Charles was ably seconded in his civic improvements by Hugh Aubriot, the provost of Paris, who established a mallet-armed militia devoted to the king’s interests. The provost of Paris represented the king, and Charles added to his responsibilities many of those formerly attaching to the provostship of the Merchants before the king had experienced their extent in the hands of Marcel. Aubriot laid the corner stone of the enlarged Bastille. He never was on good terms with the clergy, unlike Charles, whose studiousness and piety endeared him to the ecclesiastics. On the very day of Charles’s funeral, even while the cortège was making its way to Saint Denis, the provost quarreled with the rector of the University, was ordered before the bishop of Paris to answer for his misdeed, and was condemned to life imprisonment. How he escaped is a later story.
As provost of Paris Aubriot lived in the Grand Châtelet on the right bank. This fortress, afterwards a prison, is now represented only by a square of the name. In the course of his improvements Charles strengthened its mate, the Petit Châtelet, on the left bank. He also installed the first large clock in Paris, that on the square tower of the Conciergerie.
As a symbol of the royal power the king ordered that there be added to the seal of the city of Paris, which bore the ship of the ancient guild of Nautae, a field sown with the fleur-de-lis.
Arms of City of Paris under Charles V.
CHAPTER X
PARIS OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
WHEN Charles V lay on his death-bed he summoned his brothers, the dukes of Berri and Burgundy and his brother-in-law, the duke of Bourbon, and gave them detailed instructions concerning the guardianship of his son, the dauphin Charles, then twelve years old. He explained frankly that his brother, the duke of Anjou, was not asked to this conference, although next to himself in age, because of his grasping character. Undoubtedly there were other qualities upon which he did not need to dwell, for the duke of Anjou was that son of John the Good who had broken his word of honor, thereby compelling his father to return to his confinement in England.
The four brothers had no idea that Anjou was present other than in spirit, perhaps, at the council around the death-bed of the eldest. Yet he was concealed so near that he heard every word including the “no good to himself” which is the proverbial reward of the listener. He straightway went forth and turned to his own account the information so infamously acquired. Rushing from Vincennes to Paris he seized the king’s personal valuables, and, as soon as Charles was buried, he declared himself regent, because of his being the new king’s oldest uncle.