In May, 1418, a party of young men, partisans of the Queen and Burgundy, led by Perrinet le Clerc, whose father kept the keys of the porte S. Germain-des-Près, went to Seigneur de L’Isle Adam, and offered to admit the Burgundian troops by night into Paris. It was arranged that the latter should be at the gate with eight hundred men, and Perrinet should contrive to steal the keys from his father who always kept them under his pillow, and who would have distrusted any one rather than his son. With a band of the conspirators Perrinet crept secretly in the darkness to the Porte St. Germain and awaited the coming of the soldiers. It was nearly two hours after midnight when the gate was unlocked, L’Isle Adam and his troops in order of battle passed stealthily through, and Perrinet le Clerc locked the gate behind them and threw the keys over the wall into the moat, while the Burgundians began their silent march through the dark, narrow streets, no word being spoken until they stood before the Châtelet where a body of four hundred armed men waited for them, and then began the attack on the houses of the Armagnacs with a sudden rush amid cries for the King and Burgundy. Forcing their way to the palace they seized the King, induced him to grant all their demands and rode away with him. Armagnac escaped in disguise; Tanneguy du Chastel, provost of Paris, aroused by the noise and tumult, hastened to the hôtel of the Dauphin, wrapped him in a cloak, and hurried him and the Dauphine into the Bastille where some of their party had taken refuge. Doors were flung open, people rushed out of their houses with arms in their hands, torches gleamed and cries resounded in the streets, plunder, fighting, and slaughter went on all night, and in the morning both King and capital were in the hands of the Burgundians. Armagnac was betrayed by the man who had sheltered him and carried off to prison; Tanneguy du Chastel escaped with the Dauphin to Corbeil and thence to Melun; the town was given up to violence, pillage, and murder; the Armagnacs fled in confusion; and the Duke of Burgundy went to Troyes and brought back the Queen in triumph. All the chiefs of the Burgundian party came to meet them with six hundred of the principal citizens, bringing velvet robes covered with crosses of St. Andrew for Burgundy and his nephew which they put on to enter Paris. The Queen was seated on a “char,” the streets so lately running with blood were strewn with flowers, and the King received the Queen with affection and satisfaction.
FRANCE AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES VI., 1380–1422.
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But very soon the approach of the English army compelled them to take refuge at Troyes, while a dreadful pestilence was ravaging the country. The Abbot of St. Denis died, and many other people of importance. Many fled from the country, and for four months there was a dreadful mortality.[267] The Duke of Burgundy was now declared Captain of Paris instead of the Dauphin, who remained at Bourges. The King, Queen, and Princess Catherine were completely under the influence of Burgundy, whose eldest son was, it will be remembered, married to another daughter of the King, and whose aim now was to get the Dauphin also under his guidance, which did not seem to be at all impossible, Charles being only fifteen, and having no more brains, capacity, nor decision of character than his brother Louis; being absolutely guided by whoever he was with, and at present surrounded by persons of no particular rank or weight. The young Comte de Clermont, son of the Duc de Bourbon, who was about the age of the Dauphin and had just returned from captivity in England, had come over to the Burgundians, saying that wherever the King was, there was his place, and it was hoped the Dauphin would do the same. Armagnac was dead, and his chief counsellor was Tanneguy du Chastel, a Breton gentleman. Burgundy had sent his young wife Marie d’Anjou back to him and was anxious for a reconciliation.
The English conquests were spreading. Rouen was besieged and taken, and though negotiations were going on for the marriage of the Princess Catherine, Henry V. demanded as her dowry all the provinces conceded to his great-grandfather by the peace of Bretigny, to which the King and Duke of Burgundy would not agree.
As the King and Queen started to take the Princess Catherine to meet Henry V. at Pontoise, however, the King was seized with an attack of frenzy, so he had to be left there while the Duke of Burgundy went on to Melun with the Queen and Princess.
Henry V. met them, and at once fell in love with the Princess who was just nineteen and extremely beautiful; but he would not come to terms about the dowry, and Isabeau, thinking to inflame his passion for her, only let them meet once and then sent her back to Pontoise. However, this only infuriated Henry, who told Burgundy that he would have the Princess and the lands too, in spite of them, “et je vous chasseray de France, vous et vostre Roy.”[268]
The negotiations not having resulted in much good the King desired the Dauphin and Duke of Burgundy to make peace. The Duc de Bretagne went to and fro between the Dauphin, his brother-in-law, and the Queen and Burgundy. “Everywhere there was a great longing for the success of the arrangements for there was great desolation in all parts of the kingdom for the war was of father against son, brother against brother, uncle against nephew. And the worst was when in one town were held the two factions of Burgundy and Armagnac, and thieves and robbers were everywhere and merchandise always and everywhere lost.”[269]