Hardly had the echo of the _Carillon_ died away, which had swung out the joy of the burghers at the great pacification at the opening of Duke Philip's rule, when hostilities broke out again. Philip was in no way sincere in signing that treaty which Ghent had so proudly negotiated with him, more like an independent sovereign state than a conquered rebel city, and presently he conceived a diabolical plot to slay all her burghers by means of Breton mercenaries whom he would secretly have brought into their midst. This fell design having been happily discovered, the agents who were to have accomplished it, disappointed of the rich booty they thought to have obtained at Ghent, turned their attention to Bruges, and soon began to break into the houses of sundry honourable burghers there, and to insult and molest their women. Whereupon tumult unspeakable, and in the midst of it all the Duke of Berri was descried riding towards the _Pont des Carmes_. This man was the most hated of all the French knights, for his hands were red, every burgher believed, with the blood of their favourite Louis of Maele. In a moment he was surrounded by the howling mob, unhorsed, wounded almost to death, and 'if it had not been for the intervention of the Sire de Ghistelle--a man of weight, at Bruges--he would not have escaped with his life.' Thus Froissart; and he adds, 'Nor would a single knight or squire of France have been left alive in the town.' Meanwhile Philip's affairs had prospered in France. He was now practically regent of the kingdom. His wife, '_une creuse et haute dame_,' was installed at Paris, and had undertaken the administration of the Queen's household. The King's counsellors were in exile; the Bishop of Laon was dead--poisoned, it was thought by many--and others would have probably shared his fate had not Philip's hand been restrained by a passing fear that the King's reason was returning. Things then were going well with the Duke of Burgundy. He had time to turn his attention to the taming of the Flemish burghers, and amongst other regulations and proceedings, in direct contravention of the treaty of Tournai, he began to fight against the popular conscience.