The Iron Trevet or Jocelyn the Champion

e in order to turn the fiction into a reality. The juncture set in during the year 1355, when King John II found his treasury empty through his ruinous prodigalities, and Gaul in flame

ing several provinces to which he laid claim as part of his

reat commoner, deputed to the States General by the city of Paris and indignant at seeing the nobility and clergy disregard the just protests of the deputies of the bourgeoisie, thundered against the odious practice, and, sustained by the menacing attitude of the Parisians, he uttered the memorable declaration that the alliance of the nobility and the clergy was no longer to be of

Unfortunately, and the experience was to be more than once made by Marcel, he soon realized the hollowness of royal promises. The moneys granted by the national assembly are insanely dissipated by the King and his courtiers. The levies of men, instead of being employed against the English, whose invasion spread over wider areas of the national territ

rs. At the first charge of the English archers the brilliant gathering of knights turn their horses' heads, ply their spurs, cowardly take to flight, and leave the poor people that they had compelled to follow them at the mercy of the invader who falls upon them and ruthlessly puts them to the sword. King John himself remains a prisoner on the fie

is example imparted a similar temper to the other towns; and, faithful in the midst of all other cares to the plan of reform that he had pursued and ripened during the long years of his obscure and industrious life, he caused the appointment of a committee of twenty-four bourgeois deputies charged with the drafting of the reforms that were to be demanded from the Regent. The deputies of the nobility and the clergy withdrew disdainfully from the national assembly, shocked at the audacity of the bourgeois legislators. These, however, masters of the situation and laboring under the high inspiration of Etienne Marcel, drew up a plan of reforms that in itself meant an immense revolution. It was the republican government of the ancient communes of Gaul, n

g the consent of the King, to deliberate upon the government of the kingdom, and the vote

and their successors. And, furthermore, members of the States General shall be free to travel th

rs, but by deputies elected by the States General; and they shall swear to resist all orders of the King and his ministers,

on for murder, rape, abducti

tice shall not be

iament and of accounts shall be lowered, and the officials of those departm

the King or of his family shall be forbidden; and power is given to the inh

tion, no officer of the King shall be allowed

ll be moderated and reduced to reasonable bounds by the States General; and t

the prelates of whatever rank, shall bear the burden of t

national assemblies, held under the ordinance that Etienne Marcel had wrung from the crown-assemblies dominated by the industrious class wh

town. It was peopled with merchants, artisans and bourgeois, and it contained the square at one end of which stood the pillory, where malefactors were exposed or executed before taking their corpses to the gibbets of Montfaucon. The girdle of fortresses that surround Paris to the north extends from the thick tower of the Louvre to the gate of S. Honoré. From there, the wall winding towards the Coquiller gate, reaches the gate of Mont Martre, makes a curve near St. Denis street, continues in the direction of the gate of St. Antoine, and arrives at the Barbette gate, which is flanked by the large tower of Billy, built on the borders of the Seine opposite Notre Dame and the isle of Cows. The girdle of the ramparts, interrupted at this spot by the river, is resumed on the left bank. It skirts the quarter of the University, which is inhabited by the students and which has for its issues the gates of St. Vincent, St. Marcel, St.