XIII.
There were two women, who were not at the burial, to whom the death of Orleans came nearer than to any mourner there. When Isabel heard that Orleans was slain she went in terror of her life. Ill as she was, she had herself carried in a litter to St. Paul’s, taking shelter there in the arms of her mad husband, and so soon as she was fit for travel the poor, light, beautiful, little Queen went out of Paris, far away from Burgundy, far, too, from that maimed and slaughtered body lying in the chapel of the Celestines. Terrified, indifferent, she could think of nothing but her own imaginary danger.
The mistress and the wife took the matter in a very different spirit. At first, in her transports of sorrow, Valentine could not act. She tore out her hair and shred her garments; she sobbed so much, that for weeks afterwards her voice was hoarse. But when the first paroxysm was over her strong Italian character centred itself upon one fixed idea—justice, vengeance for her murdered husband. Valentine had no thought of her own safety. She sent her two elder sons and her girl into Blois, and then, with the Princess Isabel and little John, her youngest child, on either hand, the Duchess of Orleans set out from Château-Thierry for Paris.
Travelling was slow that terrible winter. It was not till the 10th of December that Valentine entered the capital. She, her children, her servants, were all dressed very plainly and roughly, and, of course, in black. The King of Sicily and the Duke of Berri came out to meet them. When they reached the palace Valentine threw herself upon her knees before the King, demanding justice. The poor Charles (azzez subtil pour lors) raised her up and kissed her, while they both wept together. He promised strict justice upon Burgundy. Again, ten days later, he declared, “What is done to my only brother is done to me.” Valentine and her children, satisfied of vengeance, retired to their great hotel in the Marais.
The King fell ill again so soon as Valentine had left him. “They say,... but I affirm nothing,” suggests the Monk. Valentine the witch stayed on, however, among the people who had murdered her husband. One thing that we learn of Valentine at this moment shows us how profound, how selfless was her love of Orleans. She sought out his bastard—the little John, afterwards Count of Dunois, the son of Mariette de Canny—and brought him up with her own children. It even seemed as though she loved him more than the others. Glancing from the poetic Charles, the delicate Philip, the child John, to his determined and eager little face, she exclaimed, “None of your brothers is more fit than you to avenge your father. Nature has cheated me of you!”
To avenge your father! This had become the unique preoccupation of Valentine. But that promised vengeance tarried long. On the 8th of March a learned doctor of theology, the chosen advocate of Burgundy, a certain Maître Jean Petit, excused the murder of Orleans before the King. “Il est licite d’occire un Tyran.”
It was not only of tyranny that the Burgundians accused their victim. The tremendous accusation of Jean Petit (which every student of the past has read in Monstrelet) enumerates attempted regicide, and secret poisoning, sorcery, necromancy, charms, incantations. “Sorcery, high treason against God, and regicide, high treason against the King. There is also tyranny,” says Maître Jean Petit. It was of course for this third cause, treason against the people, that Orleans’ murder was condoned in Paris.
For the people never hid their support of Jean-sans-Peur. Those who had wept at the funeral of Orleans were ready now to cry again the cry of Burgundy. The King, whose mind was again overcast, although he was not actually mad, the King himself on the 9th of April, 1408, signed letters patent granting pardon to Jean-sans-Peur. “Our very dear and well-beloved cousin of Burgundy, who for the public good and out of faith and loyalty to us, has caused to be put out of this world our said brother of Orleans.” This was the last insult to his memory. Valentine would not brook it; she rallied to the charge. Though she herself had been seriously implicated in the tissue of villainy which his murderers had woven about the memory of her husband, Valentine had no thoughts to spare for her own safety. All through July and August she kept agitating against Burgundy. Bringing her children with her she sought the King and cried on her knees for justice. Twenty years’ exile for Burgundy! Her two advocates, Sérisi and Cousinet pleaded eloquently for her; refuting the vile accusations of poison and sorcery with a candour, a logic, a fine and modern spirit worthy of the intellect of the dead man they defended. It was all no use. “The Parisians,” says Monstrelet, “loved so well this Duke of Burgundy; because they believed that if he undertook the government, he would put down throughout the kingdom all salt taxes, imposts, dues, and subsidies which were to the prejudice of the people.” Though nearly all the royal Princes were openly on the side of Valentine, the King did not dare avenge his brother. The Court was impotent against the people.
In the early autumn Valentine left Paris. Life was over for her. “Rien ne m’est plus. Plus ne m’est rien,” ran her melancholy motto. Anger and bereavement and hopeless sorrow had worn her to a shadow. She took the little Dunois with her children to the Castle of Blois. There were four of them, Charles, the Poet, who should be the father of King Louis XII.; and little John, the grandfather of Francis I.; Philip, Count of Vertus; and Margaret, in later years the grandmother of Anne of Brittany. These children, three of whom should be the grandparents or great-grandparents of Henri II., Valentine ceaselessly instructed. All her contemporaries bear witness to her untiring vigilance over them. “They are marvellously good, and well-instructed for their years,” says Monstrelet: “Moult notablement conduits et indoctrinés.” But there was one lesson, dearer than the others, that Valentine perpetually taught her sons. “Avenge your father,” she continually cried.
These children, so different in character and destiny, were the dearer to their mother that she felt she had not long to love them. Valentine was dying of a broken heart, “of anger and mourning,” writes Juvenal; “of anger and impotent vengeance,” says Monstrelet. Her eyes were quite dim with useless tears, and still she resented the very grief that drained her life; for she did not want to leave her little children and her unaccomplished task. “It was pitiful,” says Juvenal, “before she died to hearken to her regrets and her complaints, so piteously she regretted her children, and a bastard, called John, whom she could not suffer out of her sight, saying none of her children was fitter to avenge their father.”... “Since the tragic end of her husband,” says the Monk, “this Duchess spent her days in tears, and many say the bitterness of her heart induced that unhealthy languor of which she died.”
This was in November. Upon St. Clement’s day, upon that heart-sickening anniversary of her husband’s murder, Jean-sans-Peur rode into Paris. It was a triumph. As he passed the people, and their little children cried, “Noel, noel au bon Duc.”
It was near a week before the news came down to Blois. When she heard it, Valentine felt that all was over. No vengeance was possible. On the 4th of December the unhappy woman died, with her last breath entreating her little children never to forget their father’s murder. But these children were only children, and they were orphans. The death of Valentine seemed to secure the triumph of her enemy. Jean-sans-Peur did not seek to hide his rejoicing: “Car icelle Duchesse continuoit moult asprement et diligemment sa poursuitte.“ But already Retribution at her grindstone was sharpening the fatal battle-axe of Montereau.
[11]. At the same time there dwelt in Milan another little Valentine Visconti, daughter of Bernabò, in after years the widowed Queen of Cyprus, and herself an interesting and pathetic figure.
[12]. Corio on different pages puts the date of the birth of Giangaleazzo as 1352 and 1343. The first date, 1352, agrees with the account of Galeotto del Caretto and the Deed of Majority in Corio.
[13]. Tu, spectabilisque Azo, natus tuus ... auctoritate, bayliâ, nec non Regiæ Potestatis plenitudine, tam ordinariâ quam absolutâ, &c., Feb., 1380. Luenig. De Ducatu Mediolanense, in the “Codex Italiæ Diplomaticus,” No. xxvii. See also Investiture of Asti, 1383, to Giangaleazzo (vos et heredes vestri) in the Archives Nationales, K. 53, dossier 22.
[14]. “L’Apparicion de Maistre Jehan de Meun,” Fr. ii., 7203. MSS. Bib. Nat.
[15]. This was the estimate of Giangaleazzo. The actual revenues proved to be a little less, and an arrangement à l’amiable was made between him and his son-in-law (Arch. Nat., K. 554, dossier 6).
[16]. See Comte Albert de Circourt, “Le Duc d’Orléans, frère du roi Charles VI.: ses entreprises au dehors du royaume.” Paris: Victor Palmé, 1887.
[17]. The florin, the Venetian ducat, and the French franc were interchangeable coins worth about nine-and-eightpence of our money. They are the equivalent of our half-sovereign, the French crown that of our half-guinea; the Burgundian noble being, I think, the only coin that reached the value of the modern guinea. See the tables for 1384-1394 in De Wailly.
[18]. Le Pastoralet. A Burgundian satire, in the form of a Pastoral, written by one Burcarius in the first half of the fifteenth century, and published of late years in the Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove’s collection of Belgian chronicles.
[19]. Lamansky: “Secrets de l’Etat de Venise,” pp. 157-159. Also “Archivio di Firenze,” Signori Legazione Commissioni, &c. Filza 28, folio 7 t.
[20]. Giangaleazzo in 1395 obtained the title and investiture of the Duchy of Milan from Wenzel, King of the Romans, for 100,000 florins.
[21]. Arch. Nat. (K K. 315 fos. 9-52): “Notes à compter faiz à certaines gens d’armes et archiers retenus par Monsieur le Duc à son service avant la venue de M. de Coucy ès parties d’Ytalie.”
[22]. De Circourt, op. cit., p. 48.
[23]. Walsingham, “Historia Anglicana,” vol. ii. p. 201.
[24]. Clairambault. sceaux, vol. cxiii. p. 8821. See De Circourt, op. cit.
[25]. For all this question of the kingdom of Adria, too vast for this incidental line, see the excellent paper of M. Paul Durrieu in the “Revue des Questions Historiques” for July, 1880; also the scarce volume of Champollion-Figeac, “Louis et Charles, Ducs d’Orléans,” Paris, 1844; and especially the box of Manuscripts in the Paris National Archives labelled Carton J. 495. I may also indicate an interesting passage in Walsingham’s “Historia Anglicana,” vol. ii. p. 201, communicated to me by Comte Albert de Circourt, “Item Dominus Papa significat Regi per prædictum nuncio, qualiter Rex Franciæ et Antipapa pacta inierunt hinc inde: Videlicet quod idem Rex, per fortitudinum Ducum (Burgundiæ et Turoniæ, poni faciat Antipapem in Sedem Petri et Antipapa promisit Regem Imperio coronare, et Duci Burgundiæ) magnalia et investiet Ducem Turoniæ de omnibus terris ecclesiæ in partibus Italiæ, et quendam alium coronare Regem Tusciæ et Lombardiæ, et Ducem Andexaciæ (Andegaviæ) firmare in Regno Siciliæ.” The passage in brackets exists only in the Brit. Mus. MS.
[26]. “Arch. Nat.,” K K. 315.
[27]. “Arch. Nat.,” J. 497, No. 15. February, 1392, Lomellini, Flisco, and other nobles of Genoa sign an instrument offering Genoa to the King of France.
[28]. Paul Durrieu, “Le Royaume d’Adria.” See also an important passage, “Religieux de St. Denis,” t. ii. p. 402.
[29]. “Arch. Nat.,” K. 54, No. 37. December 12, 1396: “Comme depuis que nostre très-cher et très amé frère le Duc d’Orleans eut, pour les causes et les concideracions qui le meurent, entrepriz d’avoir la Seigneurie des cité, pays et territoire de Gennes. Et tant fait pour venir à son entencion.... Savoir faisons que pour contenter et deffraier nostre dit frère des trés-grans fraiz missions et despenses par luy en plusieurs manières faiz et soustenuz ... nous avons avec nostre dit frère traicté et accordé sur de et pour ces choses et leurs dependances la somme de trois cents mile frans d’or pour une foiz.”
[30]. August 31, 1395. Lünig Codex Italiæ Diplomaticus, i. col. 421.
[31]. “Religieux de St. Denis,” ii. p. 436, et. seq.
[32]. “Delaville Le Roulx. La France en Orient,“ vol. i. p. 290-304.
[33]. Vide “Jean sans Peur, Duc de Bourgogne, Lieutenant et Procureur-général du Diable cès parties d’Occident,” par M. Paul Durrieu, Paris, 1887.
[34]. For example Carlo Zeno in 1403, Gattilusio in 1399, each of whom informed the Turks concerning the plan of campaign of a Christian enemy.
[35]. “L’Apparicion de Maistre Jehan de Meun.” Bib. Nat. Fr. 811, No. 7203. This is an illuminated manuscript in defence of Valentine of Orleans, and dedicated to her.
[36]. “Delaville Le Roulx. La France en Orient,” Paris, 1886, vol. i. p. 291.
[37]. “Ordonnances des rois de France,” t. vii. p. 535. The Duke of Orleans was never Regent, despite the line of the Monk of St. Denis which assures us that in 1402 the King made his brother Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. During the frequent relapses of Charles VI. the kingdom was governed by a Council. There was no Regency before the year 1415.
[38]. Arch. Nat. K. 55, No. 16, June 14, 1401.
[39]. Arch. Nat. K. 55, No. 39, Aug. 21, 1405.
[40]. Arch. Nat. K. 55, No. 36, Dec. 1, 1405.
[41]. “Arch. Nat.” Carton K. 55, No. 10: “Lettres par les-quelles le Roi commect la garde du Pape Bénoist 13 au Duc d’Orléans, au-quel il donne cent hommes de sa garde. No 14 bis: Lettres du Roy Charles VI. déclaratrices que loin de tenir le Pape Bénoist XIII. prisonnier, il l’a pris sur sa sauve garde et que pour plus grande sûreté de sa personne et de ses biens il a établi son frère le Duc d’Orléans pour en avoir garde.”[garde.”]
[42]. Communicated by Comte Albert de Circourt from transcripts in his possession.
[43]. See M. Paul Durrieu, “Les Gascons en Italie,” p. 214.
[44]. Dumont, Corps Diplomatique. II. ccxvii. and ccxxxi.
[45]. Avd Nat. K. 55, No. 11, bis July 26, 1404. À tous ceulx qui ces présentes lettres verront, Guilles, Seigneur de Tignonville, chevalier, conseiller, chamberlain du Roy nostre seigneur et garde de la prévosté de Paris, Salut! Savoir faisons que nous l’an de grace 1404, ce Mercredi 26 jour du mois de Juillet, vismes une lettre du Roy nostre seigneur scellée de son grant scel sur double couronne, des quelles la teneur s’ensuit:
Charles par la grace de Dieu Roy de France, à tous ceulx qui ces lettres verront, Salut! Savoir faisons que après la supplication et requeste à nous faictes par nostre très-cher et très-amé frère Loys Duc d’Orléans, contenant que comme à cause de nostre très chère et très amée soeur, sa femme, fille du feu nostre oncle le Duc de Milan, plusieurs villes terres et seigneuries situées es parties d’Italie et de Lombardie, entre lesquelles est et doit estre la ville et cité de Pise avec toutes ses appartenances, la seigneurie de laquelle nostre dit frère dit estre et appartenir au dit feu Duc de Milan auparavant qu’il alla de vie à tres-passement appartiennent et doivent appartenir à iceluy nostre très-cher frère. Il nous a exposé et il ait entendu de nouvel que la dicte ville et cité de Pise et aucuns chasteaulx appartenant d’icelle, par certains moyens sont à nous acquis et venues en nostre main. Et ont été bailliz pour nous par nostre très-féal Chevalier Chambellan et conseiller Jehan le Meingre dit Boucicaut, Maréschal de France, et Gouverneur pour nous de nostre cité et seigneurie de Jennes, pour quoy il nous a requis en tout le droit que nous avons et pouvons avoir de la dicte ville et cité de Pise et ès aultres cités et appartenances qui furent au dit Seigneur de Milan, nous veuillons bailler et délaisser. Et tout empeschement mis de par nous en la dicte ville et cité de Pise et ès dictes chateaulx et aultres appartenances d’icelles, veuillons faire oster et cesser, sans y plus procéder, ny faire procéder, en sa préjudice. Nous voulons toujours condescendre au justes requestes de nostre-dit frère, comme raison est. Qui avons baillie et délaissié de une certaine science par ces présentes tout le droit et seigneurie par nous acquis de nouvel et que nous avons et pouvons avoir en dicte ville et cité de Pise et ès aultres chasteaulx et appartenances d’iceulx. Et voulons et ordonnons par ces présentes que l’empeschement mis par et en nostre nom en la dicte ville, cité et Seigneurie de Pise et ès chateaulx et aultres appartenances d’icelles, soit osté. Si donnons en mandement par ces présentes et envoyons très-expressement au dit gouverneur de nostre dicte cité de Jeunes et à tous nos aultres justiciers et conseillers ou à leurs lieutenants et à chaseur d’eulx, si que di luy appendra, que de nostre bailli et délaissements dessus ditz faient, sueffrent et laissent jouer et user paisiblement nostre diet frère. En mectant au délivrement de luy ou à ses ditz gens officiers commis et députés de par lui tous les ditz droit et seigneurie par nous acquis de nouvel ès ditz ville cité et chasteaul dessus ditz. Et en ostant tout l’empeschement qui en iceulx a esté mis de nostre part. En tesmoing de ce nous avons fait mettre à ces lettres nostre scel. Donné a Paris le 24 jour de May l’an de grace mil quatre ans et quatre et le 24 de nostre règne. Aussi signées par le Roy en son rayson. Messigneurs les Ducs de Berry et de Bourbon, le Connestable, le Comte de Tancarville, le grand maistre d’ostel et aultres.
Et nous a ce présent transcript in tesmoing de ce que usismes le scel de la dicte prévosté de Paris l’an et jour dessus promis et dietz. Manessier.
[46]. A strange document in the Carton K. 55 Arch. Nat., under date July 27, 1406, in the form of a letter from the King in Council (Tancarville “et autres” being present), notifies that that day the King has received conjointly the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, who have made him their united homage for Pisa. In 1407 the Signory of Florence, having taken Pisa (a French fief), sent to the King, Orleans, and Burgundy to justify their conduct. Orleans seized the Florentine ambassadors and cast them into prison—a high-handed proceeding which he probably considered warranted by his position as suzerain of the captive city. In so doing Orleans probably meant to underline the fact that he, not the King or Burgundy, was lord of Pisa, though all had claims to suzerainty. There is a long correspondence on this subject (Archives of Florence, filza xviii. della Signoria. Cancelleria 27).
[47]. It is in 1407 that the Italian projects of Orleans appear in vigorous renascence. On the 6th of October he proclaimed himself Protector of his nephews, Giovanni Maria, Duke of Milan, and Filippo Maria, Count of Pavia, “frères de Dame Valentine épouse du Duc” (Arch. Nat. K. 56, No. 16). He made the Governor of Asti their guardian, and appeared to meditate an armed intervention. Was this conduct purely and merely disinterested? Did Orleans in October at Beauté-sur-Marne contemplate a great French protectorate in Lombardy of which he should be the soul and centre? A month later a tragic silence suddenly interrupted any answer to these questions.
[48]. See “Arch. Nat.” K K. 267 fo. 97. Also the chapter on Bernardon de Serres in M. Paul Durrieu’s valuable work, “Les Gascons en Italie.”
The Claim of the House of Orleans
to Milan.
Let us recapitulate.
When, on September 16, 1380, Charles V. of France expired, he left behind him two young sons. One was twelve years old, tall, stalwart, healthy, amiable; the other was a lad of nine, less regularly handsome than his brother, slighter, darker, more agile, more acute, and more engaging.
Charles V. had left his younger son no more than the pension of a private gentleman; the elder was the king of France. The dying monarch, a man of many brothers, had seen the dangers that arise when royal princes are too rich. But he had died before his time; and of his two heirs the king was gentle, dull, and generous; the gentleman, brilliant, grasping, and ambitious. The result was calculable. Twenty years later the younger son was king in all but name; he was rich, puissant, terrible, and hated; while his brother, impoverished and neglected, starved on the throne, the best-beloved man in France. Circumstances had made the rise of the younger son singularly easy. In his twenty-fourth year King Charles VI. became violently mad, and henceforward till his death there were long regencies (the subject of angry contests between his uncle and his brother) interrupted by periods of lax and kindly government. His younger brother, Louis, Duke of Orleans, became, as first prince of the blood, more powerful than the king. He was too powerful; and his arrogance and his extortions raised many enemies against him. On November 23, 1407, he was cruelly murdered as he was riding by night through the streets of Paris. He had made himself so terrible that even the brother who loved him did not seek to avenge him, but praised the murderer “who, for the public good and out of faith and loyalty to us, has caused to be put out of this world our said brother of Orleans.” No one mourned the murdered man absolutely and completely except his devoted widow and his orphaned children.
A year and a week later the duchess died. Her three sons, her one daughter, with Dunois, the natural son of Orleans, whom his widow had adopted, were left fatherless and motherless in a kingdom full of enemies, where their father’s murderers triumphed. They entered the world as a battlefield; but, though so young, they entered armed and mounted. From their father they inherited the duchies of Orleans, Luxembourg, and Aquitaine, the counties of Valois, Beaumont, Soissons, Blois, Dreux, Périgord, and Angoulême, with the seigneuries of Coucy and Savona. Through their mother they acquired the county of Vertus in Champagne, the county of Asti in Lombardy, and certain pretensions to the ducal crown of Milan.