A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Their corpses were dragged to the courtyard of the palace and left there for all to see while Marcel hurried to the Place de Grève, where he addressed the crowd from a window of the city hall, asking their endorsement of his deed. It had been done, he said, for the good of the kingdom and the removal of “false, wicked, and traitorous” knights. With one voice the mob shouted its approval and its adherence to the Provost “through life and death.” Marcel promptly returned to the palace to present the Dauphin with that ever-justifying formula: the deed had been done “by the will of the people.” The prince, he said, must show himself at one with the people by ratifying the act and pardoning everyone concerned. “Grieving and dumbfounded,” the Dauphin could read the warning of the sprawled bodies on the pavement. He prayed to the Provost that the people of Paris might be his good friends as he was theirs, and accepted from Marcel two lengths of red-and-blue cloth to make hoods for himself and his officers.