“Give them hell!” shouted the students, who had climbed onto the cross beams under the roof; they sat there like a flock of famished crows.
“The Armagnacs slander God and offend our beloved King Charles,” said Saint-Yon in his gruff, slightly cracked voice. “They cut off their prisoners’ noses and ears and say, ‘Go back to Paris and show yourself to your crazy king!’ ”
“Long live the King!” The shouts reverberated under the arched roof. The butchers and journeymen and all the men who stood around the slaughter blocks took up the cry. They stamped on the floor and banged on the walls until the meat hooks jingled.
“Yes, come on, long live the King!” A voice roared above the din. “Away with the Armagnac-loving officials and courtiers who give him bad counsel and stick his money in their purses. Away with Berry, the filthy traitor!”
The man who shouted this was hoisted instantly onto the shoulders of the spectators. He was short and thick-set with a broad face disfigured by strawberry marks. He might have been considered deformed if the bundles of muscles on his neck and arms and his thick, somewhat bent fingers, had not betrayed a strength which dwarves and hunchbacks seldom possess. He had a short, flat nose with wide nostrils; his front teeth protruded so far forward that he could not close his lips. Despite his terrifying appearance, he was highly respected and to a certain extent feared by his comrades and the inhabitants of the Saint-Jacques quarter. When anything happened which frightened and upset people, he did not just grumble and complain like the others; he was always ready to resist with words and blows, to stand up for himself as well as for his friends and acquaintances. His name was Simon le Coutelier. He was nicknamed Caboche and was a skinner by trade.
“By Christ’s blood, no more babble!” he roared, emphasizing his words with his raised fist. “We can curse and complain until we turn blue, brothers, but the court wolves and vultures don’t give a damn whether we are friendly to Armagnac or Burgundy now. Who is still so foolish as to believe that he will better himself by running after the Burgundians? Get to work, do your own job, lads! Kill those you hate and take what you can’t get any other way! What have the politics of the great lords to do with us? We must have grub, a fire on our hearth and money in our pockets, no matter what!”
The servants and youths, the students on the crossbeams and the beggars and vagrants, thieves and pickpockets who stood in the back of the slaughter hall, struck up a deafening roar; knives flew from their sheaths and those who had staffs and cudgels flourished them wildly.
“Simon, Simonnet!” boomed the students in chorus.
“Caboche, you speak like a fool!” cried the surgeon in his high, shrill voice. “You would not go far in the world, man, if you insisted on having your own way every time. There is still room for more thieves and murderers in Montfaucon, even if plenty hang there already, God knows, in bundles like smoked fish, next to each other and above each other and below each other! If we seriously wanted to put an end to the sorry state of affairs, which I don’t need to describe, because we get up with anxiety and go to bed with misery — we would have to proceed some other way. All around us disorder and lawlessness are the order of the day; let us at least go to work deliberately and sensibly to create law and order. But first we must drive the Armagnacs from our gates with the help of Monseigneur of Burgundy’s troops. We can’t do anything while Paris is in danger.”
“Do you think I have a mind to fight next to the English dogs?” screamed Caboche. “Once they have beaten off the Armagnacs they will try to make us a head shorter. Let us lie low, lads, and go our own way, that’s the safest course.”
“Silence!” Thibert banged the platform angrily with his staff. “In God’s name how can we make up our minds if those fellows keep on screeching like that?” He turned to Legoix. “Tell them to hold their tongues. Let’s listen now without interruption to Maître de Troyes who speaks here in our name. Quiet!”
Legoix had stood motionless, his arms crossed, after pushing the surgeon forward; he frowned, to be sure, when Caboche took the floor unbidden, but he said nothing. During the uproar which followed the skinner’s brief speech, he remained thoughtful, with an expression of uncertainty on his broad, florid face.
“Aye, I don’t like it either,” he said abruptly to his friends on the platform. “It was an ugly thing for Monseigneur of Burgundy to have brought the English here. How will it end now? They know very well that we don’t like them; they couldn’t find quarters anywhere in the city. They won’t soon forget that either. I don’t trust them, these hard-headed sons of whores.”
“Use your head, Legoix!” Maître de Troyes wheeled violently toward the owner of the Sainte-Geneviève slaughterhouse. “The English remain here as long as we need them to defeat the Armagnacs and not a day longer. If Monseigneur of Burgundy raises any objections to their departure, we are still here to remind him that we don’t want those bastards within our borders. Friends of England have never gotten far here; believe me, Legoix, the Duke knows that as well as we do. Listen, men!” de Troyes continued more loudly, “How often must I tell you: first we get rid of the Armagnac’s army and then we can insist that the Council and municipality be purged. We can go far with prudence and patience. Monseigneur of Burgundy needs us badly — don’t forget it! Our time will come; we will see to it that peace and prosperity return to every inhabitant of city and farm in France. If the King can’t listen or help us, what is to prevent us then from demanding another king for the sake of the people? Yes, it sounds like heresy…” He glanced quickly right and left at the astonished, angry faces of the heads of the guilds. “But I only repeat what such learned and devout doctors of the University as Maître Gerson and Maître d’Ailly have asserted all along, that a king who is incapable or evil can and should be dethroned!”
Simon Caboche raised both his hands.
“Then what are we waiting for, friends?” he yelled at the surgeon. “If it is as you say there, we don’t need to be ashamed. We are in good company. The big shots of the University you’ve just named will be sure to give us absolution if we accidentally cut a few more throats than are strictly necessary!”
Thibert banged his truncheon again; Legoix, now really enraged, stepped to the edge of the platform and ordered the skinner to be silent and to put his feet on solid ground — Caboche still sat enthroned on the shoulders of his followers.
“By the Devil, Legoix, do you support these tonsured fools?” Caboche half-closed his small, bloodshot eyes and opened his large mouth in a grimace. “What little dickey bird has chirped in my ear that you curse and damn the friars of Sainte-Geneviève day in and day out — didn’t they keep rapping your knuckles for selling meat during Lent?” He grimaced again at his audience. “And it’s obvious that you’ve gobbled up everything you’ve slaughtered in the past year, friend. You’re as fat as a pig before Christmas.”
The beggars in the rear of the hall and the students on the beams burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“To the meat hook with Legoix!” someone yelled.
The butcher boss’s face turned red; he was at the point of leaping from the platform to attack Caboche, but he was held back by de Troyes and Thibert. With great effort he swallowed his anger and chose the wisest course, which was to join in the boisterous laughter.
“I can see that you don’t understand politics, Simon Caboche,” the surgeon said acidly. He thought the skinner was a dangerous man; he did not like the way he sat grinning over the heads of his supporters in the calm awareness of his power. The surgeon decided to try intimidation through subde eloquence. “Violence breeds violence — haven’t you seen enough to know that yet? We shall restore order — but like thoughtful men, not like wild beasts. We don’t want a repetition of what happened here sixty years ago when the Provost Marcel stood up for the people’s rights. He was in too much of a hurry, he acted harshly and violently — and what were the results? Paris lost its privileges; the citizens were plundered more viciously than before. Let’s demonstrate that we’ve learned our lesson from the past. No brute force, no robbery and murder, Caboche. We’ll punish whoever needs punishing, but only after careful deliberation, and after trial.”