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The seal of conquest was the re-imposition of a sales tax of twelve pence in the livre on all merchandise, plus extra on wine and salt—the same tax that had provoked the revolt of the Maillotins and that the Parisians had been refusing to pay for the past year. A week later, before a full assembly of the governing class of the city, the King’s ordinance was read revoking the privileges and franchises of Paris. The proud rights of self-government and chartered liberties, hard-won by the towns through the High Middle Ages, were being drained off and absorbed by a central government. In Paris the offices of Provost of Merchants and of the magistrates were suppressed and their jurisdictions taken over by the crown. The major trades were deprived of autonomy, as at Rouen, and subjected henceforward to supervisors appointed by the Provost of Paris. The police squads formerly maintained by the Provost of Merchants were abolished and the defense of Paris taken into the hands of the King. Meetings of confréries, as possible breeders of trouble, and all public assemblies except for attendance at church were forbidden. Participants in illicit meetings were to be treated as “rebel and disobedient,” subject to the death penalty and confiscation of property.

The trial of Jean de Marès followed. He had not left Paris like other notables, the Monk of St. Denis recalled, but for more than a year had contained and moderated the fury of the people and striven to mediate between the court and the city. For that the hatred of the Dukes pursued him. A train of informers was brought forward to support the charge that he had counseled the rebels to take up arms. He was convicted, condemned to death, stripped of gown and hood, and carried in a cart with twelve others to the place of execution at Les Halles. Placed above the others in the cart, “so that he should be viewed by all,” he cried to the crowd collected in the streets, “Where are those who have condemned me? Let them come forward to justify my conviction if they can.” The people sorrowed for him, but none dared to speak.

Told by the executioner to beg mercy of the King that he might be pardoned for his crimes, Marès replied that he had done nothing for which to beg pardon, “but from God alone I shall beg mercy and ask Him humbly to forgive me my sins.” After words of farewell to the people, who were all in tears, he turned to his death.

Not yet done, the crown summoned a mammoth assembly in the courtyard of the Marble Table on March 1, anniversary of the Maillotins’ revolt. One person from every house in Paris was required to attend, without head covering. Charles VI, attended by his uncles and Council, sat on a platform while Pierre d’Orgement as Chancellor read in the King’s name a harsh accusation of all the crimes committed by the people of Paris since the death of Charles V. After speaking of the executions, he cried in a terrible voice, “It is not finished!” The people knew their roles. Wails of fear rose from the crowd. With disordered clothes and hair, the wives of imprisoned men stretched out their arms to the King, imploring mercy in tears. The proud uncles and the King’s younger brother, Louis, knelt to beg for the relief of civil rather than criminal punishment—civil meaning fines. Orgement announced that the King, obeying his natural goodness and the pleas of his kin, consented to a general pardon, revocable if ever the Parisians returned to their evil ways. The convicted would be released from prison and pain of death but not from payment of fines. Some men of ample property were fined amounts equal to all they owned in money, houses, and land, reducing them to ruin.

Similar punitive measures were taken at Amiens, whose ancient charter was revoked, at Laon, Beauvais, Orléans, and other cities. The immense sums collected in fines amounted to 400,000 francs from Paris and a comparable figure from the provinces. Much of it went to enrich the uncles, to pay the Constable and other royal officials who had received