e to the prestige of
Paris. They were a turbulent set, frequently engaged in brawls with the
citizens. On Shrove Monday, 1229, some students went to an inn at
Saint-Marcel, outside Paris, where they ate and drank, and then engaged
in a violent quarrel with the innkeeper when the bill was presented. The
quarrel at first seemed rather comic; after a wordy battle they came to
blows and pulling of hair, till the students were driven ignominiously
from the field. But next day, February 27th, they returned in force,
armed with sticks and stones, and even swords. In a spirit of
undiscriminating revenge, they wrecked the first inn they came across
and beat the people in the streets, women as well as men. Word was sent
at once to the authorities of the University, who appealed to Queen
Blanche through Cardinal Romain. The prefect of Paris, with his
soldiers, was ordered to proceed to the scene of the rioting and restore
order, which he did with rather too good a will, for in the process
there was bloodshed; several students were killed, and the complaint was
made that those whom the prefect and his men attacked were not the
guilty ones. The authorities of the University were up in arms against
the queen. As she declined to make the reparation they demanded--which
would have left the students more lawless than ever for the
future--teachers and students scattered, to Rheims, to Angers, to
Orleans, and many returned to their native land. The concessions which
Blanche then made could not bring back all who had gone away. Though her
policy may have been mistakenly severe one can but grant that she had
cause for being severe. All our sympathies are with the woman whom the
students did not hesitate to vilify, reviving the calumny about the
relations of Blanche and Cardinal Romain, who had given her able support
in this affair. Such currency did this vile story gain that one
chronicler tells us that the queen submitted to an examination to
disprove it.

The first real victory for France in the long war of the Albigenses came
with the treaty of Paris, sometimes called the treaty of Meaux, April
12, 1229. It is, perhaps, fortunate for the reader's good opinion of
Blanche that we omit to chronicle the horrors of this war, though most
of those horrors were committed before she became ruler of France.
Raymond VII., Count of Toulouse, the head and front of the resistance in
Provence, was Blanche's cousin, and she had always shown herself mind