alternate successes and reverses brought about by the unscrupulous
employment of the most odious and desperate means. The Burgundians had
generally the advantage in the struggle, for Paris was chiefly the centre
of it, and their influence was predominant there. Their principal allies
there were the butchers, the boldest and most ambitious corporation in
the city. For a long time the butcher-trade of Paris had been in the
hands of a score of families the number had been repeatedly reduced, and
at the opening of the fifteenth century, three families, the Legoix, the
St. Yons, and the Thiberts, had exercised absolute mastery in the market
district, which in turn exercised mastery over nearly the whole city.
"One Caboche, a flayer of beasts in the shambles of Hotel-Dieu, and
Master John de Troyes, a surgeon with a talent for speaking, were their
most active associates. Their company consisted of 'prentice-butchers,
medical students, skinners, tailors, and every kind of lewd fellows.
When anybody caused their displeasure they said, 'Here's an Armagnac,'
and despatched him on the spot, and plundered his house, or dragged him
off to prison to pay dear for his release. The rich burgesses lived in
fear and peril. More than three hundred of them went off to Melun with
the provost of tradesmen, who could no longer answer for the tranquillity
of the city." The Armagnacs, in spite of their general inferiority,
sometimes got the upper hand, and did not then behave with much more
discretion than the others. They committed the mistake of asking aid
from the King of England, "promising him the immediate surrender of all
the cities, castles, and bailiwicks they still possessed in Guienne and
Poitou." Their correspondence fell into the hands of the Burgundians,
and the Duke of Burgundy showed the king himself a letter stating that
"the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bourbon had
lately conspired together at Bourges for the destruction of the king, the
kingdom, and the good city of Paris." "Ah!" cried the poor king with
tears, "we quite see their wickedness, and we do conjure you, who are of