The story is based on the 1961 novel by Hans Koningsberger, set at the time of the 1358 uprising of the peasants of northern France known as the Jacquerie.
The bourgeoisie of Beauvais, Senlis, Paris, Amiens and Meaux, sorely pressed by the court party, accepted the Jacquerie, and the urban underclass were sympathetic.
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His and the peasant army opposed each other near Mello on 10 June 1358 when Guillaume Cale, the leader of the rebellion, was invited to truce talks by Charles.
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The final events transpired at Meaux, where the impregnable citadel was crowded with knights and their ladies.
May 28 – The Jacquerie: A peasant rebellion begins in France during the Hundred Years' War, which consumes the Beauvais and allies with Étienne Marcel's seizure of Paris.
(Coucy was a French noble, but he married Isabella, the eldest daughter of Edward III of England. He and his contemporaries ruthlessly suppressed the Jacquerie.)
The Jacquerie was a peasant revolt that took place in northern France in 1356-1358, during the Hundred Years' War.
In 1431, the town was pillaged by routiers under Rodrigo de Villandrando on orders from the Crown as part of the quashing of a jacquerie.