CHAP. II. THE FIRST BLOODSHED. 29 A. D. 1357-59. Marcel lost not a moment in calling together a counter-assembly, where he refuted the Duke's charges, and the assembly declared, with universal acclama- Marcel tion, that they would support him against all his them. enemies. refutes solve. The Duke, notwithstanding, made no change in His rehis proceedings, and acted entirely under the advice. of the very counsellors who were most hated by the Parisians, and Marcel and his friends came to the conclusion that it was necessary to put some of them to death. officer Marcel enters the The red and blue caps were put on; the tocsin of Notre Dame sounded the alarm; and the people gathered together in arms round the palace. The first victim was one of the twenty-two proscribed A royal royal officers, who by accident got entangled in the executed. crowd. After this, Marcel, at the head of 3,000 armed men, entered the palace and confronted the Duke. He called on him to undertake the defence of the king- palace. dom; the Duke answered that that duty devolved on those who received its revenues. Angry words ensued, and Marcel exclaimed, "Sir Duke, be not astonished at anything you may see, for it is necessary." Then, turning to the "bonnets," he said, "Do quickly that for which you came here." The Lord Murder of Conflans Marshal of Champagne, and Robert de marshals. Clermont Marshal of Normandy, two of the Duke's confidential advisers, were murdered on the spot, and the Duke was glad to escape under the protection of Marcel, with a red and blue bonnet on his head. of two of the The blood which had been thus shed, and which Progress eventually was the ruin of Marcel's cause, made it revolution. necessary to go on with the revolution. Marcel was A. D. 1357-59. The States of Cham pagne and the Duke. Marcel seizes the Louvre. master of Paris, but he felt the necessity of a supporter belonging to the nobility, and consequently sent to the King of Navarre to beg him to come to him. Charles the Bad arrived on the 26th of February, and expressed his approval of all that had been done; but Marcel shrunk from placing him on the throne. He wished rather to secure him as a friend, against the ill-will which the nobles and the Duke of Normandy bore against him, than to break finally with the Duke, and commit himself to a complete revolution. He, therefore, contented himself with compelling the Duke to compensate the King of Navarre for his sufferings and his losses. This was a fatal mistake, but it was succeeded by another still more serious. Marcel-who acted throughout with too great a trust in the Duke-allowed him to leave Paris, to preside over a meeting of the Provincial Estates. On the 9th of April, the Duke met the States of Champagne at Provins. They were angry at the murder of their Marshal, and asked the Duke whether he had any cause of complaint against him. The Duke answered that he had none, and the States then promised him their support against the Marshal's murderers. Two Parisian deputies who had attended the meeting of the States, hastened back to Paris to warn Marcel, who wrote a most touching letter of remonstrance to the Duke.1 This produced no effect, and Marcel, therefore, lost no time in preparing to defend himself; he seized the Louvre, drove out the Duke's supporters, took possession of the artillery and other arms, shut 1 See this most interesting letter in Martin's France, vol. v. p. 567. CHAP. II. THE JACQUERIE. 31 the gates of the city, barred the river with iron chains, and cleared the ramparts by destroying all the houses built against them. In order to prevent Paris from being starved out, he wished to seize Meaux and other fortified points on the Seine and Marne, but the Duke was beforehand with him at Meaux. The Duke now prepared for the siege of Paris, and Marcel did the same for its defence. But a new and terrible danger threatened the kingdom, and, for a time, put an end to all thoughts but those as to the means of averting it. The Jacquerie had begun. A.D. 1357-59. The Jac querie. The peasants, oppressed and derided by the nobles, Its origin; plundered and outraged by "The Companies," while the nobles and gentlemen looked on in security from their castles without moving a finger to protect them, had at last felt their burden too heavy to be borne, and had risen with the ferocity of beasts of prey, to cast it from them. "Death to all the gentlemen" was the cry of an assemblage of peasants in the neighbourhood of Clermont. They elected a peasant named Guillaume Callet as their chief, and armed only with knives and iron-shod bludgeons, attacked a neighbouring castle, and killed the castellan and his family. Castle after castle was then attacked in a similar way, and, just as the thatched cottages had been burnt and plundered by the "Companies," so were the castles now treated by the peasants. The insurrection spread like wild-fire; more than 100,000 its propeasants cast away their spades, and armed themselves with rude pikes. No noble sentiment animated the insurgents; they were inspired solely by a fierce desire of vengeance, by a determination to render outrage for outrage, and they acted in conformity with the dictates of their excited passions. gress. A. D. 1357-59 The nobles were stupified. Had the flocks under the charge of the shepherd turned upon him and Surprise of trampled him to pieces, he could not have been more astonished than were the lords at the uprising of their despised serfs. the nobles. The Jacques Marcel. Many "rich men " joined the Jacques with the in directing them, and Marcel He sent 300 Parisians to castle of Ermonville, and assisted by tention of moderating and attempted to do the same. assist them in taking the succeeded, for once, in restraining their excesses. Soon, however, this body of the insurgents again began their massacres, and Marcel thought it right to withdraw the Parisians. Paris opened its gates, as a place of refuge, to the nobles who were not notoriously on the side of those who "wished evil to the people;" but at the same time Marcel continued to negotiate with the leaders of the Jacques. The Duchess of Normandy had fled to Meaux with 300 ladies, and Marcel, wishing doubtless to seize so great a prize, determined again to send some Parisians to help the Jacques in attacking it. The Duke had strongly fortified the market-place, and his garrison greatly oppressed the people; the inhabitants therefore entreated the Jacques to come to their rescue. The mayor opened the gates to the assailants, and nine or ten thousand furious, half-armed, half-starved peasants rushed in, accompanied by the Parisians whom Marcel had sent to their assistance. The citizens first fed the famished multitude, and then led them to the attack. They attack Meaux, Marcel was aware that the Duke was not at Meaux, and knew that the garrison was weak; he therefore expected to be able to carry the market-place by 1 Martin, Hist. de France, vol. v. p. 196. |