f
extreme danger. The King of Navarre lent a ready ear to these overtures;
he had no scruple about negotiating with this or that individual, this or
that party, flattering himself that he would make one or the other useful
for his own purposes. Marcel had no difficulty in discovering that the
real design of the King of Navarre was to set aside the house of Valois
and the Plantagenets together, and to become King of France himself, as a
descendant, in his own person, of St. Louis, though one degree more
remote. An understanding was renewed between the two, such as it is
possible to have between two personal interests fundamentally different,
but capable of being for the moment mutually helpful. Marcel, under
pretext of defence against the besiegers, admitted into Paris a pretty
large number of English in the pay of the King of Navarre. Before long,
quarrels arose between the Parisians and these unpopular foreigners; on
the 21st of July, 1358, during one of these quarrels, twenty-four English
were massacred by the people; and four hundred others, it is said, were
in danger of undergoing the same fate, when Marcel came up and succeeded
in saving their lives by having them imprisoned in the Louvre. The
quarrel grew hotter and spread farther. The people of Paris went and
attacked other mercenaries of the King of Navarre, chiefly English, who
were occupying St. Denis and St. Cloud. The Parisians were beaten; and
the King of Navarre withdrew to St. Denis. On the 27th of July, Marcel
boldly resolved to set at liberty and send over to him the four hundred
English imprisoned in the Louvre. He had them let out, accordingly, and
himself escorted them as far as the gate St. Honore, in the midst of a
throng that made no movement for all its irritation. Some of Marcel's
satellites who formed the escort cried out as they went, "Has anybody
aught to say against the setting of these prisoners at liberty?" The
Parisians remembered their late reverse, and not a voice was raised.
"Strongly moved as the people of Paris were in their hearts against the
provost of tradesmen," says a contemporary chronicle, there was not a man
who durst commence a riot."

Marcel's position became day by day more critical. The dauphin, encamped
with his army around Paris, was keeping up secret but very active
communications with it; and a party, numerous and already growing in
popularity, was being formed there in his favor. Men of note, who were
l