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.