he tax-collectors accordingly presented
themselves at the Halles; one of them claimed the percentage on a little
_cresson_ which an old woman had just sold, the old woman raised an
outcry, the unhappy collector was beaten and thrown in the gutter,
another was dragged from the very altar of the church of
Saint-Jacques-l'Hopital and killed, and the mob rushed to the Hotel de
Ville, where it was known that Charles V had caused to be deposited the
_maillets_ or mallets of lead which he had had made in anticipation of
an attack by the English, and armed themselves with these
weapons,--whence their name of Maillotins. But the new tax was
withdrawn, and the popular fury speedily subsided.

When the young king attained his majority, in 1388, the former
councillors of his father, the petty nobles, or _marmousets_, as the
great seigneurs contemptuously called them, resumed the direction of
affairs, but, with all their prudence and ability, were quite unable to
restrain the prodigal wastefulness of the prince. The entry of the
queen, Isabeau de Baviere, whom he had married three years before, was
made the occasion of extravagant processions, pomps, diversions, and
mystery-plays in Paris, as was the marriage of his brother, the Duc
d'Orleans, with the beautiful Valentine Visconti, and the conferring of
the order of knighthood on the children of the Duc d'Anjou. When,
finally, worn out with dissipation, with the license of unlimited power
from the age of twelve, the king went mad, his uncles resumed the
regency and the marmouset ministry prudently sought safety in flight.
The Duc de Bourgogne, Philippe le Hardi, died in 1404; his son, Jean
sans Peur, wished to succeed to his father's authority in the State, but
found himself opposed at every turn by the Duc d'Orleans; the old Duc de
Berry interposed and effected a formal reconciliation; three days later
the Duc d'Orleans was assassinated in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple by the
bravos of Jean sans Peur, who did not fear to do murder on a prince of
the blood.

[Illustration: LOUIS XVI, WITH HIS FAMILY, IN THE LOGOGRAPHIC BOX AT THE
ASSEMBLY, WITNESSING HIS DEPOSITION; AUGUST 11, 1792. From a drawing by
Georges Cain.]

In the civil war which followed, the Parisians profited at first by the
concessions which were made to them in order to secure their
support,--open opposition to all new taxes, restoration of their old
free constitution, the right to elect their _prevot_ and other officer