
nobles, the dauphin, and the King of Navarre, a prince and a noble at the
same time that he was a scoundrel, made common cause against the
Goodfellows, who were the more disorderly in proportion as they had
become more numerous, and believed themselves more invincible. The
ascendency of the masters over the rebels was soon too strong for
resistance. At Meaux, of which the Goodfellows had obtained possession,
they were surprised and massacred to the number, it is said, of seven
thousand, with the town burning about their ears. In Beauvaisis, the
King of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their
chieftain, William Karle or Callet, got possession of him, and had him
beheaded, wearing a trivet of red-hot iron, says one of the chroniclers,
by way of crown. He then moved upon a camp of Goodfellows assembled near
Montdidier, slew three thousand of them, and dispersed the remainder.
These figures are probably very much exaggerated, as nearly always
happens in such accounts; but the continuer of William of Nangis, so
justly severe on the outrages and barbarities of the insurgent peasants,
is not less so on those of their conquerors. "The nobles of France," he
says, "committed at that time such ravages in the district of Meaux that
there was no need for the English to come and destroy our country those
mortal enemies of the kingdom could not have done what was done by the
nobles at home."
Marcel from that moment perceived that his cause was lost, and no longer
dreamed of anything but saving himself and his, at any price; "for he
thought," says Froissart, "that it paid better to slay than to be slain."
Although he had more than once experienced the disloyalty of the King of
Navarre, he entered into fresh negotiation with him, hoping to use him as
an intermediary between himself and the dauphin, in order to obtain
either an acceptable peace or guarantees for his own security in case of
extreme danger. The King of Navarre lent a ready ear to these overtures;
he had no scruple about negotiating with this or that individual, this or
that party, flattering himself that he would make one or the other useful
for his own purposes. Marcel had no difficulty in discovering that the
real design of the King of Navarre was to set aside the house of Valois
and the Plantagenets together, and to become King of France himself, as a
descendant, in his own person, of St. Louis, though one degree more
remote. An understanding was renewed between the two, such as it is
possible to have between two personal interests fundamentally different,
but capable of being for the moment mutually helpful. Marcel, under
pretext of defence against the besiegers, admitted into Paris a pretty
large number of English in the pay of the King of Navarre. Before long,
quarrels arose between the Parisians and these unpopular foreigners; on
the 21st of July, 1358, during one of these quarrels, twenty-four English
were massacred by the people; and four hundred others, it is said, were
in danger of undergoing the same fate, when Marcel came up and succeeded
in saving their lives by having them imprisoned in the Louvre. The
quarrel grew hotter and spread farther. The people of Paris went and
attacked other mercenaries of the King of Navarre, chiefly English, who
were occupying St. Denis and St. Cloud. The Parisians were beaten; and
the King of Navarre withdrew to St. Denis. On the 27th of July, Marcel
boldly resolved to set at liberty and send over to him the four hundred
English imprisoned in the Louvre. He had them let out, accordingly, and
himself escorted them as far as the gate St. Honore, in the midst of a
throng that made no movement for all its irritation. Some of Marcel's
satellites who formed the escort cried out as they went, "Has anybody
aught to say against the setting of these prisoners at liberty?" The
Parisians remembered their late reverse, and not a voice was raised.
"Strongly moved as the people of Paris were in their hearts against the
provost of tradesmen," says a contemporary chronicle, "there was not a man
who durst commence a riot."
Marcel's position became day by day more critical. The dauphin, encamped
with his army around Paris, was keeping up secret but very active
communications with it; and a party, numerous and already growing in
popularity, was being formed there in his favor. Men of note, who were
lately Marcel's comrades, were now pronouncing against him; and John
Maillart, one of the four chosen captains of the municipal forces, was
the most vigilant. Marcel, at his wit's end, made an offer to the King
of Navarre to deliver Paris up to him on the night between the 31st of
July and the 1st of August. All was ready for carrying out this design.
During the day of the 31st of July, Marcel would have changed the keepers
of the St. Denis gate, but Maillart opposed him, rushed to the Hotel de
Ville, seized the banner of France, jumped on horseback and rode through
the city shouting, "Mountjoy St. Denis, for the king and the duke!" This
was the rallying-cry of the dauphin's partisans. The day ended with a
great riot amongst the people. Towards eleven o'clock at night Marcel,
followed by his people armed from head to foot, made his way to the St.
Anthony gate, holding in his hands, it is said, the keys of the city.
Whilst he was there, waiting for the arrival of the King of Navarre's
men, Maillart came up "with torches and lanterns and a numerous
assemblage. He went straight to the provost and said to him, 'Stephen,
Stephen, what do you here at this hour?' 'John, what business have you
to meddle? I am here to take the guard of the city of which I have the
government.' 'By God,' rejoined Maillart, 'that will not do; you are not
here at this hour for any good, and I'll prove it to you,' said he,
addressing his comrades. 'See, he holds in his hands the keys of the
gates, to betray the city.'"
"'You lie, John,' said Marcel. 'By God, you traitor, 'tis you who lie,'
replied Maillart: 'death! death! to all on his side!' "And he raised his
battle-axe against Marcel. Philippe Giffard, one of the provost's
friends, threw himself before Marcel and covered him for a moment with
his own body; but the struggle had begun in earnest. Maillart plied his
battle-axe upon Marcel, who fell pierced with many wounds. Six of his
comrades shared the same fate; and Robert Lecocq, Bishop of Laon, saved
himself by putting on a Cordelier's habit. Maillart's company divided
themselves into several bands, and spread themselves all over the city,
carrying the news everywhere, and despatching or arresting the partisans
of Marcel. The next morning, the 1st of August, 1358, "John Maillart
brought together in the market-place the greater part of the community of
Paris, explained for what reason he had slain the provost of tradesmen
and in what offence he had detected him, and pointed out quietly and
discreetly how that on this very night the city of Paris must have been
overrun and destroyed if God of His grace had not applied a remedy. When
the people who were present heard these news they were much astounded at
the peril in which they had been, and the greater part thanked God with
folded hands for the grace He had done them." The corpse of Stephen
Marcel was stripped and exposed quite naked to the public gaze, in front
of St. Catherine du Val des Beoliers, on the very spot where, by his
orders, the corpses of the two marshals, Robert de Clermont and John de
Conflans, had been exposed five months before. He was afterwards cast
into the river in the presence of a great concourse. "Then were
sentenced to death by the council of prud'hommes of Paris, and executed
by divers forms of deadly torture, several who had been of the sect of
the provost," the regent having declared that he would not re-enter Paris
until these traitors had ceased to live.
Thus perished, after scarcely three years' political life, and by the
hands of his former friends, a man of rare capacity and energy, who at
the outset had formed none but patriotic designs, and had, no doubt,
promised himself a better fate. When, in December, 1355, at the summons
of a deplorably incapable and feeble king, Marcel, a simple burgher of
Paris and quite a new man, entered the assembly of the states-general of
France, itself quite a new power, he was justly struck with the vices and
abuses of the kingly government, with the evils and the dangers being
entailed thereby upon France, and with the necessity for applying some
remedy. But, notwithstanding this perfectly honest and sound conviction,
he fell into a capital error; he tried to abolish, for a time at least,
the government he desired to reform, and to substitute for the kingship
and its agents the people and their elect. For more than three centuries
the kingship had been the form of power which had naturally assumed shape
and development in France, whilst seconding the natural labor attending
the formation and development of the French nation; but this labor had as
yet advanced but a little way, and the nascent nation was not in a
condition to take up position at the head of its government. Stephen
Marcel attempted by means of the states-general of the fourteenth century
to bring to pass what we in the nineteenth, and after all the advances of
the French nation, have not yet succeeded in getting accomplished, to
wit, the government of the country by the country itself. Marcel, going
from excess to excess and from reverse to reverse in the pursuit of his
impracticable enterprise, found himself before long engaged in a fierce
struggle with the feudal aristocracy, still so powerful at that time, as
well as with the kingship. Being reduced to depend entirely during this
struggle upon such strength as could be supplied by a municipal democracy
incoherent, inexperienced, and full of divisions in its own ranks, and by
a mad insurrection in the country districts, he rapidly fell into the
selfish and criminal condition of the man whose special concern is his
own personal safety. This he sought to secure by an unworthy alliance
with the most scoundrelly amongst his ambitious contemporaries, and he
would have given up his own city as well as France to the King of Navarre
and the English had not another burgher of Paris, John Maillart, stopped
him, and put him to death at the very moment when the patriot of the
states-general of 1355 was about to become a traitor to his country.
Hardly thirteen years before, when Stephen Marcel was already a
full-grown man, the great Flemish burgher, James Van Artevelde, had,
in the cause of his country's liberties, attempted a similar enterprise,
and, after a series of great deeds at the outset and then of faults also
similar to those of Marcel, had fallen into the same abyss, and had
perished by the hand of his fellow-citizens, at the very moment when he
was laboring to put Flanders, his native country, into the hands of a
foreign master, the Prince of Wales, son of Edward III., King of England.
Of all political snares the democratic is the most tempting, but it is
also the most demoralizing and the most deceptive when, instead of
consulting the interests of the democracy by securing public liberties, a
man aspires to put it in direct possession of the supreme power, and with
its sole support to take upon himself the direction of the helm.
One single result of importance was won for France by the states-general
of the fourteenth century, namely, the principle of the nation's right to
intervene in their own affairs, and to set their government straight when
it had gone wrong or was incapable of performing that duty itself. Up to
that time, in the thirteenth century and at the opening of the
fourteenth, the states-general had been hardly anything more than a
temporary expedient employed by the kingship itself to solve some special
question, or to escape from some grave embarrassment. Starting from King
John, the states-general became one of the principles of national right;
a principle which did not disappear even when it remained without
application, and the prestige of which survived even its reverses. Faith
and hope fill a prominent place in the lives of peoples as well as of
individuals; having sprung into real existence in 1355, the
states-general of France found themselves alive again in 1789; and we may
hope that, after so long a trial, their rebuffs and their mistakes will
not be more fatal to them in our day.
