pril, at Compiegne, and the
deputies from the principal towns were summoned to it; but they durst not
come to any decision: "They were come," they said, "only to hear and
report; they would use their best endeavors to prevail on those by whom
they had been sent to do the king's pleasure." Towards the end of April
some of them returned to Meaux, reporting that they had everywhere met
with the most lively resistance; they had everywhere heard shouted at
them, "Sooner death than the tax." Only the deputies from Sens had voted
a tax, which was to be levied on all merchandise; but, when the question
of collecting it arose, the people of Sens evinced such violent
opposition that it had to be given up. It was when facts and feelings
were in this condition in France, that Charles VI. and the Duke of
Burgundy had set out with their army to go and force the Flemish communes
to submit to their count.

[Illustration: The Procession went over the Gates----16]

Returning victorious from Flanders to France, Charles VI. and his uncles,
everywhere brilliantly feasted on their march, went first of all for nine
days to Compiegne, "to find recreation after their fatigues," says the
monk of St. Denis, "in the pleasures of the chase; afterwards, on the
10th of January, 1383, the king took back in state to the church of St.
Denis the oriflamme which he had borne away on his expedition; and next
day, the 11th of January, he re-entered Paris, he alone being mounted, in
the midst of his army." The burgesses went out of the city to meet him,
and offer him their wonted homage, but they were curtly ordered to
retrace their steps; the king and his uncles, they were informed, could
not forget offences so recent. The wooden barriers which had been placed
before the gates of the city to prevent anybody from entering without
permission, were cut down with battle-axes; the very gates were torn from
their hinges; they were thrown down upon the king's highway, and the
procession went over them, as if to trample under foot the fierce pride
of the Parisians. When he was once in the city, and was leaving Notre
Dame, the king sent abroad throughout all the streets an order forbidding
any one, under the most severe penalties, from insulting or causing the
least harm to the burgesses in any way whatsoever; and the constable had
two plunderers strung up to the windows of the houses in which they had
committed their thefts. But fundamental order having bee