Editing Charles II of Navarre (section)

===Revolution in Paris and the Jacquerie (1358)===
[[File:Jacquerie Navarre.jpg|thumb|right|Illustration from the {{lang|fr|Chroniques de France ou de St Denis}} dating from after 1380, showing Charles II having the leaders of the Jacquerie beheaded]]

Meanwhile Paris was in the throes of revolution. On 22 February the Dauphin's chief military officers, the marshals [[Jean de Conflans]] and Robert de Clermont were murdered before his eyes by a mob led by Etienne Marcel, who made the Dauphin a virtual prisoner and invited Charles of Navarre to return to the city, which he did on 26 February with a large armed retinue. The Dauphin was forced to agree to many of Charles's territorial demands and to promise to finance for him a standing army of 1,000 men for his personal use.{{sfn|Sumption|1999|pp=314–315}} However illness prevented Charles from escorting the Dauphin to meetings demanded by the nobility at [[Senlis, Oise|Senlis]] and [[Provins]], and the Dauphin was thus able to escape his Parisian and Navarrese guardians and open a campaign from the east against Charles and against revolutionary Paris.

Etienne Marcel implored Charles to intercede with the Dauphin but he achieved nothing and the land around Paris began to be plundered both by Charles's forces and by the Dauphin's. In the last days of May the peasant rebellion of the [[Jacquerie]] erupted to the north of Paris as a spontaneous expression of hatred for the nobility that had brought France so low. Etienne Marcel publicly declared Parisian support for the Jacquerie. Unable to get help from the Dauphin, the knights of northern France appealed to Charles of Navarre to lead them against the peasants.

Although he was allied with the Parisians, Charles was no lover of the peasantry and felt Marcel had made a fatal mistake. He could not resist the chance to appear as a leader of the French aristocracy and led the suppression of the Jacquerie at the [[Battle of Mello]], 10 June 1358 and the subsequent massacres of rebels. He then returned to Paris and made an open bid for power urging the populace to elect him as 'Captain of Paris'.{{sfn|Sumption|1999|pp=317–337}}

This move lost Charles the support of many of the nobles who had supported him against the Jacquerie, and they began to abandon him for the Dauphin while he recruited soldiers—mainly English mercenaries—for the 'defence' of Paris, though his men, picketed outside the city, raided and plundered far and wide. Realizing the Dauphin's forces were much stronger than his, Charles opened negotiations with the Dauphin, who made him substantial offers of cash and land if he could induce the Parisians to surrender. They, however, distrusted this deal between princes and refused the terms outright; Charles agreed to fight on as their captain but demanded that his troops be billeted in the city.

Before long there were anti-English riots in the city and Charles, with Etienne Marcel, was forced by the mob to lead them against the marauding garrisons to the north and west of the city—against his own men. He led them (no doubt deliberately) into an English ambush in the woods near the bridge of [[Saint-Cloud]] and about 600 Parisians were killed.{{sfn|Sumption|1999|pp=338–344}}