Meaux as well as Lâon, Soissons, Beauvais, Noyon and other towns in the district felt the effects of the Jacquerie revolts in the thirteenth century. Indeed, many of the ladies who suffered from the horrors of the persecution at Beauvais fled at first to Meaux to escape the fury of the rebels; and once having got within the town, they did not dare to leave it, so that to all intents and purposes they were prisoners within its walls. Throughout the whole district bands of robbers and furious peasants infested the roads or lay in ambush to catch the unwary, and it was thus very dangerous to go from one town to another, even under an armed escort. Hearing of the plight of these ladies in Meaux, among whom were the Duchesses of Orléans and Normandy, the Earl of Foix and the Captal de Buch resolved to go to their aid, and set out forthwith from Châlons, to find a great host of the peasantry also bound for the same place. The rebels had heard that Meaux was chiefly inhabited by refugee women and children, also that it contained a great deal of treasure; and they were now flocking down every road, from Valois, from Beauvoisie and from Paris, towards the little town upon the Marne. Foix and his company were received with the utmost joy, for the peasants had already begun to fill the streets and to do what damage they could, and the ladies were naturally in great alarm. “But when these banditti perceived such a troop of gentlemen, so well equipped, sally forth to guard the market-place, the foremost of them began to fall back. The gentlemen then followed them, using their lances and swords. When they felt the weight of their blows, they, through fear, turned about so fast, they fell one over the other. All manner of armed persons then rushed out of the barriers, drove them before them, striking them down like beasts, and clearing the town of them, for they kept neither regularity nor order, slaying so many that they were tired. They flung them in great heaps into the river. In short, they killed upwards of seven thousand. Not one would have escaped if they had chosen to pursue them further.” [Illustration: MEAUX]