Louis’ conscientiousness as a sovereign extended even to the business details of the city of Paris, now so grown that its traffic required four bridges to knit the island with the right and left banks. The king established the Parliament of Paris, not a parliament in the English sense of the word, but a court of justice. A body of watchmen policed the streets. The guilds and corporations had a carefully developed organization. Municipal administration was placed under the care of the Provost of the Merchants and a body of councillors. The king was represented by the Provost of Paris. This office had so fallen into disrepute that it was with difficulty that Louis could secure any one to undertake the responsibility. How he reformed the office so that the holder became so eager to serve his fellow-citizens that he slept, all dressed, in the Châtelet, that he might be ready to do his duty at any hour, DeJoinville describes.
“The provostship of Paris was at that time sold to the citizens of Paris, or indeed to any one; and those who bought the office upheld their children and nephews in wrongdoing; and the young folk relied in their misdoings on those who occupied the provostship. For which reason the mean people were greatly downtrodden.
“And because of the great injustice that was done, and the great robberies perpetuated in the provostship, the mean people did not dare to sojourn in the king’s land, but went and sojourned in other provostships and other lordships. And the king’s land was so deserted that when the provost held his court, no more than ten or twelve people came thereto.
“With all this there were so many malefactors and thieves in Paris and the country adjoining that all the land was full of them. The king, who was very diligent to enquire how the mean people were governed and protected, soon knew the truth of this matter. So he forbade that the office of provost in Paris should be sold; and he gave great and good wages to those who henceforth should hold the said office. And he abolished all the evil customs harmful to the people; and he caused enquiry to be made throughout the kingdom to find men who would execute good and strict justice, and not spare the rich any more than the poor.
“Then was brought to his notice Stephen Boileau, who so maintained and upheld the office of provost that no malefactor, nor thief, nor murderer dared to remain in Paris, seeing that if he did, he was soon hung or exterminated; neither parentage, nor lineage, nor gold, nor silver could save him. So the king’s land began to amend, and people resorted thither for the good justice that prevailed.”
CHAPTER VII
PARIS OF PHILIP THE FAIR
WITH the ending of Saint Louis’ life (in 1270) such stability and beauty as he had achieved for his kingdom seemed to pass away. The fifteen years’ reign of his son, Philip III, was lacking in eventfulness. He was with his father on the Crusade that cost Louis his life, and he came back to Paris, the “king of the five coffins,” bringing with him for burial at Saint Denis not only his father’s body but that of his uncle, his brother-in-law, his wife, and his son. Louis’ body lay in state in Notre Dame.
Philip inherited his father’s gentleness of spirit, but none of his intelligence or administrative ability. His physical courage won for him the nickname of “the Bold,” but it was through a train of circumstances with which he seems to have had little to do and not through war that the throne became enriched by the acquisition of some valuable territories in the south.
Probably, also, he did not realize that when he raised to the nobility a certain silversmith whose work he admired he struck a blow at the hereditary pride of the lords, and showed a new power which threatened the integrity of their class. Naturally, too, it encouraged the democracy.