dred.

It was not before the 14th of July that he, with Queen Isabel, came back
to the city; and he came with a sincere design, if not of punishing the
cut-throats, at least of putting a stop to all massacre and pillage; but
there is nothing more difficult than to suppress the consequences of a
mischief of which you dare not attack the cause. One Bertrand, head of
one of the companies of butchers, had been elected captain of St. Denis
because he had saved the abbey from the rapacity of a noble Burgundian
chieftain, Hector de Saveuse. The lord, to avenge himself, had the
butcher assassinated. The burgesses went to the duke to demand that the
assassin should be punished; and the duke, who durst neither assent nor
refuse, could only partially cloak his weakness by imputing the crime to
some disorderly youngsters whom he enabled to get away. On the 20th of
August an angry mob collected in front of the Chatelet, shouting out that
nobody would bring the Armagnacs to justice, and that they were every day
being set at liberty on payment of money. The great and little Chatelet
were stormed, and the prisoners massacred. The mob would have liked to
serve the Bastille the same; but the duke told the rioters that he would
give the prisoners up to them if they would engage to conduct them to the
Chatelet without doing them any harm, and, to win them over, he grasped
the hand of their head man, who was no other than Capeluche, the city
executioner. Scarcely had they arrived at the court-yard of the little
Chatelet when the prisoners were massacred there without any regard for
the promise made to the duke. He sent for the most distinguished
burgesses, and consulted them as to what could be done to check such
excesses; but they confined themselves to joining him in deploring them.
He sent for the savages once more, and said to them, "You would do far
better to go and lay siege to Montlhery, to drive off the king's enemies,
who have come ravaging everything up to the St. Jacques gate, and
preventing the harvest from being got in." "Readily," they answered,
"only give us leaders." He gave them leaders, who led six thousand of
them to Montlhery. As soon as they were gone Duke John had Capeluche and
two of his chief accomplices brought to trial, and Capeluche was beheaded
in the market-place by his own apprentice. But the gentry sent to the
siege of Montlhery did not take the place; they accused their leaders of
having betrayed t