Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/312

 290 to protect the St Antoine gate. A library Avhich he founded a rich one for th3 times became the nucleus of the national library. With the exception of some of the upper portions of the Saiute Chapelle, which were altered or reconstructed by this prince or his son Charles VI., there are no remains of the buildings of Charles V. The reign of Charles VI. was as disastrous for the city as that of his father had been prosperous. From the very accession of the new king, the citizens, who had for some time been relieved by a great reduction of the taxes, and had received a premise of further alleviation, found them selves subjected to the most odious fiscal exactions on the part of the king s uncle, who was not satisfied with the well- stored treasury of Charles V., which he had unscrupulously pillaged. Aubriot, having ventured to remonstrate, Avas thrown into prison as a heretic, and in 1382 a riot took place for the purpose of delivering the provost and seizing the fiscal agents. Preoccupied with his expedition against the Flemings, Charles VI. delayed putting down the revolt, and for the moment remitted the new taxes. On his victorious return on 10th January 1383, the Parisians in alarm drew up their forces in front of the town gates under the pretext of showing their sovereign what aid he might derive from them, but really in order to intimidate him. They were ordered to retire within the Avails and to lay doAvn their arms, and they obeyed. The king and his uncles, having destroyed the gates, made their Avay into Paris as into a besieged city; and A r ith the decapitation of Desmarets, one of the most faithful servants of the croAvn, who perished at the age of seventy, began a series of bloody executions. Ostensibly through the intercession of the regents an end Avas put to that species of severities, a heavy fine being substituted, much larger in amount than the annual value of the abolished taxes. The municipal administration Avas suspended for several years, and its functions bestowed on the provost of Paris, a magistrate nominated by the crown. The calamities which folloAved Avere due to the Aveakness and incapacity of the Government, given over because of the madness of Charles VI. to the intrigues of a wicked queen and of princes Avho brought the most bloodthirsty passions to the service of their boundless ambition. First came the rivalry betAveen the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, brought to an end in 1407 by the assassination of the former in Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. Next followed the relentless struggle for supremacy betAveen tAvo hostile parties, the Armagnacs on one side, commanded by Count Bernard of Armagnac (Avho for a brief period had the title of constable), and supported by the nobles and burgesses, and on the other side the Burgundians, depending on the common people, and recognizing the duke of Burgundy (John the Bold) as their head. The mob Avas headed by a skinner at the Hotel-Dieu called Jean Caboche, and hence the name Cabochians given to the Burgundian party. They became masters of Paris in 1412 and 1413 ; but so violent were their excesses that the most timid rose in revolt, and the decimated bourgeoisie managed by a bold stroke to- recover possession of the town. The Armagnacs again entered Paris, but their intrigues Avith England and their tyranny rendered them odious in their turn ; the Burgundians were recalled in 1418, and returned with Jean Caboche and a formidable band of pillagers and assassins. Perrinet Leclerc, son of a bourgeois guard, secretly opened the gates to them one night in May. The king resided in the Hotel St Paul, an unconscious spectator of those savage scenes which the princes Louis and John, successively dauphins, Avere helpless to prevent. The third dauphin, Charles, aftenvards Charles VII., managed to put an end to the civil Avar, but it was by a crime as base as it Avas impolitic the assassination of John the Bold on the bridge of Montereau (1419). Next year a treaty, from the ignominy of which Paris happily escaped, gave a daughter of Charles VI. to Henry V. of England, and along Avith her, in spite of the Salic laAv, the croAvn of France. The king of England made his entry into Paris in December 1420, and was there received Avith a solemnity Avhich ill concealed the misery and real con sternation of the poor people crushed by fifteen years of murders, pillage, and famine. Charles VI. remained almost abandoned at the Hotel St Paul, Avhere he died in 1422, Avhilst his son-in-law Avent to hold a brilliant court at the Louvre and Vincennes. Henry V. of England also died in 1422. His son Henry VI., then one year old, came to Paris nine years later to be crowned at Notre Dame, and the city continued under the government of the duke of Bedford till his death in 1435. The English rule Avas a mild one, but it Avas not signal ized by the execution of any of those Avorks of utility or ornament so characteristic of the kings of France. The choir of St Severin, hoAvever, shoAvs a style of architec ture peculiarly English, and Sauval relates that the duke of Bedford erected in the Louvre a fine gallery decorated Avith paintings. Without assuming the mission of deliver ing Paris, Joan of Arc, remaining Avith Charles VII. after his coronation at Rheims, led him toAvards the capital; but the badly conducted and abortive enterprise almost proved fatal to the Maid of Orleans, Avho Avas severely Avounded at the assault of the gate of St Honorc on the 8th September 1429. The siege having been raised, Charles aAA r aited the invitation of the Parisians themselves upon the defection of the Burgundians and the surrender of St Denis. The St Jacques gate Avas opened by the citizens of the guard to the constable Arthur of Richemont on April 13, 1436 ; but the solemn entry of the king did not take place till November 12 of the folloAving year; subsequently occupied by his various expeditions or attracted by his residences in Berry or Touraine, he spent but little time in Paris, Avhere he retired either to the Hotel St Paul or to a neighbouring palace, Les Tournelles, Avhich had been acquired by his father. Louis XI. made equal use of St Paul and Les Tournelles, but toAvards the close of his life he immured himself at Plessis-les-Tours. It Avas in his reign, in 14C9, that the first French printing press Avas set up in the Sorbonne. Charles VIII. scarcely left Plessis-les-Tours and Amboise except to go to Italy ; Louis XII. alternated betAveen the castle at Blois and the palace of Les Tournelles, Avhere he died January 1, 1515. Francis I. lived at Chambord, at Fontainebleau, at St Germain, and at Villers-Cotterets ; but he proposed to form at Paris a residence in keeping Avith the taste of the Renaissance. Paris had remained for more than thirty years almost a stranger to the artistic movement begun betAveen 1498 and 1500, after the Italian expedition. Previous to 1533, the date of the commencement of the Hotel de Ville and the church of St Eustache, Paris did not possess, apart from the &quot; Court of Accounts,&quot; any important building in the neAv style. BetAveen 1527 and 1540 Francis I. demolished the old Louvre, and in 1541 Pierre Lescot began a new palace four times as large, Avhich Avas not finished till the reign of Louis XIV. The buildings were not sufficiently advanced under Henry II. to allow of his leaving Les Tournelles, Avhere in 1559 he died from a wound received at a tournament. His AvidoAv, Catherine de Medici, immediately caused this palace to be demolished, and sent her three sons Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III. to the unfinished Louvre. Outside the line of the fortifications she laid the foundations of the Chateau des Tuileries as a residence for herself. Of the three brothers, it Avas Charles IX. Avho resided