He excited their lively interest by describing to them the battle of Montlhery, the danger he had run there, and the scenes which had been enacted, adopting at one time a pathetic and at another a bantering tone, and exciting by turns the emotion and the laughter of his audience.

In three days, he said, he would return to fight his enemies, in order to finish the war; but he had not enough of men-at-arms, and all had not at that moment such good spirits as he.

He passed a fortnight in Paris, devoting himself solely to the task of winning the hearts of the Parisians, reducing imposts, giving audience to everybody, lending a favorable ear to every opinion offered him, making no inquiry as to who had been more or less faithful to him, showing clemency without appearing to be aware of it, and not punishing with severity even those who had served as guides to the Burgundians in the pillaging of the villages around Paris.

A crier of the Chatelet, who had gone crying about the streets the day on which the Burgundians attacked the gate of St.Denis, was sentenced only to a month's imprisonment, bread and water, and a flogging.

He was marched through the city in a night-man's cart; and the king, meeting the procession, called out, as he passed, to the executioner, "Strike hard, and spare not that ribald; he has well deserved it." Meanwhile the Burgundians were approaching Paris and pressing it more closely every day.