Their trial before parliament was prosecuted eagerly, especially in the case of the absent De Clisson, whom a royal decree banished from the kingdom “as a false and wicked traitor to the crown, and condemned him to ‘pay a hundred thousand marks of silver, and to forfeit forever the office of constable.’” It is impossible in the present day to estimate how much legal justice there was in this decree; but, in any case, it was certainly extreme severity to so noble and valiant a warrior who had done so much for the safety and honor of France. The Dukes of Burgundy and Berry and many barons of the realm signed the decree; but the king’s brother, the Duke of Orleans, refused to have any part in it. Against the other councillors of the king the prosecution was continued, with fits and starts of determination, but in general with slowness and uncertainty. Under the influence of the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry, the parliament showed an inclination towards severity; but Bureau de la Riviere had warm friends, and amongst others, the young and beautiful Duchess of Berry, to whose marriage he had greatly contributed, and John Juvenal des Ursins, provost of the tradesmen of Paris, one of the men towards whom the king and the populace felt the highest esteem and confidence. The king, favorably inclined towards the accused by his own bias and the influence of the Duke of Orleans, presented a demand to parliament to have the papers of the procedure brought to him. Parliament hesitated and postponed a reply; the procedure followed its course; and at the end of some months further the king ordered it to be stopped, and Sires de la Riviere and Neviant to be set at liberty and to have their real property restored to them, at the same time that they lost their personal property and were commanded to remain forever at fifteen leagues’ distance, at least, from the court. This was moral equity, if not legal justice. The accused had been able and faithful servants of their king and country. Their imprisonment had lasted more than a year. The Dukes of Burgundy and Berry remained in possession of power.
They exercised it for ten years, from 1392 to 1402, without any great dispute between themselves—the Duke of Burgundy’s influence being predominant—or with the king, who, save certain lucid intervals, took merely a nominal part in the government. During this period no event of importance disturbed France internally. In 1393 the King of England, Richard II., son of the Black Prince, sought in marriage the daughter of Charles VI., Isabel of France, only eight years old. In both courts and in both countries there was a desire for peace. An embassy came in state to demand the hand of the princess. The ambassadors were presented, and the Earl of Northampton, marshal of England, putting one knee to the ground before her, said, “Madame, please God you shall be our sovereign lady and Queen of England.” The young girl, well tutored, answered, “If it please God and my lord and father that I should be Queen of England, I would be willingly, for I have certainly been told that I should then be a great lady.” The contract was signed on the 9th of March, 1396, with a promise that, when the princess had accomplished her twelfth year, she should be free to assent to or refuse the union; and ten days after the marriage, the king’s uncles and the English ambassadors mutually signed a truce, which promised—but quite in vain—to last for eight and twenty years.
About the same time Sigismund, King of Hungary, threatened with an invasion of his kingdom by the great Turkish Sultan Bajazet I., nicknamed Lightning (El Derfr), because of his rapid conquests, invoked the aid of the Christian kings of the West, and especially of the King of France. Thereupon there was a fresh outbreak of those crusades so often renewed since the end of the thirteenth century. All the knighthood of France arose for the defence of a Christian king. John, Count of Nevers, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy, scarcely eighteen years of age, said to his comrades, “If it pleased my two lords, my lord the king and my lord and father, I would willingly head this army and this venture, for I have a desire to make myself known.” The Duke of Burgundy consented, and, in person, conducted his son to St. Denis, but without intending to make him a knight as yet. “He shall receive the accolade,” said he, “as a knight of Jesus Christ, at the first battle against the infidels.” In April, 1396, an army of new crusaders left France and traversed Germany uproariously, everywhere displaying its valiant ardor, presumptuous recklessness, and chivalrous irregularity. Some months elapsed without any news; but, at the beginning of December, there were seen arriving in France some poor creatures, half naked, dying of hunger, cold, and weariness, and giving deplorable accounts of the destruction of the French army. The people would not believe them: “They ought to be thrown into the water,” they said, “these scoundrels who propagate such lies.” But, on the 23th of December, there arrived at Paris James de Helly, a knight of Artois, who, booted and spurred, strode into the hostel of St. Paul, threw himself on his knees before the king in the midst of the princes, and reported that he had come straight from Turkey; that on the 28th of the preceding September the Christian army had been destroyed at the battle of Nicopolis; that most of the lords had been either slain in battle or afterwards massacred by the sultan’s order; and that the Count of Nevers had sent him to the king and to his father the duke, to get negotiations entered into for his release. There was no exaggeration about the knight’s story. The battle had been terrible, the slaughter awful. For the latter, the French, who were for a moment victorious, had set a cruel example with their prisoners; and Bajazet had surpassed them in cool ferocity. After the first explosion of the father’s and the people’s grief, the ransom of the prisoners became the topic. It was a large sum, and rather difficult to raise; and, whilst it was being sought for, James de Helly returned to report as much to Bajazet, and to place himself once more in his power. “Thou art welcome,” said the sultan; “thou hast loyally kept thy word; I give thee thy liberty; thou canst go whither thou wiliest.”
Terms of ransom were concluded; and the sum total was paid through the hands of Bartholomew Pellegrini, a Genoese trader. Before the Count of Nevers and his comrades set out, Bajazet sent for them. “John,” said he to the count through an interpreter, “I know that thou art a great lord in thy country, and the son of a great lord. Thou art young. It may be that thou art abashed and grieved at what hath befallen thee in thy first essay of knighthood, and that, to retrieve thine honor, thou wilt collect a powerful army against me. I might, ere I release thee, bind thee by oath not to take arms against me, neither thyself nor thy people. But no; I will not exact this oath either from them or from thee. When thou hast returned yonder, take up arms if it please thee, and come and attack me. Thou wilt find me ever ready to receive thee in the open field, thee and thy men-at-arms. And what I say to thee, I say for the sake of all the Christians thou mayest purpose to bring. I fear them not; I was born to fight them, and to conquer the world.” Everywhere and at all times human pride, with its blind arrogance, is the same. Bajazet saw no glimpse of that future when his empire would be decaying, and held together only by the interested protection of Christian powers. After paying dearly for their errors and their disasters, Count John of Nevers and his comrades in captivity re-entered France in February, 1398, and their expedition to Hungary was but one of the last vain ventures of chivalry in the great struggle that commenced in the seventh century between Islamry and Christendom.
While this tragic incident was taking place in Eastern Europe, the court of the mad king was falling a victim to rivalries, intrigues, and scandals which, towards the close of this reign, were to be the curse and the shame of France. There had grown up between Queen Isabel of Bavaria and Louis, Duke of Orleans, brother of the king, an intimacy which, throughout the city and amongst all honorable people, shocked even the least strait-laced. It was undoubtedly through the queen’s influence that Charles VI., in 1402, suddenly decided upon putting into the hands of the Duke of Orleans the entire government of the realm and the right of representing him in everything during the attacks of his malady. The Duke of Burgundy wrote at once about it to the parliament of Paris, saying, “Take counsel and pains that the interests of the king and his dominion be not governed as they now are, for, in good truth, it is a pity and a grief to hear what is told me about it.” The accusation was not grounded solely upon the personal ill-temper of the Duke of Burgundy. His nephew, the Duke of Orleans, was elegant, affable, volatile, good-natured; he had for his partisans at court all those who shared his worse than frivolous tastes and habits; and his political judgment was no better than his habits. No sooner was he invested with power than he abused it strangely; he levied upon the clergy as well as the people an enormous talliage, and the use he made of the money increased still further the wrath of the public. An Augustine monk, named James Legrand, already celebrated for his writings, had the hardihood to preach even before the court against abuses of power and licentiousness of morals. The king rose up from his own place, and went and sat down right opposite the preacher. “Yes, sir,” continued the monk, “the king your father, during his reign, did likewise lay taxes upon the people, but with the produce of them he built fortresses for the defence of the kingdom, he hurled back the enemy and took possession of their towns, and he effected a saving of treasure which made him the most powerful amongst the kings of the West. But now, there is nothing of this kind done; the height of nobility in the present day is to frequent bagnios, to live in debauchery, to wear rich dresses with pretty fringes and big cuffs. This, O queen,” he added, “is what is said to the shame of the court; and, if you will not believe me, put on the dress of some poor woman and walk about the city, and you will hear it talked of by plenty of people.” In spite of his malady and his affection for his brother, Charles VI., either from pure feebleness or because he was struck by those truths so boldly proclaimed, yielded to the counsels of certain wise men who represented to him “that it was neither a reasonable nor an honorable thing to intrust the government of the realm to a prince whose youth needed rather to be governed than to govern.” He withdrew the direction of affairs from the Duke of Orleans and restored it to the Duke of Burgundy, who took it again and held it with a strong grasp, and did not suffer his nephew Louis to meddle in anything. But from that time forward open distrust and hatred were established between the two princes and their families. In the very midst of this court-crisis Duke Philip the Bold fell ill and died within a few days, on the 27th of April, 1404. He was a prince valiant and able, ambitious, imperious, eager in the pursuit of his own personal interests, careful in humoring those whom he aspired to rule, and disposed to do them good service in whatever was not opposed to his own ends. He deserved and possessed the confidence and affection not only of his father, King John, but also of his brother, Charles V., a good judge of wisdom and fidelity. He founded that great house of Burgundy which was for more than a century to eclipse and often to deplorably compromise France; but Philip the Bold loved France sincerely, and always gave her the chief place in his policy. His private life was regular and staid, amidst the scandalous licentiousness of his court. He was of those who leave behind them unfeigned regret and an honored memory, without having inspired their contemporaries with any lively sympathy.
John the Fearless, Count of Nevers, his son and successor in the dukedom of Burgundy, was not slow to prove that there was reason to regret his father. His expedition to Hungary, for all its bad leadership and bad fortune, had created esteem for his courage and for his firmness under reverses, but little confidence in his direction of public affairs. He was a man of violence, unscrupulous and indiscreet, full of jealousy and hatred, and capable of any deed and any risk for the gratification of his passions or his fancies. At his accession he made some popular moves; he appeared disposed to prosecute vigorously the war against England, which was going on sluggishly; he testified a certain spirit of conciliation by going to pay a visit to his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, lying ill at his castle of Beaute, near Vincennes; when the Duke of Orleans was well again, the two princes took the communion together, and dined together at their uncle’s, the Duke of Berry’s; and the Duke of Orleans invited the new Duke of Burgundy to dine with him the next Sunday. The Parisians took pleasure in observing these little matters, and in hoping for the re-establishment of harmony in the royal family. They were soon to be cruelly undeceived.
On the 23d of November, 1407, the Duke of Orleans had dined at Queen Isabel’s. He was returning about eight in the evening along Vieille Rue du Temple, singing and playing with his glove, and attended by only two squires riding one horse, and by four or five varlets on foot, carrying torches. It was a gloomy night; not a soul in the streets. When the duke was about a hundred paces from the queen’s hostel, eighteen or twenty armed men, who had lain in ambush behind a house called Image de Notre-Dame, dashed suddenly out; the squires’ horse took fright and ran away with them; and the assassins rushed upon the duke, shouting, “Death! death!” “What is all this?” said he; “I am the Duke of Orleans.” “Just what we want,” was the answer; and they hurled him down from his mule. He struggled to his knees; but the fellows struck at him heavily with axe and sword. A young man in his train made an effort to defend him, and was immediately cut down; and another, grievously wounded, had but just time to escape into a neighboring shop. A poor cobbler’s wife opened her window, and, seeing the work of assassination, shrieked, “Murder! murder!” “Hold your tongue, you strumpet!” cried some one from the street. Others shot arrows at the windows where lookers-on might be. A tall man, wearing a red cap which came down over his eyes, said in a loud voice, “Out with all lights, and away!” The assassins fled at the top of their speed, shouting, “Fire! fire!” throwing behind them foot-trippers, and by menaces causing all the lights to be put out which were being lighted here and there in the shops.
The duke was quite dead. One of his squires, returning to the spot, found his body stretched on the road, and mutilated all over. He was carried to the neighboring church of Blancs-Manteaux, whither all the royal family came to render the last sad offices. The Duke of Burgundy appeared no less afflicted than the rest. “Never,” said he, “was a more wicked and traitorous murder committed in this realm.” The provost of Paris, Sire de Tignouville, set on foot an active search after the perpetrators. He was summoned before the council of princes, and the Duke of Berry asked him if he had discovered anything. “I believe,” said the provost, “that if I had leave to enter all the hostels of the king’s servants, and even of the princes, I could get on the track of the authors or accomplices of the crime.” He was authorized to enter wherever it seemed good to him. He went away to set himself to work. The Duke of Burgundy, looking troubled and growing pale, “Cousin,” said the King of Naples, Louis d’Anjou, who was present at the council, “can you know aught about it? You must tell us.” The Duke of Burgundy took him, together with his uncle, the Duke of Berry, aside, and told them that it was he himself who, tempted of the devil, had given orders for this murder. “O God!” cried the Duke of Berry, “then I lose both my nephews!” The Duke of Burgundy went out in great confusion, and the council separated. Research brought about the discovery that the crime had been for a long while in preparation, and that a Norman nobleman, Raoul d’Auquetonville, late receiver-general of finance, having been deprived of his post by the Duke of Orleans for malversation, had been the instrument. The council of princes met the next day at the Hotel de Nesle. The Duke of Burgundy, who had recovered all his audacity, came to take his seat there. Word was sent to him not to enter the room. Duke John persisted; but the Duke of Berry went to the door and said to him, “Nephew, give up the notion of entering the council; you would not be seen there with pleasure.” “I give up willingly,” answered Duke John; “and that none may be accused of putting to death the Duke of Orleans, I declare that it was I, and none other, who caused the doing of what has been done.” Thereupon he turned his horse’s head, returned forthwith to the Hotel d’Artois, and, taking only six men with him, he galloped without a halt, except to change horses, to the frontier of Flanders. The Duke of Bourbon complained bitterly at the council that an immediate arrest had not been ordered. The Admiral de Brabant, and a hundred of the Duke of Orleans’ knights, set out in pursuit, but were unable to come up in time. Neither Raoul d’Anquetonville nor any other of the assassins was caught. The magistrates, as well as the public, were seized with stupor in view of so great a crime and so great a criminal.