These dreadful occurrences had just taken place when John the Fearless returned with the queen to Paris, amidst the enthusiastic acclaims of the crowd, who believed he brought peace and abundance with him. Vain hope! Neither one nor the other was to come from the duke of Burgundy, but on the contrary to all preceding misfortunes there was added an epidemic which carried off in Paris and its environs fifty thousand persons. Again the fury of the mob became uncontrollable and wrought its vengeance on the wretched beings that had been overlooked in the prisons or sent there since June. The 31st of August an immense assemblage formed itself under the orders of the hangman Capeluche, and set out for the prisons. The duke of Burgundy hastened after them imploringly, and even went so far as to press the hand of Capeluche, but in vain. A new massacre took place. Some days after the duke sent the bloodthirsty mob after some Armagnacs, shut up, as he said, in Montlhéry, and as soon as they were gone he shut the gates of Paris behind them and had Capeluche beheaded.[b] In becoming master of Paris, the duke of Burgundy had succeeded to all the embarrassments of the constable D’Armagnac. He had now in his turn to rule the great city, victual and maintain it, which could only be done by keeping the Armagnacs and the English at a distance--that is to say, by making war, re-establishing the taxes he had suppressed, and losing his popularity. The equivocal part he had so long played, accusing others of treachery, while he himself was betraying his country, was now to come to a close. As the English were ascending the Seine and menacing Paris, he had no alternative but to forego his hold on the capital, or to give them battle. But by his eternal tergiversation and duplicity, he had enervated his own party, and was now powerless alike for peace or war. The people of Rouen and Paris, who had chosen him for their leader, were Burgundians, indeed, and foes to the Armagnacs, but still more foes to the English. They were astonished, in their simplicity, to see that their good duke did nothing against the enemy of the kingdom. His warmest partisans began to say, as the Bourgeois de Paris[q] relates, that “he was, in all his proceedings, the slowest man that could be found.” The Armagnacs possessed the whole centre, Sens, Moret, Crécy, Compiègne, Montlhéry, a girdle of towns round Paris, Meaux, and Melun; that is to say, Marne and Haute Seine. The duke sent to Rouen all the forces he could spare without leaving Paris unprotected, namely, four thousand horse.