JUBÉ IN THE CHURCH OF SAINT ÉTIENNE-DU-MONT.
See [page 193.]
nearly captured there at one time by some of his followers who were in a plot to seize his person. He curried favor with the people by calling himself simply a “burgher of Paris,” he himself lighted the Saint John’s Eve bonfire on the Grève, he walked about the city in a fashion unknown to royalty before, and he dined in shabby dress at the public table of any tavern that seemed convenient.
Something of the king’s implacability may be guessed from the punishments and tortures which were common in his reign. His Constable, Saint Pol, was executed on the Grève and a shaft twelve feet high, erected on the spot, warned others not to commit his fault. Another man of equal rank was imprisoned in an iron cage in the Bastille until he was executed. During his captivity Louis learned that his chains had been removed for a short time in order that he might go to church. He ordered that they should not be taken off again except when he was tortured. A man convicted of conspiracy was beheaded and his head was placed on a staff in front of the Hôtel de Ville.
The period of occupation by the English had left Paris with much dilapidation, for people who were not thinking of permanency were not thinking of building and but little of repairing. Even though a reign had intervened there was much to be done toward restoring the Gothic city, but Louis himself built little. His interests were, perhaps, more far-reaching. For instance his intelligence saw at once the value of the printing press, and he gave his consent to the establishment near the Sorbonne of several printers whose early work hastened to spread the renaissance of classical learning which took place when the fall of Constantinople (1453) dispersed the scholars of the East among the countries of the West. Over the ancient Roman roads that pierced Paris from north to south they made their way into the city which had been increasingly attractive to students ever since Alcuin established there a school for Charlemagne. The colleges clustered around the Mont Sainte Geneviève absorbed them rapidly, and the Rector who governed the University ruled over a notable accession to his people on the left bank. Louis welcomed these wanderers for what they gave to France, and they gave generously, for with them came the new spirit which touched not letters alone but every form of art.
Another of Louis’ organizations was the postal service which sent letters by messenger from Paris to all parts of France.
There is no description of the Paris of Louis’ time more vivid than Victor Hugo’s in “Notre Dame de Paris.” The narrow streets, the tall, high-pitched houses, the town spreading its business interests to the north and its collegiate interests to the south with the Cité and its many churches lying at the foot of the towers of the great cathedral—all these stand forth sharply in the second chapter of the Third Book. The Provost ruled the Ville, the Rector the University and the Bishop the Cité.