e prospect of a
war with the Navarrese." Before he went and plunged into a civil war
outside the gates of Paris, he resolved to make an effort to win back the
Parisians themselves to his cause. He sent a crier through the city to
bid the people assemble in the market-place, and thither he repaired on
horseback, on the 11th of January, with five or six of his most trusty
servants. The astonished mob thronged about him, and he addressed them
in vigorous language. He meant, he said, to live and die amongst the
people of Paris; if he was collecting his men-at-arms, it was not for the
purpose of plundering and oppressing Paris, but that he might march
against their common enemies; and if he had not done so sooner, it was
because "the folks who had taken the government gave him neither money
nor arms; but they would some day be called to strict account for it."
The dauphin was small, thin, delicate, and of insignificant appearance;
but at this juncture he displayed unexpected boldness and eloquence; the
people were deeply moved; and Marcel and his friends felt that a heavy
blow had just been dealt them.

They hastened to respond with a blow of another sort. It was everywhere
whispered abroad that if Paris was suffering so much from civil war and
the irregularities and calamities which were the concomitants of it, the
fault lay with the dauphin's surroundings, and that his noble advisers
deterred him from measures which would save the people from their
miseries.

"Provost Marcel and the burgesses of Paris took counsel together and
decided that it would be a good thing if some of those attendants on the
regent were to be taken away from the midst of this world. They all put
on caps, red on one side and blue on the other, which they wore as a sign
of their confederation in defence of the common weal. This done, they
reassembled in large numbers on the 22d of February, 1358, with the
provost at their head, and marched to the palace where the duke was
lodged." This crowd encountered on its, way, in the street called
Juiverie (Jewry), the advocate-general Regnault d'Aci, one of the
twenty-two royal officers denounced by the estates in the preceding year;
and he was massacred in a pastry-cook's shop. Marcel, continuing his
road, arrived at the palace, and ascended, followed by a band of armed
men, to the apartments of the dauphin, "whom he requested very sharply,"
says Froissart, "to restrain so many companies from roving