“You know the country?” said the constable to Marshal Isle-Adam. “Yes, my lord,” answered the other; “and by my faith, in the position held by the English, you would do nothing to harm or annoy them, though you had ten thousand fighting men.” “Ah! but we will,” replied Richemont; “God will help us. Keep pressing forward to support the skirmishers.” And he occupied St. Denis, and drove out the English. The population of Paris, being informed of this success, were greatly moved and encouraged. One brave burgess of Paris, Michel Laillier, master of the exchequer, notified to the constable, it is said, that they were ready and quite able to open one of the gates to him, provided that an engagement were entered into in the king’s name for a general amnesty and the prevention of all disorder. The constable, on the king’s behalf, entered into the required engagement, and presented himself the next day, the 13th of April, with a picked force before the St. Michel gate. The enterprise was discovered. A man posted on the wall made signs to them with his hat, crying out, “Go to the other gate; there’s no opening this; work is going on for you in the Market-quarter.” The picked force followed the course of the ramparts up to the St. Jacques gate. “Who goes there?” demanded some burghers who had the guard of it. “Some of the constable’s people.” He himself came up on his big charger, with satisfaction and courtesy in his mien. Some little time was required for opening the gate; a long ladder was let down; and Marshal Isle-Adam was the first to mount, and planted on the wall the standard of France. The fastenings of the drawbridge were burst, and when it was let down, the constable made his entry on horseback, riding calmly down St. Jacques Street, in the midst of a joyous and comforted crowd. “My good friends,” he said to them, “the good King Charles, and I on his behalf, do thank you a hundred thousand times for yielding up to him so quietly the chief city of his kingdom. If there be amongst you any, of whatsoever condition he may be, who hath offended against my lord ‘the king, all is forgiven, in the case both of the absent and the present.” [Illustration: The Constable Made his Entry on Horseback----150]