The chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, Vol. 02 [of 13]

by Enguerrand de Monstrelet

‘Although you had ordered, that henceforth he should in no way act to our prejudice, and although he had sworn to observe it,—nevertheless he did directly the contrary; for, thinking to damn the good fame of our very redoubted lord and father, he caused your grand master of the household, whose soul may God receive! to be arrested, thrown into close imprisonment, and inhumanly tortured, so that his limbs were broken, and made him suffer other martyrdom that he might, through the severity of torture, force him to confess that our ever-to-be-regretted lord and father, and your only brother, whose soul may God pardon! was guilty of some of the charges which he had falsely brought against him, so that his crimes might be excused, and that he might for ever destroy the honour of our family.

‘He had the grand master carried to the place of execution, who there, when death was before his eyes, declared, on the damnation of his soul if he told a falsehood, that he had never in his life seen any thing treasonable in the conduct of the late duke of Orleans, or any thing that tended to the hurt of any individual,—but that he had always most loyally served you: and should he have said any thing to the contrary when under torture, it must have been his sufferings that forced him to utter what he thought would please his tormentors. What he now said was the real truth, and he uttered it on the peril of damnation; and this he persevered in to the moment of his execution, in the hearing of many knights and other respectable persons.

‘This plainly demonstrates, that the duke of Burgundy’s conduct was precisely the reverse to what he had sworn to observe when at Chartres.

‘He has received into his hôtel and supported, and continues daily so to do, the murderers who slew your brother, although they were especially excepted out of the treaty concluded at Chartres. He likewise, as is notorious, troubles the officers and servants of our late lord and father, who now appertain to us, and dismisses them from all the employments which they held under your government, without any other cause whatever but his hatred to us and to our house, and to those servants who are attached to us. He even attempted not only to ruin them in their fortunes, but to take away their lives by means too tedious to relate; but the facts are notorious.

‘The traitor, therefore, sensible of the horror of his criminal cruelty, and that he could not by any means palliate it, has usurped the government of your kingdom (for the sole cause of his murdering your brother was his unbounded ambition),—and, by so doing, effectually prevents your officers of justice from taking cognizance of his crimes, and likewise creates infinite grief to all your loyal subjects and wellwishers.

‘He detains your royal person, as well as that of my lord the duke of Acquitaine, in such subjection that no one, however high his rank, can have access to you, whatever may be his business, without first having obtained permission from those whom he has placed around you, and has thus driven from you and your family several faithful and valiant servants long attached to you, and filled their places with his own creatures, and in great part with foreigners and persons unknown to you. In like manner, he has acted toward my lord of Acquitaine.

‘He has also displaced your officers,—in particular, such as held the principal posts in your realm; and as for your finances, he has lavished them here and there according to his will and pleasure, but greatly to his own advantage, and not at all for the good of yourself, or for the relief of your people, which has caused much discontent against you. The underlings in office he has sorely vexed, under feigned pretences of justice, and has robbed them of their fortunes, which he has applied to his own proper use, as is well known throughout Paris and elsewhere.

‘In short, he has introduced such a licentiousness of manners into the kingdom that all sorts of crimes are committed, without inquiry or punishment following them; and thus, from default or neglect of justice being done on this enormous and detestable murderer, many other murders have been committed with impunity in different parts of the realm, since the melancholy death of our much-regretted lord and father, murderers and other criminals saying, ‘Our crimes will be passed over, since no notice has been taken of him who slew the king’s brother.’

‘On this account, most redoubted lord, my lord of Berry your uncle, the duke of Bourbon, the count d’Alençon, the counts de Clermont and d’Armagnac, and I Charles of Orleans, wishing to testify our loyalty to you, as we are bound by parentage, and being your very humble subjects, had intended coming to you last year to lay before you the damnable government of your kingdom, and to remonstrate, that should it continue longer, it must end in the destruction of yourself, your family, and your realm.

‘In order, therefore, that you may hear us as well as such as may maintain the contrary, let there be chosen a sufficient number of discreet men to examine into the grievances we complain of; and let a remedy be applied to them, providing first for the security of your royal person, and for that of my lord of Acquitaine. This was more fully explained in the proclamations issued previously to our coming to Paris, when, for our personal safety, we were accompanied by our friends and vassals, all of them your subjects; and our only object in thus coming was the welfare of yourself and your kingdom.