Paris and Its Story

Paris and Its Story

SIX centuries have failed to efface from the memory of the French people the misery and devastation wrought by the hundred years wars, as travellers in rural France will know. Paris saw little of Charles who, after the temporary activity excited by the expulsion of the English, had sunk into his habitual torpor, and his bondage to women. In 1461 the wretched monarch, morbid and half-demented, died of a malignant disease, all the time haunted by fears of poison and filial treachery. The people named him Charles le bien servi (the well-served), for small indeed was the praise due to him for the great deliverance. When the new king, Louis XI., quitted his asylum at the Burgundian court to be crowned at Rheims and to repair to St. Denis, he was shocked by the contrast between the rich cities and plains of Flanders and the miserable aspect of the country he traversedruined villages, fields that were so many deserts, starving creatures clothed in rags, and looking as if they had just escaped from dungeons. The Universal Spider, as the Duke of Burgundy called Louis, was ever on the move about France, riding on his mule from dawn to eve. Our king, says De Comines, used to dress so ill that worse could not beoften wearing bad cloth and a shabby hat with a leaden image stuck in it. When he entered Abbeville with the magnificent Duke of Burgundy, the people said Benedicite! is that a king of France? Why, his horse and clothes together are not worth twenty francs! A Venetian ambassador was amazed to see the most mighty and most Christian king take his dinner in a tavern on the market-place of Tours, after hearing mass in the cathedral.{139} It is not within our province to describe in detail the successful achievement of Louis policy of concentrating the whole government in himself as absolute sovereign of France by the overthrow of feudalism and the subjection of the great nobles with their almost royal power and state. His indomitable will, his consummate patience, his profound knowledge of human motives and passions, his cynical indifference to means, make him one of the most remarkable of the kings of France. In 1465, menaced by a coalition of nobles, the so-called League of the Public Good, Louis hastened to the capital. Letters expressing his tender affection for his dear city of Paris preceded himhe was coming to confide to them his queen and hoped-for heir; rather than lose his Paris, which he loved beyond all cities of the world, he would sacrifice half his kingdom. But the Parisians at first were sullen and would not be wooed, for they remembered his refusal to accord them some privileges granted to other cities. The university declined to arm her scholars, Church and Parlement were hostile. The idle, vagabond clercs of the Palais and the Cit composed coarse gibes and satirical songs and ballads against his person. Louis, however, set himself with his insinuating grace of speech to win the favour of the Parisians. He chose six members from the Burgesses, six from the Parlement and six from the university, to form his Council. With daring confidence, he decided to arm Paris. A levy of every male able to bear arms between sixteen and sixty years of age was made, and the citizen army was reviewed near St. Antoine des Champs, in the presence of the king and queen. From 60,000 to 80,000 men, half of them well-armed, marched past, with sixty-seven banners of the trades guilds, not counting those of the municipal officers, the Parlement and the university. The nobles were checkmated, and they were glad to accede to a treaty which gave them ample spoils and Louis, time to recover himself. The Public Good was barely mentioned.{140} ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 45336
Author: Okey, Thomas
Release Date: Apr 6, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Kimball, Katharine, 1866-1949 , Ward, O. F. M., 1868-1955