Part 25

Paris became in after-ages the sanguinary theatre of civil wars, which, under the reign of weak princes, desolated the kingdom. These unhappy times commenced under the pusillanimous administration of Charles VI. The hatreds which divided the nobles broke out openly: France was divided into two factions, almost equally powerful,--that of the duke of Orleans, which was called the _Armagnacs_; and that of the duke of Burgundy, called the Burgundians. Almost all the Parisians were of the latter party. The first wore, as a distinctive mark, a white cross at right angles; the second, a red cross oblique, called the cross of St. Andrew. These two parties soon made cruel war upon each other. The Armagnacs marched towards Paris, the hopes of plundering that great city exciting the ardour and cupidity of the troops. Everything yielded to their first efforts: at their approach, most of the garrisons distributed in the neighbouring places sought safety in flight. St. Denis was the only city that defended itself for a few days. Jean de Châlons, prince of Orange, commanded in the place; the fear of its being carried by assault obliged him to capitulate; he marched out with his garrison, under a promise of not bearing arms for four years. The treachery of Colonel De Paysieux rendered the Orléanais masters of St. Cloud, and of the passage of the Seine above Paris. That city, entirely closed in on the north side, already experienced a scarcity of provisions; the troops spread about the environs daily perpetrated the most horrid cruelties. Houses of pleasure, villages, fields of corn, were all on fire; massacres and violences of every kind, the most horrible sacrileges, the most guilty excesses, were the sports of these pitiless destroyers. Among these brigands was Montagu, archbishop of Sens, who, instead of a mitre, wore a bassinet; for a dalmaique, a habergeon; for a chasuble, a steel gorget; and instead of a cross, carried an axe. Nevertheless, with the danger from without, the fury of the Parisians increased daily, excited above all by the fanaticism of the priests of the capital. All the pulpits resounded with declamations against the Armagnacs. The besiegers were excommunicated. The Orléanais, in reply to this anathema, struck the duke of Burgundy and his adherents with excommunication. The archbishop of Sens, the bishops of Paris, Orléans, and Chartres, with several doctors of this age of ignorance, had dictated this dreaded decree. It was thus they sported with religion to justify the horrors committed on both sides. Every festival, the curés of Paris interrupted the sacrifice of the mass, to renew the thunders launched against the Armagnacs; they even made a difficulty of administering baptism to the children of those they believed favourable to that party. People did not dare to appear in the streets without the red scarf and the cross of St. Andrew. Priests wore them at the altar; the church pictures were decked with them; not even children newly born were exempt from displaying this distinctive mark of the dominant faction. They carried the madness so far as to make the sign of the cross according to the form of the crucifixion of St. Andrew. The people murmured at being shut up within the walls, whilst the enemy triumphed at their gates; seditious cries announced that they wanted to fight; and it became necessary to obey this blinded populace. The count de St. Paul and the prevôt Des Essarts, at the head of a detachment of Parisians, badly armed and without order, made a sortie by the gate of St. Denis; they were beaten, although six times more numerous than their adversaries, and precipitately re-entered the city by the gate St. Honoré, after having lost four hundred of their men. This humiliating disgrace completed the despair of the vanquished: in a transport of rage, they made a second sortie from the other side of the city. Goi, one of the officers of militia, led them to the castle of Wicestre (now Bicêtre), a pleasure-house, which the duke de Berry prided himself with having ornamented with all the embellishments the art of that age could furnish. As no troops appeared to stop these contemptible warriors, they gave free way to the madness which governed them: the gates of this palace were broken open; they plundered the valuable furniture; they even took away the glass windows, which were then an object of luxury reserved for the houses of the great. This brutal expedition was crowned by the firing of the building. Among the inestimable loss caused by the conflagration, persons of taste particularly regretted a chronological series of the portraits of the kings of France of the third race, most of them original.

Whilst both parties were giving themselves up to these horrible excesses, the duke of Burgundy formed the idea of delivering the capital. This prince, at the head of his own troops, and a few companies of English headed by the earl of Arundel, crossed the Seine at the bridge of Melun, where three thousand Parisians awaited him, and made his _entrée_ into Paris, surrounded by fifteen thousand horsemen. The streets, filled with an innumerable multitude, resounded with acclamations; all were eager to load him with honours and to evince their gratitude. Amidst their transports of joy, however, the Parisians beheld with much pain squadrons of English mixed with the French troops. Secretly indignant at seeing the conservation of the capital, the security of the king, and the safety of the state, committed to the suspicious protection of a rival nation, not one of them would give lodging to these foreigners, who were obliged to pass the night upon their horses. The next day they were distributed with much trouble among the bourgeois, and principally among those whose attachment was doubtful. The appearance of everything was changed by the arrival of the Burgundian prince. The numbers of the Orléanais diminished daily; in the frequent sorties that were made, they hardly sufficed to guard their posts, till at length St. Cloud, the most important of them, was carried by assault. In this affair they lost nine hundred of their best soldiers, whilst only twenty of the Burgundians were killed. The duke of Orléans lost all hopes of entering Paris: his army was melting away; winter was coming on; and he had nothing left but a disgraceful retreat. He called a council of war, in which the necessity for raising the blockade was acknowledged by all. On the very evening of the day of the taking of St. Cloud, the Orléanais army loaded themselves with all the booty they could carry away, they pillaged the treasures of the queen, deposited for safety in the abbey of St. Denis, which they had till that time respected, crossed the Seine, and marched without halting to Etampes. Information of this nocturnal retreat was not conveyed to Paris till it was too late to pursue them.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1429.

Paris, which since the invasion of the English had been a prey to their tyranny, did not dare to declare in favour of Charles VII., who had just been crowned at Rheims. The king attempted to enter the capital, followed by his whole army. All the small neighbouring places vied with each other in their eagerness to receive him. He took possession of St. Denis, and occupied the posts of La Chapelle, Aubervilliers, and Montmartre. His generals, confiding in the intelligence they maintained with some in the city, resolved to attempt an assault on Sunday, 8th of September, 1429. They approached the gate of St. Denis with the design of persuading the English that they meant to attack the capital at that point; at the same time, a considerable detachment presented itself before an intrenchment which the enemy had raised before the rampart of the hog-market, upon which is built the quarter now called La Butte-Saint-Roch. The boulevard was carried at once. Whilst the English, led by the bishop of Thérouanne, L’Ile-Adam, Crequi, and Bonneval, were hastening thither, numerous voices shouted out in various quarters of Paris, for the purpose of terrifying the people,--“All is lost! all is lost! The royalists are masters of the city! Let every one look to himself!” This _ruse_ produced the effect the English had expected: the people, in a state of consternation, precipitately sought refuge in their houses, and delivered the English from the suspicions they had conceived. In the mean time the royalists, finding the people made no movement in their favour, judged it prudent to retreat. Joan of Arc, who had joined the party in order to animate the French by her presence, accustomed by her successes never to recede, would not consent to give up the affair; she persisted in wishing to fill up the ditch filled with water, of which she did not at all know the depth. She was crying aloud for fascines to be brought to her, when she was wounded by an arrow from a cross-bow, in the thigh. Obliged by the pain of the wound and the quantity of blood she lost to recline behind the shelter of a little eminence, she remained there till evening, when the duke of Alençon was compelled to force her to return to St. Denis. Charles, conceiving the capture of Paris impossible, thought it best to retreat: his army decamped, and took the road to Lagni-sur-Marne, which had declared for him.

FIFTH SIEGE, A.D. 1465.

The duke de Berry, brother of Louis XI., at the age of sixteen escaped from the court, and joined the duke of Brittany, for the purpose of exciting a revolution which might prove favourable to him. The princes of the blood and the nobles, who waited for some outbreak to make war against the king, immediately issued manifestoes, in which they invited the noblesse, and all good citizens, “to take up arms, to obtain relief for the poor distressed people.” This specious pretext procured for this union of rebels the name of “The League for the Public Good.” The princes soon found themselves at the head of a pretty considerable army; and in order to commence by something brilliant, capable of giving credit to the revolt, after having gained several small places, they resolved to make a general assault upon the capital. But Paris was too well fortified to make the success of such an enterprise at all probable. The count de Charolais, the head of the leagued troops, drew up his soldiers in order of battle within sight of the ramparts. He believed this display would disconcert the zeal and fidelity of the inhabitants; but nothing could shake them. The marshal De Rohan made a sortie, and did not return until he had skirmished long and successfully. Some days after, the enemy attacked the faubourg Saint Lazare, the barriers of which were upon the point of being forced, when the citizen-militia coming up, courageously repulsed the rebels, who, harassed at the same time by the artillery from the ramparts, retired in disorder.

The battle of Montlhéry suspended for a time the project of the princes. But scarcely was that celebrated contest decided, than the count de Charolais made fresh attempts upon the capital. Our readers will the better understand the hardihood and persistency of the count’s attacks, when reminded that he was the son of the duke of Burgundy, and was afterwards known as “Charles the Bold.” As the royalists were masters of St. Cloud and Charenton, the leader of the enemy’s troops caused bridges of boats and casks tied together to be hastily constructed, upon which his army crossed the Seine at various times. He thus inclosed within a half-circle all the northern part of the environs of Paris, extending from St. Cloud to Charenton, of which he took possession without much trouble. Louis XI. and his troops were encamped on the southern side. The loss of Charenton might have intercepted the supply of provisions to the capital, but such prudent measures had been taken, that during the whole of the siege no deficiency in food was felt. The princes at first had recourse to negotiations, but they proved useless; and both sides renewed hostilities, which were warm and frequent. Sorties were made every day, and these combats generally terminated in favour of the king’s troops. The honour of this was principally due to the fair sex of the capital: “For the warriors,” says Philip de Commines, “beheld the ladies at all times; giving them a desire to show their prowess in their sight.” The enemy had placed their advanced posts at Bercy, which was then called “La Grange-aux-Merciers.” They were obliged to abandon them, and retire to Conflans, the head-quarters of the count de Charolais. The royal army occupied the opposite bank of the Seine. Several batteries, which defended the access to it, were erected there. The leagued princes undertook to throw a bridge of boats across the river, opposite the Port-à-l’Anglais. The king immediately constructed a bulwark, from which artillery, incessantly hurling its mortal thunders, prevented them from advancing. At the same time, a Norman archer, whose name history ought to have preserved, threw himself into the Seine, and contrived to reach the head of the bridge, of which he cut the cables that fastened it to the shore, and abandoned it to the current. This series of ill-fortune induced the League general to resume the interrupted negotiations, and at length, after numerous contentions and delays, a treaty of peace was concluded at Conflans, which delivered Paris from its besiegers. The capital signified its joy by brilliant festivals. The king, to reward its fidelity, confirmed all its privileges: he honoured with his presence a banquet at the Hôtel de Ville, at which many citizens and their wives were admitted to the table of the monarch, with the princes and nobles.

SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1589--1594.

The flame of civil wars, of which Francis II. had beheld the first sparks, had set all France in a blaze during the minority of Charles IX. Religion was the motive of these wars among the people, and the pretext among the great. The queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, who joined to the most boundless ambition the artful policy of her country, had more than once hazarded the safety of the kingdom to preserve her authority; arming the Catholics against the Protestants, and the Guises against the Bourbons, that they might destroy each other. In this age of troubles, the great, who had become too powerful, were factious and formidable; and the French, animated by that party fury which a false zeal inspires, were, for the most part, fanatics and barbarians. Passions or interests armed every hand: one-half of the nation made war against the other half. The greatest cities were taken, retaken, and sacked, in turn. Prisoners of war were put to death in a manner till that time unheard of. The churches were reduced to ashes by the Reformers, the temples by the Catholics. Poisonings and assassinations were looked upon as only the legitimate vengeance of clever enemies. The crowning horror of all these excesses was the massacre of St. Bartholomew. On that ever-execrable day, a young king of twenty-three commanded, in cool blood, the death of more than a million of his subjects, and himself set the example of murder. Charles IX. did not long survive this abuse of sovereign power. Henry III. quitted furtively the throne of Poland, to return to his country and plunge it once more into troubles. Of the two brothers, notwithstanding what we have said of Charles IX., Henry III. was the worse: there is no more detestable character in history than this prince, who rather resembles a Heliogabalus or a Commodus, than a king of chivalric France: in the great massacre he had been, if possible, more active than his brother.

He found in his states two dominant parties; that of the Reformers, reviving from its ashes, more violent than ever, and having at its head Henry the Great, then king of Navarre; and that of the League, a powerful faction, formed by the princes of the house of Guise, encouraged by the popes, fomented by Philip II. of Spain, whose dangerous policy procured him the name of the Demon of the South, increasing every day by the artifices of the monks, under the veil of zeal for the Catholic religion, but whose principal aim was rebellion. Its leader was the duke of Guise, surnamed le Balafré, from a scar on his cheek, a prince of a brilliant reputation, and who, having more shining qualities than good ones, seemed, in this season of confusion, born to change the destinies of France. Henry III., who perhaps might have crushed both these parties by a judicious exercise of the regal power, absolutely strengthened them by his own weakness. He thought to exhibit a great feat of policy by declaring himself the head of the League; whereas he only proved himself the slave of it. He was forced to make war for the interests of the duke de Guise, whose object was to dethrone him, against the king of Navarre, his brother-in-law and presumptive heir, who only wished to re-establish him in all the rights of his rank. Some successes against the Reformers carried the credit of the too-powerful Balafré to its height. This prince, inflated with his own glory, and strong in the weakness of the king, came to Paris in opposition to the royal command. Then arrived the celebrated day of the _barricades_, in which the people defeated the guards of Henry, and obliged him himself to fly from his capital. Guise did still more; he forced the king to hold the States-General of the kingdom at Blois, and took his measures so well, that he was near sharing the royal authority, with the consent of the representatives of the nation, and with an appearance of the most respectable formalities. Roused by a danger so pressing, Henry III. caused this redoutable enemy, and the cardinal de Lorraine, his brother, still more violent and ambitious than the duke, to be assassinated at the castle of Blois. That which happened to the Protestant party after the St. Bartholomew, now happened to the League; the death of the leaders reanimated the faction. On all parts the Leaguers threw off the mask. Paris closed its gates: nothing was thought or talked of but vengeance. Henry III. was considered as the assassin of the defenders of religion, as an odious, insupportable tyrant, and not as a king who had punished too audacious subjects. The king, pressed on all sides, was at length obliged to seek a reconciliation with Henry of Navarre; in the course of 1589 these two princes encamped in conjunction before Paris.

We cannot describe without a groan the excesses to which the capital gave itself up on learning the death of the duke de Guise: the shops closed, the people in crowds in the streets, arms in hand, seeking everywhere the duke d’Aumale, to place him at the head of the League, knocking down the king’s arms wherever met with, and imprisoning every one suspected of fidelity to him. A kind of vertigo or spirit of fury took possession of all the citizens without exception; they willingly allowed themselves to be dragged into the most detestable rebellion. The churches were hung with mourning, and the depositaries of the Word of God proclaimed aloud the martyrdom of the Balafré and his brother. “Those unworthy ministers,” says an historian of the time, “only mounted the pulpit to put forth, instead of the Scriptures, a series of bitter insults against the sovereign, and by the vomitings of an iliad of maledictions, they increased the fury of revolt. The people never came out from their infamous sermons without their brain being on fire, their feet prepared for running, and their hands for fighting, like so many wild beasts, against all who did not wear the badge of the League. The colporteurs of the palace cried nothing but an execration of the life of Henry III., the self-called king. They said that France was sick, and that she could never be cured without giving her a draught of French blood.”

The leaders of the sedition sought, however, to colour the public excesses with some specious pretexts. They caused a request to be presented to the faculty of Theology at Paris, in which it was said “that the princes of the house of Lorraine had always deserved well of the Catholic church during their lives, and that, being protectors of the faith, the king had put them to death; that the monarch must be declared to have forfeited his crown, and his subjects be released from their fidelity; that that prince was a hypocrite, a favourer of heresy, a persecutor of the Church, having bathed his hands in the blood of a cardinal, without respect to his person or his sacred character.” The Sorbonne, on the 7th of January, issued a decree, which allowed and even ordered all that this request stated. Lefebvre the dean, and several other doctors, refused to sign this abominable sentence; but the majority prevailed, and gave it all the authority that was desired. The principal Leaguers, armed with this fatal document, tried to lay the foundations of an authority, which the same caprice which gave it to them might deprive them of an instant after. The heads of the sixteen quarters of Paris, all scoundrels, and for the most part the issue of low families, were revered like so many sovereigns. These monsters governed Paris; they were its oracles, and put in motion the arms of all the rebels. They also determined to have the Parliament. Bussy le Clere, governor of the Bastille, who had been a master-at-arms, took upon himself the task of ordering that august company to enregister the decree of the Sorbonne. On the 16th of January he entered the assembly of French senators with fifty of his satellites, and, pistol in hand, presented to them a request, or rather an order, no longer to recognise the royal house. The refusal being unanimous, he selected the most conspicuous and led them away at once to the Bastille, where the barbarous manner in which he treated them procured him the sobriquet of “Grand Penitentiary of the Parliament.”