lers also went bawling about to know if you
had any corn to grind, and amongst those that demanded alms were the
scholars, the monks, the nuns, the prisoners and the blind.

It was the custom in those days, when a person wished to be revenged
upon another, to make an image of him in wax or mud, as much resembling
as possible. They then took it to a priest and had it named after the
person they wished to injure, with all the ceremonies of the church, and
anointed it, and lastly had certain invocations pronounced over the
unfortunate image. It was then supposed that the figure had some degree
of identity with the prototype, and any injury inflicted upon it would
be felt by the person they wished to harm; they therefore then set to
work to torture it according to their fancy, and at last would plunge a
sharp instrument into that part where the heart should be placed,
feeling quite satisfied they had wreaked their revenge on their enemy.
Sometimes persons were severely punished for the performance of this
farce, and when any individuals experienced some great misfortune, they
often imagined that it had arisen in consequence of their image having
been made by their enemy, and maltreated in the manner described.

When Charles V ascended the throne in 1364, he soon began to display his
taste for civilisation by collecting books to form a library in the
Louvre, and rewarding merit, however humble the station of the
individual by whom it was possessed; and although he received the reins
of government at a period when France was surrounded with enemies, and
her finances in a ruined state, such was the prudence of his measures
that he completely retrieved her losses, and well earned the appellation
he received of Charles the Wise; he built several churches, colleges,
and hotels, none of which if standing are now appropriated to the
purposes originally intended; he also had several bridges constructed,
and embellished Paris with many edifices that were both useful and
ornamental. But all his efforts were paralysed in the following reign of
Charles VI, justly called the Simple, partly mad, partly imbecile, and
coming to the throne at twelve years of age, every misfortune that might
have been expected from a country surrounded by foreign enemies without,
and torn by intestine broils within, happened in the fullest force. The
English and the Burgundians united together in besieging Paris, which
was ultimately entered by both their arm