…Chlothar obtains Grenoble, …

Bruno of Cologne had been appointed chancellor of the Diocese of Reims in 1075, involving him in the daily administration of the diocese.

The pious Bishop Gervais de Château-du-Loir, a friend to Bruno, had meanwhile been succeeded by Manasses de Gournai, a violent aristocrat with no real vocation for the Church.

Suspended at a council at Autunn 1077 at the urging of Bruno and the clergy at Reims, de Gournai had responded, in typical eleventh century fashion, by having his retainers pull down the houses of his accusers.

He had confiscated their goods, sold their benefices, and even appealed to the pope.

Bruno had discreetly avoided the cathedral city until in 1080 a definite sentence, confirmed by popular riot, had compelled Manasses to withdraw and take refuge with Emperor Henry IV, the fierce opponent of the ambitious current papacy of Gregory VII.

Upon the verge of being made bishop himself, Bruno had instead followed a vow he had made to renounce secular concerns and withdrew, along with two of his friends, Raoul and Fulcius, also canons of Reims.

Bruno's first thought on leaving Reims seems to have been to place himself and his companions under the direction of an eminent solitary, Saint Robert, who had recently (1075) settled at Sèche-Fontaine, near Molesme in the Diocese of Langres, together with a band of other hermits, who were later on (in 1098) to form the Cistercian Order, but he had soon found that this was not his vocation.

After a short stay he goes with six of his companions to Saint Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble.

The bishop, according to the pious legend, had recently had a vision of these men, under a chaplet of seven stars, and he installs them himself in 1084 in a mountainous and uninhabited spot in the lower Alps of the Dauphiné, in a place named Chartreuse, not far from Grenoble.

With St. Bruno are Landuin, Stephen of Bourg, and Stephen of Die, canons of St. Rufus, and Hugh the Chaplain, and two laymen, Andrew and Guerin, who afterwards will become the first lay brothers.

They build a little retreat where they live isolated and in poverty, entirely occupied in prayer and study, for these men have a reputation for learning, and are frequently honored by the visits of St. Hugh who becomes like one of them.

This is the beginning of the Carthusian Order, also called the Order of Saint Bruno, a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics.

Founded in 1084, the Carthusians will grow to include both monks and nuns.

The order has its own Rule, called the Statutes, rather than the Rule of Saint Benedict, and combines eremitical and cenobitic life.

Contemplatives who lead solitary lives in hermitages, the Carthusians come together only for certain religious ceremonies.

The name Carthusian is derived from the Chartreuse Mountains; Saint Bruno builds his first hermitage in the valley of these mountains in the French Alps.

The word charterhouse, which is the English name for a Carthusian monastery, is derived from the same source.

The same mountain range lends its name to the alcoholic cordial Chartreuse produced by the monks since the 1740s which itself gives rise to the name of the color.

The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world is turning."

The University of Grenoble is founded in 1339 by Dauphin Humbert II of Viennois and Pope Benedict XII to teach civil and canon law, medicine, and the liberal arts.

However, the institution lacks resources and will dissolved after Humbert’s death.

The Dauphiné, or Dauphiné Viennois, was originally the County of Albon, but the counts had taken the title Dauphin (dolphin), from which the region gets its name.

It became a state of the Holy Roman Empire in the eleventh century.

The Dauphiné is best known for its transfer from the last non-royal Dauphin (Humbert II, who has great debts and no direct heir) to the King of France, Philip IV, in 1349.

The terms of the transfer stipulate that the heir apparent of France will henceforth be called le Dauphin and include significant autonomy and tax exemption for the Dauphiné region.

The dauphin, restored to royal favor after the unsuccessful Praguerie rebellion of 1440, holds a number of important commands in the 1440s, but in 1447 he retires to the Dauphiné.

France has evolved from a feudal country to an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences) organized around a powerful absolute monarchy that rely on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explicit support of the Gallican Church.

Mid-fifteenth century France is significantly smaller than it is today, and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon, Cerdagne, Calais, Béarn, Navarre, County of Foix, Flanders, Artois, Lorraine, Alsace, Trois-Évêchés, Franche-Comté, Savoy, Bresse, Bugey, Gex, Nice, Provence, and Brittany) are autonomous or foreign-held (as by the Holy Roman Empire); there are also foreign enclaves, like the Comtat Venaissin.

In addition, certain provinces within France are ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families (like the Bourbonnais, Marche, Forez and Auvergne provinces held by the House of Bourbon.)

The Duke of Burgundy has assembled a large territory including his native duchy and the Burgundian Netherlands.

Le Dauphin, the son of France’s King Charles VII, has ruled efficiently in the Dauphiné, but in 1456 his father seizes the land and drives his son into exile at the Burgundian court.

Their respective advisors, in purposely encourage the misunderstandings between father and son, enable the continuation of the feud.

Spain wishes for an advance along the coast of Italy through Genoa to occupy the lands around Parma, which it already has been decided are going to be the future realm of Infante Philip, the third son of King Philip V of Spain and his wife, Elisabeth Farnese.

France's chief aim is to humble Piedmont-Sardinia and to force her to detach herself from Austria, or better yet, force her to drop out of the war entirely.

The French commander, the Prince of Conti, will not accept the Spanish plan of attack because he thinks it unsound, while the Spanish queen will brook no opposition to what she believes should be the key thrust of the joint Bourbon armies.

A compromise is negotiated: Spain's plan is not to be followed until after the humbling of Piedmont-Sardinia, after which the joint armies will march into Lombardy to secure the Infante Philip his new realm.

The principal plan for invading Piedmont is devised by Lieutenant General Pierre-Joseph Bourcet, who is France's leading expert in alpine warfare.

The main problem for any army invading Piedmont is the problem of surmounting the alpine passes that guard its approaches.

Even a small number of defenders can effectively block an advance.

Bourcet's reasoning is that with a numerical superiority of thirty-three thousand to twenty-five thousand, the best result would be obtained by separating the attacking force into several columns, which would then attack outlying outposts in a multi-pronged advance.

Using infiltration tactics, it would be easy to envelop the Piedmontese positions, allowing attacks to be launched where most unexpected.

Finally, by putting pressure along the whole front it is reasoned that the Piedmontese defense perimeter will crack at some point, and then the columns can re-unite and push through the gap.

The Franco-Spanish army with this in mind begins in June to regroup in the Dauphiné region.

Once concentrated, the attacking columns lie on a front between Briançon and St. Etienne.

The Franco-Spanish army has recrossed the Alps by the 19th of November.

It begins to snow on the 20th.

Grenoble is the scene of popular unrest due to financial hardship from the economic crises.

The causes of the French Revolution affect all of France, but matters come to a head first in Grenoble.

Unrest in the town is sparked by the attempts of Cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse and Controller-General of Louis XVI, to abolish the Parlements in order to enact a new tax to deal with France's unmanageable public debt.

Tensions in urban populations have been rising already due to poor harvests and the high cost of bread in France.

These tensions are exacerbated by the refusal of the privileged classes, the Church and the aristocracy, to relinquish any of their fiscal privileges.

They insist on retaining the right to collect feudal and seignorial royalties from their peasants and landholders.

This acts to block reforms attempted by the king's minister Charles Alexandre de Calonne and the Assembly of Notables that he had convoked in January 1787.

Added to this, Brienne, appointed the king's Controller-General of Finance on April 8, 1787, is widely regarded as being a manager without experience or imagination.

Shortly prior to the 7th of June in 1788, in a large meeting at Grenoble, those who attend the meeting decided to call together the old Estates of the province of Dauphiné.

The government responds by sending troops to the area to put down the movement.

Merchants in Grenoble close down their shops at roughly ten in the morning of Saturday, June 7, as groups of three hundred to four hundred men and women form, armed with stones, sticks, axes, and bars.

They rush to the city gates to prevent the departure of judges who had taken part in the Grenoble meeting.

Some rioters attempt to cross the Isère but face a picket of fifty soldiers at the St. Lawrence bridge, while others head to the Rue Neuve.

The cathedral’s bells are seized by French peasants at noon.

The crowd swiftly grows, as the bells provoke the influx of neighboring peasants to creep in the city, climbing the walls, using boats on the Isere and for some, pushing open the city gates.

Other insurgents board the ramparts and rush to the hotel (L'hôtel de la Première présidence) the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre is staying in at this time.

The Duke has two elite regiments in Grenoble, the Regiment of the Royal Navy (Régiment Royal-La-Marine) whose colonel is Marquis d'Ambert, and the regiment of Australasia (Régiment d'Austrasie) which is commanded by Colonel Count Chabord.

The Royal Navy is the first to respond to the growing crowds, and are given the order to quell the rioting without the use of arms.

However, as the mob storms the hotel entrance, the situation escalates.

Soldiers sent to quell the disturbances force the townspeople off the streets.

Some sources say that the soldiers were sent to disperse parliamentarians who were attempting to assemble a parlement.

During an attack, Royal Navy soldiers injure a seventy-five year old man with a bayonet.

At the sight of blood, the people become angry and start to tear up the streets.

Townspeople climb onto the roofs of buildings around the Jesuit College to hurl down a rain of roof-tiles on the soldiers in the streets below, hence the episode's name.

Many soldiers take refuge in a building to shoot through the windows, while the crowd continues to rush inside and ravage everything.

A non-commissioned officer of the Royal Navy, commanding a patrol of four soldiers, gives the order to open fire into the mob.

One civilian is killed and a boy of twelve wounded.

To the east of the city, the Royal Navy soldiers are forced to open fire in order to protect the city's arsenal, fearing that the rioters will seize the weapons and ammunition.

Meanwhile, Colonel Count Chabord begins deploying the regiment of Australasia to aid and relieve the Royal Navy soldiers.

Three of the four city councilors gather at the City Hall and attempt to reason with the crowd.

However, their words are silenced amid the clamor of the mob.

Through great difficulty, the councilors make their way through the crowds and eventually take refuge with the officers of the local garrison.

Later this evening, the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre withdraws his troops from the streets and hotel to prevent further violence from escalating the situation.

The Duke manages to narrowly escape the hotel before the crowd completely loots the inside.

With control of the hotel lost, the Royal Navy troops are ordered to return to their quarters.

At six, a crowd estimated at ten thousand people shouting "Long live the parliament" forces the judges to return to the Palace of the Parliament of Dauphiné (Palais du Parlement du Dauphiné) by flooding them with flowers.

Throughout the night, carillons sound triumphantly and a large bonfire crackles on Saint-André square surrounded by a crowd that dances and sings "Long live forever our parliament! May God preserve the King and the devil take Brienne and Lamoignon."