The provost was scarcely in possession of the fortress before the scene changed. The Burgundian prince had skilfully laid a train, and a violent explosion suddenly took place. A rumour was spread throughout Paris, that the Orleanists, or Armagnacs, as they now began to be called, intended to carry off the dauphin with his own consent, and that the provost was at the head of the plot. A furious multitude, the leaders of which were two of the duke’s attendants, immediately hurried to invest the Bastile on all sides. It swelled every moment, till it consisted of not fewer than twenty thousand armed men, all clamorous for the blood of des Essarts, and determined to storm the castle, in order to satisfy their rage. Another body, led by John de Troie, a surgeon, proceeded, at the same time, to the dauphin’s palace, loaded him with insult, and arrested several of his officers and friends, some of whom were murdered on their way to prison. The duke of Burgundy now came forward, apparently as a mediator. The besiegers he induced to suspend their attack, by promising that their object should be attained without force being used. He then tried his eloquence on des Essarts. In the first interview he failed, in the second he succeeded. By dint of representing to him that it was impossible to restrain the people, and that, if they effected their entrance, which they certainly would, the provost would be torn in pieces, he shook his resolution of defending himself; and, by pledging his honour that no harm should befall him, he finally prevailed on him to surrender. Des Essarts would have done more wisely to brave death from the sanguinary crowd, than to rely on the honour of an acknowledged assassin. Ostensibly for the purpose of saving him from the violence of his enemies, he was led to the prison of the Châtelet, where he seems to have thought that all danger was at an end. He was speedily undeceived, by his being brought to trial. In addition to various crimes charged against him in his official capacity, he was accused of having caused the renewal of the war between the princes after the treaty of Chartres, and of having plotted to carry off from Paris the king, the queen, and the dauphin. He was, of course, found guilty, and was condemned to lose his head, and to have his remains suspended from the gibbet of Montfaucon. Four years had not elapsed since the convicted Montaigu was conveyed by him to the same spot. The sentence passed on des Essarts was executed on the first of July 1413. He went to the scaffold with great courage; a circumstance which his enemies attributed to his having flattered himself that the people would rise and rescue him. If he entertained any such visionary hopes, his long experience of the people must have been entirely lost upon him.