Alone he went, but with the sword of state borne before him as regent.

The people of Paris cast down their eyes with restrained wrath.

"They wept," says a contemporary, "and not without cause, for they knew not whether for a long, long while they would have any king in France." But they did not for long confine themselves to tears.

Two poets, partly in Latin and partly in French, Robert Blondel, and Alan Chartier, whilst deploring the public woes, excited the popular feeling.

Conspiracies soon followed the songs.