a
favorable ear to every opinion offered him, making no inquiry as to who
had been more or less faithful to him, showing clemency without appearing
to be aware of it, and not punishing with severity even those who had
served as guides to the Burgundians in the pillaging of the villages
around Paris. A crier of the Chatelet, who had gone crying about the
streets the day on which the Burgundians attacked the gate of St. Denis,
was sentenced only to a month's imprisonment, bread and water, and a
flogging. He was marched through the city in a night-man's cart; and the
king, meeting the procession, called out, as he passed, to the
executioner, "Strike hard, and spare not that ribald; he has well
deserved it."

Meanwhile the Burgundians were approaching Paris and pressing it more
closely every day. Their different allies in the League were coming up
with troops to join them, including even some of those who, after having
suffered reverses in Auvergne, had concluded truces with the king. The
forces scattered around Paris amounted, it is said, to fifty thousand
men, and occupied Charenton, Conflans, St. Maur, and St. Denis, making
ready for a serious attack upon the place. Louis, notwithstanding his
firm persuasion that things always went ill wherever he was not present
in person, left Paris for Rouen, to call out and bring up the regulars
and reserves of Normandy. In his absence, interviews and parleys took
place between besiegers and besieged. The former, found partisans
amongst the inhabitants of Paris, in the Hotel de Ville itself. The
Count de Dunois made capital of all the grievances of the League against
the king's government, and declared that, if the city refused to receive
the princes, the authors of this refusal would have to answer for
whatever misery, loss, and damage might come of it; and, in spite of all
efforts on the part of the king's officers and friends, some wavering was
manifested in certain quarters. But there arrived from Normandy
considerable re-enforcements, announcing the early return of the king.
And, in fact, he entered Paris on the 28th of August, the mass of the
people testifying their joy and singing "Noel." Louis made as if he knew
nothing of what had happened in his absence, and gave nobody a black
look; only four or five burgesses, too much compromised by their
relations with the besiegers, were banished to Orleans. Sharp skirmishes
were frequent all round the place; there was cann