tion of Paris, being informed of this success, were greatly moved
and encouraged. One brave burgess of Paris, Michel Laillier, master of
the exchequer, notified to the constable, it is said, that they were
ready and quite able to open one of the gates to him, provided that an
engagement were entered into in the king's name for a general amnesty and
the prevention of all disorder. The constable, on the king's behalf,
entered into the required engagement, and presented himself the next day,
the 13th of April, with a picked force before the St. Michel gate. The
enterprise was discovered. A man posted on the wall made signs to them
with his hat, crying out, "Go to the other gate; there's no opening this;
work is going on for you in the Market-quarter." The picked force
followed the course of the ramparts up to the St. Jacques gate. "Who
goes there?" demanded some burghers who had the guard of it. "Some of
the constable's people." He himself came up on his big charger, with
satisfaction and courtesy in his mien. Some little time was required for
opening the gate; a long ladder was let down; and Marshal Isle-Adam was
the first to mount, and planted on the wall the standard of France. The
fastenings of the drawbridge were burst, and when it was let down, the
constable made his entry on horseback, riding calmly down St. Jacques
Street, in the midst of a joyous and comforted crowd. "My good friends,"
he said to them, "the good King Charles, and I on his behalf, do thank
you a hundred thousand times for yielding up to him so quietly the chief
city of his kingdom. If there be amongst you any, of whatsoever
condition he may be, who hath offended against my lord 'the king, all is
forgiven, in the case both of the absent and the present."

[Illustration: The Constable Made his Entry on Horseback----150]

Then he caused it to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet throughout the
streets that none of his people should be so bold, on pain of hanging, as
to take up quarters in the house of any burgher against his will, or to
use any reproach whatever, or do the least displeasure to any. At sight
of the public joy, the English had retired to the Bastille, where the
constable was disposed to besiege them. "My lord," said the burghers to
him, "they will surrender; do not reject their offer; it is so far a fine
thing enough to have thus recovered Paris; often, on the contrary, many
constables and many marshals have been driven out of