fair napkins; Rupert, Count Palatine, placed the
first dish upon the table; and the Emperor's brother, Wenceslaus,
representing the King of Bohemia, officiated as cup-bearer. Lastly, the
princes of Schwarzburg and the deputy huntsman came with three hounds
amid the loud din of horns, and carried up a stag and a boar to the
table of the Emperor.

INSURRECTION OF THE JACQUERIE IN FRANCE

A.D. 1358

SIR JOHN FROISSART

The defeat of the French under King John II, at Poitiers, by
the British forces of Edward, the Black Prince, September
19, 1356, aroused great indignation among the common people
of France, with scorn of the nobility; for these leaders,
with an army of sixty thousand, had fled before an enemy
whom they outnumbered seven to one. In the next assembly of
the states-general the bourgeois obtained a preponderance so
intolerable to the nobles that they withdrew to their homes.
A little later the deputies of the clergy also retired,
leaving only the representatives of the cities--among whom
the supremacy of the members from Paris was generally
accepted--to deal with the affairs of the kingdom.

At this point appeared a man who in an age "so uncivilized
and sombre," says Pierre Robiquet, "by wonderful instinct
laid down and nearly succeeded in obtaining the adoption of
the essential principles on which modern society is
founded--the government of the country by elected
representatives, taxes voted by representatives of the
taxpayers, abolition of privileges founded upon right of
birth, extension of political rights to all citizens, and
subordination of traditional sovereignty to that of the
nation." This man was Etienne Marcel, provost of the
merchants of Paris--that is to say, mayor of the
municipality, whom eminent historians have called the
greatest personage of the fourteenth century. During a
career of three years his name dominates French history--a
brief ascendency, but of potent influence. His endeavor, in
Thierry's view, "was, as it were, a premature attempt at the
grand designs of Providence, and the mirror of the bloody
changes of fortune through which those designs were destined
to advance to their accomplishment under the impulse of
human passions."

After the disaster of Poitiers, Marcel finished the
fortifications of Paris and barricaded the streets, and in
the assembly there he presided over the bourgeois--the