nobody would bring the Armagnacs to justice, and that they were every day
being set at liberty on payment of money. The great and little Chatelet
were stormed, and the prisoners massacred. The mob would have liked to
serve the Bastille the same; but the duke told the rioters that he would
give the prisoners up to them if they would engage to conduct them to the
Chatelet without doing them any harm, and, to win them over, he grasped
the hand of their head man, who was no other than Capeluche, the city
executioner. Scarcely had they arrived at the court-yard of the little
Chatelet when the prisoners were massacred there without any regard for
the promise made to the duke. He sent for the most distinguished
burgesses, and consulted them as to what could be done to check such
excesses; but they confined themselves to joining him in deploring them.
He sent for the savages once more, and said to them, "You would do far
better to go and lay siege to Montlhery, to drive off the king's enemies,
who have come ravaging everything up to the St. Jacques gate, and
preventing the harvest from being got in." "Readily," they answered,
"only give us leaders." He gave them leaders, who led six thousand of
them to Montlhery. As soon as they were gone Duke John had Capeluche and
two of his chief accomplices brought to trial, and Capeluche was beheaded
in the market-place by his own apprentice. But the gentry sent to the
siege of Montlhery did not take the place; they accused their leaders of
having betrayed them, and returned to be a scourge to the neighborhood of
Paris, everywhere saying that the Duke of Burgundy was the most
irresolute man in the kingdom, and that if there were no nobles the war
would be ended in a couple of months. Duke John set about negotiating
with the _dauphin_ and getting him back to Paris. The _dauphin_ replied
that he was quite ready to obey and serve his mother as a good son
should, but that it would be more than he could stomach to go back to a
city where so many crimes and so much tyranny had but lately been
practised. Terms of reconciliation were drawn up and signed on the 16th