right to the throne of France, mildly in 1328,
on the accession of Philippe VI, and strongly eight years later. Thus
came about the Hundred Years' War, and, incidentally, the residence in
Paris, as if in his capital, of an English king.

Unfortunately, the French nobility were divided in these evil days
coming upon the capital and the nation. In 1329, the Comtesse de Mahaut,
who held the comte d'Artois, died in Paris, poisoned. Robert d'Artois, a
prince of the blood, one of the _royaux de France_, claimed the
succession, but the king awarded it to the queen Jeanne, widow of
Philippe le Long; a month later, as she was about to take possession of
the comte, she also died suddenly, poisoned by one of the officers of
her table, in the hippocras, or medicated wine, which he handed her.
Whereupon Robert produced documents, duly signed and sealed by his
grandfather, Robert I, in which he was designated as the successor to
his title to the comte; these letters were recognized as forgeries, and
Robert was banished from the kingdom forever by the Court of Peers, and
his property confiscated. The false witnesses whom he had suborned were
arrested,--a demoiselle, Jeanne de Divion; his clerk, Perrot de Sanis;
his _fille de chambre_, Jeannette des Chaines, and Pierre Tesson,
notary. All this made a tremendous sensation in Paris; a Jacobin, called
as one of the witnesses, refused to reveal the secrets of the
confessional; he was threatened with the rack by the Bishop of Paris;
the doctors in theology assembled and decided that he must testify, in
the interests of justice, which he did, and was accordingly confined in
prison for the rest of his days. The demoiselle La Divion was burned
alive on the Place of the Marche-aux-Pourceaux, in the presence of the
_prevot_ of Paris and a great multitude of people; the same fate finally
befell Jeannette de Chaines, after having concealed herself in various
localities, in 1334, on the same place; eight other false witnesses were
condemned to the pillory and other punishments, the notary to perpetual
imprisonment, and others to make _amende honorable_.

This ceremony, so usual in the Middle Ages, consisted in the culprit
walking in his shirt, bareheaded and barefoot, conducted by the public
executioner, a rope around his neck, a candle of yellow wax in his hand,
a placard explaining his crime on his chest, another on his back, to
some public place, usually the Parvis-Notre-Dame, and there, in an