Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1Walton, William
History
Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1
Walton, William
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
In Paris, opinions were very much divided, and even those who favored
the French king felt that they were too much compromised to open their
gates to him without some stipulations. Two years later, Jeanne having
been duly burned at Rouen, and the consecration of Charles VII, at
Reims, "to which he had been conducted by an agent of the demon, being
in itself and of its own nature null and void," the English monarch
entered his city of Paris to receive an orthodox and irreprehensible
coronation. As he rode by the Hôtel Saint-Pol, he perceived the Queen
Isabeau on the balcony; he doffed his hat to her and she returned his
salute, then burst into tears. On the 17th of December, he was anointed
and crowned in Notre-Dame by Cardinal Winchester--which gave great
offence to the Bishop of Paris--and surrounded entirely by English
lords; there was no liberation of prisoners, no largess to the people,
no removal of taxes. "A bourgeois who marries off his daughter would
have done the thing better," said the Parisians. However, he manifested
some desire to secure their good-will by confirming a number of their
minor privileges, their right to acquire titles of nobility, etc.
The discontent grew among the citizens; no coronation of a king of
France could be as sacred as that celebrated according to the ancient
ceremonial at Reims; the English garrison felt constrained to take such
strong measures of precaution as to forbid any one to leave the city
without passports, or to mount upon the ramparts under penalty of being
hanged. It was not till the 29th of May, 1436, that six citizens, whose
names history has preserved, contrived to open the Porte Saint-Jacques,
in the quarter of the Halles, to their countrymen outside; the Constable
of France, Arthur de Bretagne, Comte de Richemont, with the Comte de
Dunois and some two thousand horsemen, were waiting for them; the first
twenty men introduced through a little postern gate opened the great
doors and let down the drawbridge, all the cavalry trooped in without
meeting the least resistance. "Then the Maréchal de l'Isle-Adam mounted
upon the wall, unfurled the banner of France, and cried '_Ville
gagnée!_' [City taken!]."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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