Le bois le plus funeste, et le moins fréquenté,
Est, au Prix de Paris, un lieu de sûreté,
Malheur donc à celui qu'une affaire imprévue
Engage un peu tard au détours d'une rue,
Bientôt quatre bandits lui servant les côtés,
La bourse, il faut se rendre."
It will thus be seen that the roads in France, and streets in Paris, in bygone days, were as bad as those of England and London; for we find that frequent and fatal rencontres took place from disturbances in the streets.
The Prince de Conti and the Comte de Soissons' coaches meeting in a narrow place near the Louvre, by the bad driving of their coachmen, jostled against each other, and came to blows between their followers, who, departing in that fashion one from another, did, against the next morning call and assemble together such numbers of their followers, as that the Duke de Guise joining his brother-in-law, Prince de Conti, and the Prince de Condé with the Comte de Soissons, his uncle, they came out into the streets with at least three or four hundred mounted men.
In a record of that time, I find the following:—
"There do daily break forth new quarrels between the nobility in this town (Paris), who are here in greater numbers than usually have been heretofore, whereof one being between Monsieur d'Andelot and Monsieur Balagny was presently taken up; and another fell out the other day between Colonel d'Ornano and one Monsieur St. André, who, fighting in the streets, were both hurt, and to avoid the mischief that might ensue from such meetings, the gates of the town were for a time shut up."