Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/538

524 what really appeared more obvious, that he was the appointed instrument of Providence to chastise the flagrant iniquity of the rulers of France.

That reconciliation of the Duke of Orleans to Burgundy, the murderer of his father, which we have recorded, did not last three months. After the retirement of the Duke of Clarence to Guienne, this feud broke out with fresh fury. The Count of Armagnac, the father-in-law of Orleans, one of the most clear-sighted men amongst them, indeed, never laid down his arms. Burgundy continued in Paris, and there he got up a popular faction which gradually drew the whole city into scenes and outrages which remind us of the Parisian revolutions of our own times. He made a league with the butchers, who came out with ferocious alacrity, glad of such a sanction to play a conspicuous part on that great theatre of national confusion. They adopted a white hood as their badge; and, being in alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, they also opened a communication with his revolutionary subjects in Flanders. The men of Ghent and Bruges had lost none of their taste for insurrection, and entered with delight into the scheme of revolutionising France under cover of the leadership of their own ruler. The white hood was distributed freely in those towns, and seat by delegates all over France. As the faction grew it proceeded to show its authority; and very soon the Dukes of Burgundy and Berri, the dauphin, the king himself, found themselves compelled to don the white hood, and show themselves as members of the honourable fraternity of political butchers. The judges, the barristers, the members of Parliament, the noblesse, the professors and students of the university, the clergy, the monks, every class of the community, in short, were obliged to wear the white hood, as the only livery of patriotism. A reign of terror now commenced; the whole of the populace were ranged under the white hood, and had acquired the name of Cabochiens from one of their most ferocious leaders. They had reduced the upper classes of all descriptions to an ostensible submission to their despotism, and they now began to perpetrate every species of disorder. They seized on all such of the citizens as had wealth enough to yield a heavy ransom, and, if they refused to pay freely, they threw them into prison and detained them there till their resistance gave way. Their cry through all this was for the good of la belle France. They broke into the palace, and, besides plundering it, they carried away in triumph the Duke of Bavaria, the brother of the infamous Queen Isabella. They mounted the ladies of the court, two by two, on horseback, and bore them in triumph to the prison of the Louvre. Nor did they content themselves with plunder, and with these fantastic escapades; blood was literally mingled with their wine, and amongst their victims was the Sire de la Riviere, one of the most learned men of France, of an ancient and most honourable family.

To make confusion worse confounded, the dissolute and heartless Louis, the dauphin, quarrelled with the Duke of Burgundy, and fomented intrigues and parties against him. Chief was arrayed against chief, and mob against mob. The respectable portion of the citizens long made dumb with terror, took heart as the host of their plebeian tyrants began to direct their terrible energies against each other, and sent secretly to the Armagnacs. From being stout Burgundians thousands now declared openly for Orleans and his father-in-law; and when the Duke of Berri endeavoured to force on the city a heavy tax, to carry on the war against the Armagnacs, they rebelled resolutely. In vain were the master butchers employed to levy the hateful impost; their rude compulsion only drove the burghers more rapidly into the arms of the opposite faction.

The professors of the university had risen into consideration in consequence of the divisions in the Church; which were quite as unhappy as those of the state, no less than three different Popes now claiming the chair of infallibility and the allegiance of the religious world. The clergy, by their violent animosities in contending with each other for this or that pontiff, had lost greatly the confidence of the people, who now in Paris turned to the men of learning. The professors were equally engaged in discussing, the pretensions of the rival Popes; but they displayed so much more erudition and ability in their party warfare, that they rose in public estimation, while the regular clergy declined. To them the factions continually referred their own disputes. No sooner did they feel their influence than they began to exert it against the butchers. They had seen with indignation their monarch, their princes, their princesses, and high-born ladies continually captives in the hands of these brutal men. They saw their favourite ministers butchered or cast into dungeons, and a most hateful and bloody despotism treading down everybody who dared to oppose them, or who refused to submit to their insolent demands.

But the professors might have preached and harangued in vain if they had not unexpectedly raised up an unlookedfor alliance. The butchers had beheaded the Provost of Paris on the 1st of July 1413, and this put the finish to their horrible domination. The carpenters determined to take the field against them, and, adopting the white scarf of the Orleans party, they came forth in all their strength. The conflict of white scarfs and white hoods became furious; but the carpenters prevailed. The butchers mustered in formidable force in the Place de Grēve, so memorable for its horrors on a more recent day; but, after a vigorous fight, they were vanquished, and were eventually driven out of Paris. The Duke of Burgundy was soon compelled to follow his butcher faction, and in August, after making an abortive attempt to carry off the king, he retired to Flanders. The Duke of Orleans entered the city with the Armagnacs; the white hoods vanished, and the white scarfs became the universal wear. Everything, except disorder, was changed. The ministers and magistrates were removed, and replaced by others of the party in the ascendant. Those who had imprisoned and persecuted, now had the same, or a severer measure meted out to themselves. The faction of the dauphin was there struggling with that of the Armagnacs, and that of the queen against her own son. Louis, who had been amongst the first to call in the Armagnacs, now as earnestly implored the return of the Duke of Burgundy.

Early in 1414 Burgundy accordingly marched to Paris with a large army, expecting to find the gates opened to him by the dauphin; but, on the contrary, it was stoutly defended by Orleans and the Count of Armagnac, who threatened to hang up any one on the spot who showed the least disposition to favour Burgundy. The duke was compelled to retreat again into Flanders, and leave the