"We expiated in the _oubliettes_ of the Fort-l'Évêque, under the reign of Francis I., the wrong of believing in God without believing also in the infallibility of the Pope. Look ... there is blood on our shrouds!" "We are two poor Augustine monks. They accused us, in Charles VI.'s time, of being idolaters, invokers of evil spirits, utterers of profane words. They accused us of making a pact with the powers below; our only crime was believing that our science might heal the madness of the King. Look ... there is blood on our shrouds!" "I am the sorcerer of the château of Landon. I promised an Abbé of Citeaux to find, by magic, a sum of money that had been stolen from him. Alas! it was a dear jest for me; torture, and death on the Place de Grève. Look ... there is blood upon my shroud!" "I am a poor madman. I thought that heaven had given me the glorious mission of sustaining on earth the servants of Jesus Christ. I went humbly to the bishop and said: The envoy of God salutes you! They brought me here to an _oubliette_, and I left it only with the headsman. Look ... there is blood on my shroud!" ------- The factions of the Armagnacs and the Bourguignons cost Paris a river of blood in the early years of the fifteenth century, and the massacre of the Armagnacs in May-August, 1418, was a terrible affair. On the first day, five hundred and twenty-two were put to the sword by the Bourguignons in the streets of the capital. Every Armagnac, or suspected Armagnac, was laid hold of, and the prisons overflowed with the captives. The Bourguignons assailed the Châtelet, "and the threshold of the prison became the scaffold of fifteen hundred unfortunates." The attack upon the Châtelet was renewed by the Bourguignons in August; and the Provost of Paris, powerless to check or even to stem their fury, bade them at length "Do what they would": _Mes amis, faites_ _ce qu'il vous plaira_. This time the prisoners organised a defence, and a regular siege began. On the north side of the fortress was a lofty terrace, crowning the wall, so to say, and running the length of the prison. Here the imprisoned Armagnacs threw up barricades, but the Bourguignons reared scaling-ladders, and made light of climbing the walls, sixty feet in height. The attack on the one side and the defence on the other were long, bloody, and desperate; but the advantage was with the assailants. Foiled at this point and that, they fired the prison; and where the flames did not penetrate, they hacked their way in, and drove their game to take refuge on the heights. As the fire soared upwards, the Armagnacs flung themselves over the walls, and were caught upon the pikes of the Burgundians, "who finished them with axe and sword." -------