"
As he spoke the great gate of the city yawned noiselessly, and
stealthy and silent the hope of Paris glided into the darkness and
was swallowed up by the night.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BANNERS OF BURGUNDY
The yellow dawn, rippling over Paris, found her streets strangely
silent, strangely quiet. A few good citizens were abed, but most
good citizens were abroad on that kindly June morning, for there was
business doing outside the walls of Paris which tempted every man
inside the walls to those walls, and that business was the battle
that was raging, and had raged since nightfall, between the troops
of King Louis on one side under the Grand Constable of France, and
the troops of the Duke of Burgundy and his allies on the other.
Paris might have been that strange city of slumber told of by the
wanderer in the Arabian tale, or that poppied palace where the
sleeping beauty and her court lay waiting the coming of the hero. If
Asmodeus whisking his way on the wings of the wind with any
astonished travelling companion in tow had paused over Paris and
unroofed it for the benefit of his fellow-voyager, most of the rooms
would have been found as empty as the streets.
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