celebrated architects of his time, to whom is attributed another marvel still extant, the refectory of the abbey of St Martin, now occupied by the library of the Conservatoire des Arts et des Métiers. This incomparable artist was buried in the abbey of St Germain-des-Prés, where, too, he had raised magnificent buildings now no longer existing. Under St Louis, Robert de Sorbon, a common priest, founded in 1253 an unpretending theological college which afterwards became the celebrated faculty of the Sorbonne, whose decisions were wellnigh as authoritative as those of Rome.
The capital of France had but a feeble share in the communal movement which in the north characterizes the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. Placed directly under the central power, it was never strong enough to force concessions; and in truth it did not claim them, satisfied with the advantages of all kinds secured for it by its political position and its university. And, besides, the privileges which it did enjoy, while they could be revoked at the king’s pleasure, were of considerable extent. Its inhabitants were not subjected to forced labour or arbitrary imposts, and the liberty of the citizens and their commerce and industry were protected by wise regulations. The university and all those closely connected with it possessed the fullest rights and liberties. There was a municipal or bourgeois militia, which rendered the greatest service to Philip Augustus and St Louis, but afterwards became an instrument of revolt. The communal administration devolved on échevins or jurés, who, in conjunction with the notables, chose a nominal mayor called provost of the merchants (prévôt des marchands). The powers of this official had been grievously curtailed in favour of the provost of Paris and his lieutenants, named by the sovereign. His main duties were to regulate the price of provisions and to control the incidence of taxation on merchandise. He was the chief inspector of bridges and public wells, superintendent of the river police, and commander of the guard of the city walls, which it was also his duty to keep in repair. And, finally, he had jurisdiction in commercial affairs until the creation of the consular tribunals by the chancellor Michel L’Hôpital. The violent attempts made by Étienne Marcel in the 14th century, and those of the communes of 1793 and 1871, showed what reason royalty had to fear too great an expansion of the municipal power at Paris.
The town council met in the 13th and 14th centuries in an unpretending house on Ste Geneviève, near the city walls on the left side of the river. The municipal assemblies were afterwards held near the Place de Grève, on the right side of the river, in the “Maison aux Piliers,” which Francis I. allowed to be replaced by an imposing hôtel de ville.
The last of the direct descendants of Capet, and the first two Valois kings did little for their capital. Philip the Fair, however, increased its political importance by making it the seat of the highest court in the kingdom, the parlement, which he organized between 1302 and 1304, and to which he surrendered a part of his cité palace. Under the three sons of Philip the Fair, the Tour de Nesle, which stood opposite, on the site now occupied by the buildings of the Institute, was the scene of frightful orgies, equally celebrated in history and romance. One of the queens, who, if the chronicles are to be trusted, took part in these expiated her crimes in Château-Gaillard, where she was strangled in 1315 by order of her husband, Louis X. During the first part of the War of the Hundred Years, Paris escaped being taken by the English, but felt the effects of the national misfortunes. Whilst destitution excited in the country the revolt of the Jacquerie, in the city the miseries of the time were attributed to the vices of the feudal system, and the citizens seemed ready for insurrection. The provost of the merchants, Étienne Marcel, equally endowed with courage and intellect, sought to turn this double movement to account in the interest of the municipal liberties of Paris and of constitutional guarantees. The cause which he supported was lost through the violence of his own acts. Not content with having massacred two ministers under the very eyes of the dauphin Charles, who was regent whilst his father John lay captive in London, he joined the Jacquerie, and was not afraid to call into Paris the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, a notorious firebrand, who at that time was making common cause with the English. Public sentiment, at first favourable to Marcel’s schemes, shrank from open treason. A watch was set on him, and, at the moment when, having the keys of the town in his possession in virtue of his office, he was preparing to open one of the gates, he was assassinated by order of Jean Maillard, one of the heads of the milice, on the night of the 31st of July 1358. Marcel had enlarged Philip Augustus’s line of fortifications on the right side of the river, and had begun a new one.
When he became king in 1364, Charles V. forgot the outrages he had suffered at the hands of the Parisians during his regency. He robbed the Louvre to some extent of its military equipment, in order to make it a convenient and sumptuous residence; his open-work staircases and his galleries are mentioned in terms of the highest praise by writers of the time. This did not, however, remain always his favourite palace; having built or rebuilt in the St Antoine quarter the mansion of St Paul or St Pol, he was particularly fond of living in it during the latter part of his life, and it was there that he died in 1380. It was Charles V. who, in conjunction with the provost of Paris, Hugues Aubriot, erected the famous Bastille to protect the St Antoine gate as part of an enlarged scheme of fortification. A library which he founded—a rich one for the times—became the nucleus of the national library. With the exception of some of the upper portions of the Sainte 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 promise of further alleviation, found themselves 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. In March 1382 occurred what is called the revolt of the “Maillotins” (i.e. men with mallets). 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 the 10th of 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 walls and to lay down their arms, and they obeyed. The king and his uncles, having destroyed the gates, made their way into Paris as into a besieged city; and with the decapitation of Desmarets, one of the most faithful servants of the Crown, began a series of bloody executions. Ostensibly through the intercession of the regents an end was 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 was suspended for several years, and its functions bestowed on the provost of Paris, a magistrate nominated by the Crown.
The calamities which followed were due to the weakness and incapacity of the government, given over, because of the madness of Charles VI., to the intrigues of a wicked queen and of princes who brought the most bloodthirsty passions to the service of their boundless ambition. First came the rivalry between the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, brought to an end in 1407 by assassination of the former. Next followed the relentless struggle for supremacy between two hostile parties: the Armagnacs on one side, commanded by Count Bernard of Armagnac (who 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 John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, as their head. The mob was headed by a skinner at the Hôtel Dieu called Simon Caboche, and hence the name Cabochiens was given to the Burgundian party in Paris. They became masters of Paris
