ng a
tremendous noise with hautboys and _cors-de-chasse_. The butchers on
the open place near the Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds,
and on them had erected a representation of the Bastille or Chateau of
Dieppe. Just as the king passed by, a desperate combat was going on
between the French besieging this chateau and the English holding
garrison within; "the latter," adds the chronicle, "having been taken
prisoners, had all their throats cut." Before the gate of the
Chastelet, there were the personifications of several illustrious
heroes; and on the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted below, hung with
arms at the sides, and canopied above for the occasion, stood the
fowlers with their two hundred dozens of birds, ready to fly them as
soon as the royal charger should stamp on the first stone. Such was a
royal entry in those days of iron rule.

Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles VII., had any reasonable prospect
of reigning in Paris as king, the English troops had to be driven out
of the capital; and when the French forces had scaled the walls, and
entered the city, A.D. 1436, the 1500 Englishmen who defended the
place, had but little mercy shown them. Seeing that the game was lost,
Sir H. Willoughby, captain of Paris, shut himself up with a part of
the troops in the Bastille, accompanied by the Bishop of Therouenne,
and Morhier, the provost of the city. The people rose to the cry of
"Sainct Denys, Vive le noble Roy de France!" The constable of France,
the Duke de Richemont, and the Bastard of Orleans, led them on; those
troops that had been shut out of the Bastille, tried to make their way
up the Rue St Denis, to the northern gateway, and so to escape on the
road to Beauvais and England but the inhabitants stretched chains
across the street, and men, women, and children, showered down upon
them from the windows, chairs, tables, logs of wood, stones, and even
boiling water; while others rushed in from behind and from the side
streets, with arms in their hands, and the massacre of all the English
fugitives ensued. A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby, and the
garrison of the Bastille, not receiving succours from the commanders
of the English forces, surrendered the fortress, and were allowed to
retire to Rouen. As they marched out of Paris, the Bishop of
Therouenne accompanied them, and the populace followed the troops,
shouting out at the Bishop--"The fox! the fox!"--and at the English,
"The tail! the tail!"

A