added by this wall, Paris now covered 1,084 acres. An integral part of the new wall was
the construction of six small fortresses at the gates. The most important of these was the
one on the eastern side, known as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, whose captain was an
important figure in the defense of the city.
The once-close collaboration between the king and the Parisian bourgeoisie was
marred by intermittent conflict from the early 14th century. What generally triggered
popular uprisings was royal fiscal policy, especially as it concerned the currency. The
first explosion of opposition occurred in 1306. Fifteen years later, when the crown sought
a tax in peacetime to standardize weights and measures and buy out nonroyal coinage
rights, the king’s advisers blamed the Parisians for the plan’s rejection and even talked of
moving the capital to Orléans. A sharply deflationary reform of the currency in 1343
provoked new opposition from the poorer classes.
Parisian hostility to the monarchy reached revolutionary proportions in the next
decade. The crown’s tampering with the alloy of the currency was but one of the factors
in this crisis. Étienne Marcel was a major player in a complex political drama involving
both a movement for governmental reform and the personal animosities of the great
bourgeois families. Those who had grown rich in royal service were the special targets of
Marcel’s party. He supported the Jacquerie of 1358 largely because of his hostility
toward former members of the Parisian bourgeoisie who had won noble titles. Marcel’s
Parisians and the Jacques in the countryside introduced an element of class conflict that
split a reforming party already disorganized by the fickle, self-seeking adventurism of its
putative leader, Charles the Bad, king of Navarre (r. 1332–87). The future Charles V
successfully recruited to his cause most of the noble reformers and regained Paris in the
summer of 1358, when Marcel was murdered.
Charles V (r. 1364–80), a great patron of the arts, had the most important architects,
sculptors, and painters working on his projects. His most famous undertaking, directed by
Raymond du Temple, was the rebuilding of the Louvre that effectively changed its
character from stern military fortress to sumptuous royal residence at the height of the
Hundred Years’ War. Its famous spiral staircase, decorated with statues of royalty, was
the wonder of his contemporaries; but all that remains are contemporary descriptions and,
quite plausibly, the statues of the king and queen now in the Louvre. Charles V also
rebuilt the palace on the Cité, which had been remodeled earlier in the century by Philip
IV the Fair, the Bastille Saint-Antoine, and the castle at Vincennes.
Class interests were apparent again in 1382, when a new uprising in Paris, that known
as the Maillotins, resisted the imposition of the aides, indirect royal taxes that bore
mainly on the urban populations. Charles VI’s government punished this rebellion
severely and abolished the office of prévôt des marchands. Although the behavior of
Charles of Navarre had wrecked his credibility as a leader of reformers, he and his
family, the Évreux branch of the royal house, made one enduring contribution to the
cause
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1328