Then arose the terrible insurrection known as the Jacquerie. For centuries the peasantry of France had suffered under a bondage to which there had never been any approach in England. Their lives and liberties were wholly at the mercy of their feudal lords. Hitherto no attempt at resistance had been possible; but the tremendous defeat of the French at Poitiers by a handful of English aroused the hope among the serfs that the moment for vengeance had come. The movement began among a handful of peasants in the neighbourhood of St. Leu and Claremont. These declared that they would put to death all the gentlemen in the land. The cry spread through the country. The serfs, armed with pikes, poured out from every village, and a number of the lower classes from the towns joined them. Their first success was an attack upon a small castle. They burned down the gates and slew the knight to whom it belonged, with his wife and children of all ages. Their numbers rapidly increased.

Castle after castle was taken and stormed, palaces and houses levelled to the ground; fire, plunder, and massacre swept through the fairest provinces of France.