The Châtelet, or rather the Little Châtelet, was the Provost's residence until the end of the sixteenth century. In 1564, the Provost was Hugues de Bourgueil, "distinguished for the possession of a terrific hump and a beautiful wife." One day Parliament consigned to the cells of the Little Châtelet a young Italian, accused of having set up in Paris a "gambling-house and fencing-saloon," where he corrupted the morals of the young nobility, "teaching them a thousand things unworthy of Christians and Frenchmen."
In his quality of Italian, the prisoner, Gonsalvi by name, invoked the protection of Catherine de Médicis. The Queen-Mother, while respecting the decree of Parliament, recommended the young compatriot to the Provost's particular care. De Bourgueil accordingly lodged him in his own house, where Gonsalvi was soon on intimate terms with the family. One night he eloped with the Provost's wife. Madame had contrived to possess herself of the keys of the prison, thinking that if she let loose the whole three hundred prisoners, M. le Prévôt would have a good night's work on hand, and the course would be clear for her lover and herself. And so it resulted; for the Provost, faithful to his duty, despatched horse and foot after his three hundred fugitives, and let Madame and Gonsalvi take their way.
The next day, an errant wife was missing from the Little Châtelet, but at night the keys were turned as usual on the full contingent of three hundred prisoners. It was the scandal of this affair, say MM. Alhoy and Lurine, which decided the King to shift the Provost's residence from the Châtelet to the Hôtel d'Hercule, wherein was presently installed Nantouillet, "successeur de ce pauvre diable de Bourgueil."
Nantouillet was not too well off, it would seem, in the Hôtel d'Hercule. No sooner was he established there than he was bidden to prepare for the visit of three Kings,—France, Poland, and Navarre,—who would do themselves the pleasure of lunching with him. Nantouillet, who had just declined to marry a cast-off mistress of the King of Poland, suspected some scheme of vengeance on their Majesties' part; he could not, however, refuse to spread his board for them. He spread it, and the Kings came down and swept it bare. They swooped upon Nantouillet's silver plate and sacked his coffers of fifty thousand francs. There was a fierce fight in the Hôtel, but the Kings got away with the plunder. On the following day, the First President of Parliament waited upon Charles IX. and said that all Paris was shocked; and his Majesty in reply bade him "not trouble himself about that." This tableau moral of the period is presented by several historians.
With such examples in the seats of Royalty, one can feel little surprise at the charges of venality, and worse, which were brought from time to time against the Provosts. In the reign of Philippe le Long, a certain wealthy citizen lay under sentence of death in the Châtelet. The Provost Henri Caperel made him a private proposal of ransom, a bargain was struck. Dives was set free, and the Provost hanged some obscure prisoner in his stead. Provost Hugues de Cruzy is said to have trafficked openly at the Châtelet in much the same way, Royalty itself sharing the booty with him. Now and again, justice took her revenge; and both Henri Caperel and Hugues de Cruzy finished on the gallows. The noble brigand, highwayman, and cut-throat, Jourdain de Lisle, who led a numerous band in the fourteenth century, bought the interest of the Provost of Paris; and the Châtelet "refused to take cognisance of his eighteen crimes, the least of which would have brought to an ignominious death any other criminal." A new Provost had to be appointed before Jourdain de Lisle, tied to the tail of a horse, could be dragged through the streets of Paris to the public gallows. He had married a niece of Pope Jean XXII., and when justice had been done, the curé of the church of Saint-Merri wrote to Rome: "Scarcely had your Holiness's nephew been hanged, when, with much pomp, we fetched him from the gibbet to our church, and there buried him honorablement et gratis."
Ordinarily, the Châtelet relied for its defence upon the archers of the Provost's guard, a reedy support when the mob turned out in force. It was seized in 1320 by the Pastoureaux, a swarm of peasants who had united themselves under two apostate priests, and who said they were "going across the sea to combat the enemies of the faith and conquer the Holy Land." To rescue some of their number who had been arrested and thrown into the Châtelet, they marched on that place, broke open the gaol, and effected a general delivery of the prisoners, as Madame de Bourgueil was to do some two centuries later.
Between the conflicting powers of the Châtelet, as represented by the Provost of Paris, and the University, which was accountable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals, and intensely jealous of any interference by the secular arm, a long and bitter struggle was sustained. In 1308, Provost Pierre Jumel hanged a young man for theft on the highway. Unfortunately for Jumel, this was a scholar of the University, and the clergy of Paris went in procession to the Châtelet and briefly harangued the Provost: "Come out of that, Satan, accursed one! Acknowledge thy sin, and seek pardon at the holy altar, or expect the fate of Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed." While they were thus engaged, a messenger came from the Louvre with the announcement that the King had sacrificed his chief magistrate to the wrathful demands of the clergy and University. For a like encroachment on the sacred privileges of the University, Guillaume de Thignonville was degraded from his office of Provost, led to the gallows, and there compelled to take down and kiss the corpses of two students whom he had hanged for robbery.
In 1330, Hugues Aubriot, in his capacity of Provost, lent the shelter of the Châtelet to a party of Jews flying for their lives before the mob. This service to the causes of humanity and public order renewed against the Provost an ancient enmity of the clerics and University, by whom, in the words of MM. Alhoy and Lurine, "it was determined that Aubriot should be ruined." Condemned by the ecclesiastical tribunal "for the crime of impiety and heresy," he was ordered to be "preached against and publicly mitred in front of Notre-Dame." On his knees, he demanded absolution of the bishop, and promised an offering of candles for his iniquity in befriending the Jews. "His crimes were read aloud by the Inquisitor of the Faith, and the bishop consigned him to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, as an abettor of the Jewish infidelity, and a contemner of the Christian faith." From that, the Provost descended to an oubliette of the Fort-l'Évêque.