audible voice, avowing his crime and professing repentance. No rank of
society, not even the monarch himself, was exempt from this punishment,
which frequently was only the prelude to execution. The chief criminal,
in this case, took refuge in Brabant, and there, to revenge himself,
_envoulta_ the king's son.

This was the familiar process in witchcraft by which an image of the
person attacked being made in wax, baptized, and the _voult_ duly
performed, with a mass said and religious consecration, it is then
melted before a fire, or in the sun, or pierced with a needle. This was
discovered. Robert, afraid of prosecution for sorcery, thought himself
too near France and escaped to England, where he urged Edward III to war
against his native country.

Notwithstanding the national troubles, the court and the Parisians
seemed disposed to give themselves up to pleasure. The marriage of the
king's second son, Philippe, with Blanche, daughter of Charles le Bel,
was celebrated with great pomp, and with a tournament at which assisted
the most illustrious knights of France and many from abroad. Among these
was the Duc de Normandie, against whom the king pitted the Seigneur de
Saint-Venant, and the duke was overthrown, horse and man. The Comte
d'Eu, Constable of France, received a lance-thrust in the chest, from
which he died that night. These casualties were only too common in these
celebrations, which were constantly discouraged by the popes, and even
forbidden by some of the kings of France. At the close of these
particular exercises, Olivier de Clisson, the Baron d'Avangour, Geoffroi
and Georges de Malestroit, and other Breton chevaliers were arrested and
conducted to the prisons of the Chatelet on charges of high treason and
of conspiring with the king of England.

The historian Mezeray declares that in the capital the sumptuousness of
apparel, the lascivious dances, the multiplication of entertainments,
were common both to the court and the citizens. Nothing was to be seen
but _jongleurs_, _farceurs_, and other actors and buffoons,
extravagance, debauchery, and constant change. "All the misfortunes of
the nation did not serve to correct them; the spectacles, the games, and
the tourneys constantly succeeded each other. The French danced, as it
were, on the bodies of their relatives. They seemed to rejoice at the
conflagration of their chateaux and their houses, and at the death of
their friends. Whilst some of them were hav