their comrades to avenge them.  So on the next day they came with swords and clubs to Saint Marcel’s, and entering forcibly the house of a certain shop keeper, broke up all his wine casks and poured the wine out on the floor of the house.  And, proceeding through the open squares, they attacked sharply whatever man or woman they came upon and left them half dead from the blows given them.

But the Prior of Saint Marcel’s, as soon as he learned of this great injury done to his men, whom he was bound to defend, lodged a complaint with the Roman legate and the Bishop of Paris.  And they went together in haste to the Queen, to whom the management of the realm had been committed at that time, and asked her to take measures for the punishment of such a wrong.  But she, with a woman’s forwardness, and impelled by mental excitement, immediately gave orders to the prefects of the city and to certain of her own ruffians [mercenary body-guard] with all speed to go out of the city, under arms, and to punish the authors of the violence, sparing no one.  Now as these armed men, who were prone to act cruelly at every opportunity, left the gates of the city, they came upon a number of clerks busy just outside the city walls with games,—­men who were entirely without fault in connection with the aforesaid violence, since those who had begun the riotous strife were men from the regions adjoining Flanders, whom we commonly call Picards.  But, notwithstanding this, the police, rushing upon these men who they saw were unarmed and innocent, killed some, wounded others, and handled others mercilessly, battering them with the blows they inflicted on them.  But some of them escaping by flight lay hid in dens and caverns.  And among the wounded it was found that there were two clerks, rich and of great influence, who died, one of them being by race a man of Flanders, and the other of the Norman Nation.

But when the enormity of this transgression reached the ears of the Masters of the University they came together in the presence of the Queen and Legate, having first suspended entirely all lectures and debates, and strenuously demanded that justice be shown them for such a wrong.  For it seemed to them disgraceful that so light an occasion as the transgression of certain contemptible little clerks should be taken to create prejudice against the whole university; but let him who was to blame in the transgression be the one to suffer the penalty.

But when finally every sort of justice had been refused them by the King and the Legate, as well as by the Bishop, there took place a universal withdrawal of the Masters and a scattering of the Scholars, the instruction of the Masters and the training of the pupils coming to an end, so that not one person of note out of them all remained in the city.  And the city which was wont to boast of her clerks now remained bereft of them....  Thus withdrawing, the clerks betook