Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
In 1417 the English returned under Henry V. The Burgundians had
promised neutrality, and the defeated Armagnacs were forced in their
need to "borrow[91] of the saints." But hateful memories clung to them
in Paris and they were betrayed. On the night of 29th May 1418, the
son of an ironmonger on the Petit Pont, who had charge of the wicket
of the Porte St. Germain, crept into his father's room and stole the
keys while he slept. The gate was then opened to the Burgundians, who
seized the person of the helpless and imbecile king. Some Armagnacs
escaped, bearing the dauphin with them, and the remainder were flung
into prison. The Burgundian partisans in the city, among whom was the
powerful corporation of the butchers and fleshers, now rose, and on
Sunday, 14th June, ran to the prisons. A night of terror ensued.
Before dawn, fifteen hundred Armagnacs were indiscriminately butchered
under the most revolting circumstances; the count himself perished,
and a strip of his skin was carried about Paris in mockery of the
white scarf of the Armagnacs. Jean sans Peur and Queen Isabella[92]
entered the city, amid the acclamation of the people, and soon after a
second massacre followed, in spite of Jean's efforts to prevent it.
Burgundy was now master of Paris, but the Armagnacs were swarming in
the country around and the English marching without let on the city.
In these straits he sought a reconciliation with the dauphin and his
Armagnac counsellors at Melun, on 11th July 1419. On 10th September a
second conference was arranged, and duke and dauphin, each with ten
attendants, met in a wicker enclosure on the bridge at Montereau. Jean
doffed his cap and knelt to the dauphin, but before he could rise was
felled by a blow from an axe and stabbed to death.
[Footnote 91: They melted down the reliquaries in the Paris churches.]
[Footnote 92: In 1417 Charles, returning from a visit to the queen at
the castle of Vincennes, met the Chevalier Bois-Burdon going thither.
He ordered his arrest, and under torture a confession reflecting on
the queen's honour was extorted. Bois-Burdon was delivered to the
provost at the Chatelet, and one night, _sans declarer la cause au
people_, sewn in a sack and dropped into the Seine. The queen was
banished to Tours, and her jewels and treasures confiscated. Furious
with the king and the Armagnac faction, she made common cause with the
Duke of Burgundy.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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