They came to the gates of the town, which the inhabitants opened to them, and allowed them to enter: they did so in such numbers that all the streets were quite filled as far as the market-place, which is tolerably strong, but it required to be guarded, though the river Marne nearly surrounds it. The noble dames who were lodged there, seeing such multitudes rushing toward them, were exceedingly frightened. On this the two lords and their company advanced to the gate of the market-place, which they had opened, and marching under the banners of the Earl of Foix and Duke of Orleans, and the pennon of the Captal of Buch, posted themselves in front of this peasantry, who were badly armed. 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 upward of seven thousand. Not one would have escaped, if they had chosen to pursue them further. On the return of the men at arms, they set fire to the town of Meaux, and burnt it, and all the peasants they could find were shut up in it, because they had been of the party of the Jacks. Since this discomfiture which happened to them at Meaux, they never collected again in any great bodies; for the young Enguerrand de Coucy had plenty of gentlemen under his orders, who destroyed them, wherever they could be met with, without mercy. BOOK II.[29] CHAPTER I. CORONATION OF KING CHARLES OF FRANCE. As you may well imagine, nothing was spared by the nobility and great lords to add to the magnificence of the coronation of the young King Charles[30] of France, who was crowned at Rheims on a Sunday, in the twelfth year of his age, in the year 1380. At this solemnity there were many high and mighty lords. The young king made his entry into the city of Rheims on the Saturday, handsomely attended by the great lords, nobility, and minstrels, at vespers. In particular, there were upward of thirty trumpets, which preceded him, and sounded so clear it was quite marvellous to hear them. There were also a great many other young squires, children of the great barons of France, whom the king on the morrow, being the day of his coronation, created knights. This Saturday the king heard vespers in the church of Our Lady, and performed his vigils in that church, according to the custom of those times, the greater part of the night. All the youths desirous of knighthood attended him, and did the same.