n of Henri I, 1060, and bearing the
signature of Etienne, _prevot_ de Paris. This officer was a lieutenant
of the king, designated by him to administer justice in his name; he
presided over the tribunal of the Chatelet, and commanded the _guet_, or
watch, and the noblesse in the _arriere-ban_ of the general muster for
war. In Paris, this office required the command of important funds, and
several citizens sometimes combined to give guarantees for the _prevot_.
Nevertheless, the latter was frequently found unworthy of this trust,
and the Etienne of 1060 appears in the chronicles as advising the young
king, Philippe I, to plunder the treasury of Saint-Germain-des-Pres,
with the view of securing for himself the famous cross of gold brought
from Spain by Childebert. This nefarious scheme was undertaken, but at
the moment when the burglarious _prevot_ put out his hand to seize the
cross, he was suddenly stricken with blindness.

Of a very different quality was the Etienne Boileau, selected by
Saint-Louis to fill this important post, and who, according to
Joinville, "executed such good and straight justice," that "no
malefactor, thief, or murderer dared to remain in Paris but he was
immediately hanged and exterminated; neither family nor gold nor silver
could save him." The king was so well satisfied with his _prevot_ that
he caused him to be seated by his side when he presided at the Chatelet,
and, in order to preserve to this office, after Boileau, the lustre
which he had conferred upon it, he separated from it the receipt of the
funds of the royal domains, and created for the latter a receiver, a
guardian of the seals, and sixty notaries who exercised their functions
under the authority of the _prevot_, who, subsequently, was entitled
_garde de la prevot de Paris_. The _guet royal_ was established, and the
_prevot_ drew up the ancient regulations of the hundred trades or
handicrafts which existed in the capital, "in order to establish peace
and order in industry as he had established it in the nation." These
trades were divided into various great corporations. Under this wise
king, also, the Hanse, or confraternity, of the _marchandise de l'eau_
became definitely the _municipalite parisienne_; for about a century the
members of this confraternity had been called _echevins jures_, and
their chief was known as the _prevot des marchands de l'eau_, or _prevot
de confrerie de l'eau_. The numerous privileges which this corporatio