'Fearless' Jean's bedroom,
without bed. Toilet to the left, fireplace on the right.
Fourth-floor Walkup, With View
'Fearless' Jean Slept Here
By Richard Erickson
Paris Kiosque - April 2000 - Volume 7, Number 4
Copyright (c) 2000 Richard Erickson - used with permission
While walking around Paris, the name of Jean Sans Peur
- Fearless Jean - pops up in a couple of
places. It does this because Fearless Jean put out a
'contract' on his cousin, Louis d'Orléans.
This was carried
out, investigators think, in the Impasse des Arbalétriers on Monday,
23. November 1407. The location of the assassination still exists,
but it is a bit hard to find because it
is not on any street map.
The alley where
the deed took place was a second entrance to the
Hôtel Barbette - which no longer exists - and this
is a shame, because it would be great to see
any place named 'Barbette' today.
This townhouse was
the residence of Charles VI's wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, who
was a scheming lady at the beginning of the 15th
century.
It would also be great to see the
Hôtel d'Artois, or the Hôtel de Bourgogne as it was
called later. It
was built by Robert II d'Artois in 1270,
right up against the outside of the Philippe-Auguste wall, 20
metres north and parallel to today's Rue Etienne-Marcel.
In
1318, this townhouse was taken over by the family of
the Duc de Bourgogne, and in 1402 was officially considered
their residence in Paris. There's no need to remember these
dates - I only include them to indicate we are
dealing with some 'old times' here.
'Fearless' Jean's fortified tower,
as seen from the Rue Etienne-Marcel.
Anyway, Jean, the
Duke of Burgundy who was known as 'fearless' on account
of some Turkish business, moved into the hôtel in 1404.
He was 33 years old. Philippe-Auguste's wall had been replaced
by one further away - so the family's Parus residence
was expanded along this old wall.
Back to the
murder: Louis d'Orléans was Charles VI's brother, but he was
no saint. His killing - a few blocks away was
merely an episode in a long uncivil war between the
Armagnacs, Burgundies and everybody else - which ended up being
called 'The 100 Years War.' The Orléans family were allied
to the Armagnacs.
Although loony, Charles VI lived a
long time - until 1422. Two years before he died,
he simply gave France away to the Brits.
If
famine and plague didn't bump off the peasants, then so-called
'noblemen' cut off their heads - sometimes for sport. The
times were probably the worst France ever had. The country
was run by dozens of mafias, who were not restrained
by any authority, because there was none.
Charles
VI - 'The Mad' - went nuts in 1392 following
a party in the countryside, and then followed bad advice
on top of it - which handed the whole caboodle
of France to the Brits after their
longbows produced a victory
for them at Agincourt in 1415, mainly against the Amangnacs.
The Brits never let the French forget this little slip-up.
In fact, the Brits were too poor to have
snazzy Genoese-model crossbows. So they relied on their home-made stuff
- which had longer range and three times the rate
of fire. But at long-range, British arrows did not necessarily
pierce French armor.
The twisty, narrow top part of the
stairs, between the third and fourth floors.
The basic
idea was to bump off the poorly armed - with
the slow-loading Genoese-model crossbows - and lightly armored footmen with
a hail of arrows. When this was more or less
complete, it was easy to tip over the big hats
because they all packed 60 kilos of armor.
Then, once upended like turtles, they could be captured and
held for ransom because they were the head guys. This
was a common practice and it helped finance these little
wars they had.
But Agincourt was different. The Brits
annihilated the French big hats; sparing only the Bourbon duke
and - another - Charles d'Orléans. Then, the historian writes,
a 'lamentable period' followed - which followed a recent past
- slightly less 'lamentable' but not by much.
Actually,
Fearless Jean seems to have done Parisians a favor but
getting rid of Louis l'Orléans. Louis was seductive - I'm
not sure this was meant as a compliment - ostentatious
and depraved. He was mainly 'depraved,' but this was a
fairly common trait at the time.
Isabeau, his
sister-in-law, was not highly regarded either - also being characterized
as 'seductive,' so maybe it wasn't an uncommon trait after
all. Because she was a rich lady she wasn't called
'depraved' too - but this is exactly what she was.
Turning murder into the good deed of 'getting rid
of a corrupt tyrant,' Fearless Jean was pardoned and
allowed
to return to Paris not long after the rubbing out
of Louis l'Orléans who seems to have been thoroughly unlamented.
From Thursday, 9. February 1409 until Wednesday, 15.
May 1411, Fearless Jean was boss of Paris. It was
during this period that he had the fortified tower called
'Jean Sans Peur' built. This was within the walled and
fortified grounds of the family's hôtel, the Hôtel de Bourgogne.
One of the smaller windows lights up the staircase.
All the same, he was no brilliant guy either,
and the Parisians sent him packing again in 1413. Finally,
on Friday, 10. September 1419, Jean Sans Peur was bumped
off by the Armagnacs on the Pont de Montereau -
under the eyes of the future Charles VII.
Some
time after this the Orléans and Bourgogne families made peace,
and visited each others' hôtels for dinner parties. For a
shortcut, they used the top of the Philippe-Auguste wall.
This is probably pretty boring, but it sets the stage
for my visit today to Fearless Jean's house, or tower
- because the Hôtel de Bourgogne itself is gone.
The Armagnacs wanted revenge and Fearless Jean wanted a safe
place to sleep. So he had this 27-metre high fortified
tower built next to his house; attached to it and
the old Philippe-Auguste wall.
Fearless Jean slept on the
most heavily-fortified fourth floor, which was one floor higher than
the heavily-fortified third floor, where his guards hung out. The
floors below had thick walls too plus ways to barricade
the stairs. Why he wasn't called 'Prudent' Jean is difficult
to understand.
The staircase up the first two floors
is fairly wide. For the rest of the way, it
is a narrow corkscrew. Probably, Fearless Jean did not actually
live in the tower, but if any Armagnacs were in
the neighborhood, he could pop into it pretty fast.
He could pop out fast too. Each floor has a
door leading into the hôtel - now blocked up -
and there
were other accesses to the old wall. Thus could
Fearless Jean slink around Paris without going out his front
door.
The whole '100 Years War' thing takes about
116 years to tell, so I'm just going to skip
most of it here. The point merely is, if you
are walking around Paris and you get the urge to
see the inside of the place where Fearless Jean slept
587 years ago, you can do this.
About 30 of
these banners explain the tower and mediaeval life.
For
being able to do this we must thank Bernadin de
Mendoça - Philippe II's ambassador to Henri III - who
bought a piece of a Françoiser subdivision at the end
of the 16th century and opted to keep the old
tower.
After paying the 30 francs entry fee, you
can climb the same 140 steps Fearless Jean took to
get up to his bedroom. On the way you can
look out the tiny windows in the thick walls.
Somewhere - I think between the second and third floor
- there is a super, vaulted ceiling decoration, of oak
branches intertwined with vines - probably representing Burgundy, and Fearless
Jean's 'power.' The only other decoration like this is in
the 'Hôtel des Ambassadeurs d'Angleterre' in Dijon.
Then, in
what Fearless Jean may have used as a bedroom in
doubtful times, you can look at his fireplace. The room's
toilet is behind this, designed to be heated by it
- and you can look at this too. It has
a window, so reading in it would be no problem.
There is no room for a bathtub.
The only
thing unoriginal about the whole tower is the roof. Since
there
is no image available of the original, today's roof is
a copy of one shown in 18th century drawings, added
to the possibly battlemented roof of the tower in 1750
as an extra lodging area.
The ceiling decor between the
lower staircase and the upper is extremely rare.
The
tower was classified as a historical monument in 1884 and
restoration on it started in 1992. It opened to the
public last October and is operated by a non-profit association.
The interior is without furniture but is decorated
with about 30 mediaeval hanging banners, printed with descriptions of
architectural details, notes about Fearless Jean's life and times, and
other comments about various other things in mediaeval times.
As far as is known, this fortified tower is the
only example in Paris. All other buildings of about the
same age are either townhouses - 'hôtels' - of the
wealthy, or ordinary houses; and there isn't a lot of
either.
If you are in Paris and if you
go up to the fourth floor of Fearless Jean's tower,
you can tell friends you were in his bedroom. One
he last stayed in, in 1413. There's a lot of
sillier things you can do with 30 francs.
Tour Jean Sans Peur
20. Rue Etienne Marcel, Paris 2.
Métro: Etienne-Marcel
Open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, from 13:30 to
18:00.
During school holidays, the tower is open
daily except Mondays. Guided tours are available by reservation. The
tower can also be rented for meetings and other purposes,
such as 'mediaeval evenings.' Contact the director, Rémi Rivière, for
information. Info. Tel.: 01 40 26 20 28.
Richard Erickson, living in Paris for the last twenty years, has been putting
Paris online as long as anyone. More of his writings can be found in
Metropole Paris
where this article first appeared.
He can be contacted via
erickso@world-net.sct.fr.
