where
Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, and many of the chief victims of the
Terror were lodged before their execution; where Danton, Hebert,
Chaumette, and Robespierre followed each other in one self-same
chamber.

[Footnote 80: In the seventeenth century the councillors had increased
to one hundred and twenty and the courts to seven.]

[Footnote 81: The term "Parlement" was originally applied to the
transaction of the common business of a monastic establishment after
the conclusion of the daily chapter.]

[Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE, CLOCK TOWER AND CONCIERGERIE.]

CHAPTER VIII

_Etienne Marcel--the English Invasions--The
Maillotins--Murder of the Duke of Orleans--Armagnacs and
Burgundians_

With the three sons of Philip who successively became kings of France,
the direct line of the Capetian dynasty ends: with the accession of
Philip VI. in 1328, the house of Valois opens the sad century of the
English wars--a period of humiliation and defeat, of rebellious and
treacherous princes, civil strife, famine and plague, illumined only
by the heroism of a peasant-girl, who, when king and nobles were sunk
in shameless apathy or sullen despair, saved France from utter
extinction. Pope after pope sought to make peace, but in vain: _Hui
sont en paix, demain en guerre_ ("to-day peace, to-morrow war") was
the normal and inevitable situation until the English had wholly
subjected France or the French driven the English to their natural
boundary of the Channel.

Never since the days of Charlemagne had the French Monarchy been so
powerful as when the Valois came to the throne: in less than a
generation Crecy and Poitiers had made the English name a terror in
France, and a French king, John the Good, was led captive to England.
In 1346 Paris saw her _faubourgs_ wasted, the palace of St. Germain
and the fortress of Montjoie St. Denis[82] spoiled and burnt, and the
English camp fires nightly glowing. Once again, as in the dark Norman
times, she rose and determined to save herself. Etienne Marcel, the
leader of the movement, whose statue now stands near the site of the
Maison aux Piliers was a rich merchant prince of old family, a member
of the great drapers' guild, and elected Provost of the _Marchands
d'Eau_ in 1355. He it was who bought for 2400 florins of gold the
Maison des Dauphins, better known as the Maison aux Piliers or Hotel
de Ville, on the Place de Greve and transferred thither the seat of
the civic