Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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