nd merely
gave the Burgundians the opportunity and the signal for a massacre of
their enemies. The little band of Tanneguy Duchatel was instantly
repulsed, hemmed in, and forced to re-enter the Bastille with a loss of
four hundred men. Tanneguy saw that he could make no defence there; so
he hastily made his way out, taking the _dauphin_ with him to Melun. The
massacre of the Armagnacs had already commenced on the previous evening:
they were harried in the hostelries and houses; they were cut down with
axes in the streets. On the night between the 12th and 13th of June a
rumor spread about that there were bands of Armagnacs coming to deliver
their friends in prison. "They are at the St. Germain gate," said some.
No, it is the St. Marceau gate," said others. The mob assembled and made
a furious rush upon the prison-gates. "The city and burgesses will have
no peace," was the general saying, "so long as there is one Armagnac
left! Hurrah for peace! Hurrah for the Duke of Burgundy!" The provost
of Paris, the lord of Isle-Adam, and the principal Burgundian chieftains,
galloped up with a thousand horse, and strove to pacify these madmen,
numbering, it is said, some forty thousand. They were received with a
stout of, "A plague of your justice and pity! Accursed be he whosoever
shall have pity on these traitors of Armagnacs. They are English; they
are hounds. They had already made banners for the King of England, and
would fain have planted them upon the gates of the city. They made us
work for nothing, and when we asked for our due they said, 'You rascals,
haven't ye a sou to buy a cord and go hang yourselves? In the devil's
name speak no more of it; it will be no use, whatever you say.'" The
provost of Paris durst not oppose such fury as this. "Do what you
please," said he. The mob ran to look for the constable Armagnac and the
chancellor de Marle in the Palace-tower, in which they had been shut up,
and they were at once torn to pieces amidst ferocious rejoicings. All
the prisons were ransacked and emptied; the prisoners who attempted
resistance were smoked out; they were hurled down from the windows upon
pikes held up to catch them. The massacre lasted from four o'clock in
the morning to eleven. The common report was, that fifteen hundred
persons had perished in it; the account rendered to parliament made the
number eight hundred. The servants of the Duke of Burgundy mentioned to
him no more than four hun