Thus Colin, who kept the inn at the
Temple Gate, was known as Seigneur du Boisseau. The hotel de l'Ours
stood in the Rue Saint-Antoine, near the Gate properly called La Porte
Baudoyer, but commonly known as Porte Baudet, Baudet possessing the
double advantage over Baudoyer of being shorter and more
comprehensible.[1957] It was an ancient and famous inn, equal in renown
to the most famous, to the inn of L'Arbre Sec, in the street of that
name, to the Fleur de Lis near the Pont Neuf, to the Epee in the Rue
Saint-Denis, and to the Chapeau Fetu of the Rue Croix-du-Tirouer. As
early as King Charles V's reign the inn was much frequented. Before
huge fires the spits were turning all day long, and there were hot
bread, fresh herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty. But since then
the plunderings of men-at-arms had laid waste the countryside, and
travellers no longer ventured forth for fear of being robbed and
slain. Knights and pilgrims had ceased coming into the town. Only
wolves came by night and devoured little children in the streets.
There were no fagots in the grate, no dough in the kneading-trough.
Armagnacs and Burgundians had drunk all the wine, laid waste all the
vineyards, and nought was left in the cellar save a poor piquette of
apples and of plums.[1958]

[Footnote 1957: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 71, 72. Sauval,
_Antiquites de Paris_, vol. i, p. 104. A. Longnon, _Paris pendant la
domination anglaise_, p. 118. H. Legrand, _Paris en 1380_, Paris,
1868, in 4to, p. 65.]

[Footnote 1958: _Piquette_, a sour wine or cider, made from the residue
of grapes or apples. A kind of second brewing (W.S.). _Journal d'un
bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 150, 154, 156, 187. Francisque-Michel and
Edouard Fournier, _Histoire des hotelleries, cabarets, hotels garnis_,
Paris, 1851 (2 vols. in 8vo), vol. ii, p. 5.]

The Seigneur de l'Ours, whom the Maid demanded, was called Jaquet
Guillaume.[1959] Although Jeanne, like other folk, called him Seigneur,
it is not certain that he personally directed his inn, nor even that
the inn was open through these years of disaster and desolation. The
only ascertainable fact is that he was the proprietor of the house
with the sign of the Bear (_l'Ours_). He held it by right of his wife
Jeannette, and had come into possession of it in the following manner.

[Footnote 1959: A. Longnon, _Paris pendant la domination anglaise_, p.
117.]

Fourteen years before, when King Henry with his knighthood