But the Duke of Orleans left a widow who, in spite of his infidelities and his irregularities, was passionately attached to him. Valentine Visconti, the Duke of Milan’s daughter, whose dowry had gone to pay the ransom of King John, was at Chateau-Thierry when she heard of her husband’s murder. Hers was one of those natures, full of softness and at the same time of fire, which grief does not overwhelm, and in which a passion for vengeance is excited and fed by their despair. She started for Paris in the early part of December, 1407, during the roughest winter, it was said, ever known for several centuries, taking with her all her children. The Duke of Berry, the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Clermont, and the constable went to meet her. Herself and all her train in deep mourning, she dismounted at the hostel of St. Paul, threw herself on her knees before the king with the princes and council around him, and demanded of him justice for her husband’s cruel death. The chancellor promised justice in the name of the king, who added with his own lips, “We regard the deed relating to our own brother as done to ourself.” The compassion of all present was boundless, and so was their indignation; but it was reported that the Duke of Burgundy was getting ready to return to Paris, and with what following and for what purpose would he come? Nothing was known on that point. There was no force with which to make a defence. Nothing was done for the Duchess of Orleans; no prosecution began. As much vexed and irritated as disconsolate, she set out for Blois with her children, being resolved to fortify herself there. Charles had another relapse of his malady. The people of Paris, who were rather favorable than adverse to the Duke of Burgundy, laid the blame of the king’s new attack, and of the general alarm, upon the Duchess of Orleans, who was off in flight. John the Fearless actually re-entered Paris on the 20th of February, 1408, with a thousand men-at-arms, amidst popular acclamation, and cries of “Long live the Duke of Burgundy!” Having taken up a strong position at the Hotel d’Artois, he sent a demand to the king for a solemn audience, proclaiming his intention of setting forth the motives for which he had caused the Duke of Orleans to be slain. The 8th of March was the day fixed. Charles VI., being worse than ever that day, was not present; the dauphin, Louis, Duke of Guienne, a child of twelve years, surrounded by the princes, councillors, a great number of lords, doctors of the university, burgesses of note, and people of various conditions, took his father’s place at this assembly. The Duke of Burgundy had intrusted a Norman Cordelier, Master John Petit, with his justification. The monk spoke for more than five hours, reviewing sacred history, and the histories of Greece, Rome, and Persia, and the precedents of Phineas, Absalom the son of David, Queen Athaliah, and Julian the Apostate, to prove “that it is lawful, and not only lawful, but honorable and meritorious, in any subject to slay or cause to be slain a traitor and disloyal tyrant, especially when he is a man of such mighty power that justice cannot well be done by the sovereign.” This principle once laid down, John Petit proceeded to apply it to the Duke of Burgundy, “causing to be slain that criminal tyrant, the Duke of Orleans, who was meditating the damnable design of thrusting aside the king and his children from their crown;” and he drew from it the conclusion that “the Duke of Burgundy ought not to be at all blamed or censured for what had happened in the person of the Duke of Orleans, and that the king not only ought not to be displeased with him, but ought to hold the said lord of Burgundy, as well as his deed, agreeable to him, and authorized by necessity.” The defence thus concluded, letters were actually put before the king, running thus: “It is our will and pleasure that our cousin of Burgundy, his heirs and successors, be and abide at peace with us and our successors, in respect of the aforesaid deed, and all that hath followed thereon; and that by us, our said successors, our people and officers, no hinderance, on account of that, may be offered them, either now or in time to come.”
Charles VI., weak in mind and will, even independently of his attacks, signed these letters, and gave Duke John quite a kind reception, telling him, however, that “he could cancel the penalty, but not the resentment of everybody, and that it was for him to defend himself against perils which were probably imminent.” The duke answered proudly that “so long as he stood in the king’s good graces, he did not fear any man living.”
Three days after this strange audience and this declaration, Queen Isabel, but lately on terms of the closest intimacy with the Duke of Orleans, who had been murdered on his way home after dining with her, was filled with alarm, and set off suddenly for Melun, taking with her her son Louis, the dauphin, and accompanied by nearly all the princes, who, however, returned before long to Paris, being troubled by the displeasure the Duke of Burgundy testified at their departure. For more than four months, Duke John the Fearless remained absolute master of Paris, disposing of all posts, giving them to his own creatures, and putting himself on good terms with the university and the principal burgesses. A serious revolt amongst the Liigese called for his presence in Flanders. The first troops he had sent against them had been repulsed; and he felt the necessity of going thither in person. But two months after his departure from Paris, on the 26th of August, 1408, Queen Isabel returned thither from Melun, with the dauphin Louis, who for the first time rode on horseback, and with three thousand men-at-arms. She set up her establishment at the Louvre. The Parisians shouted “Noel,” as she passed along; and the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Bourbon, the Duke of Brittany, the constable, and all the great officers of the crown rallied round her. Two days afterwards, on the 28th of August, the Duchess of Orleans arrived there from Blois, in a black litter drawn by four horses caparisoned in black, and followed by a large number of mourning carriages. On the 5th of September, a state assembly was held at the Louvre. All the royal family, the princes and great officers of the crown, the presidents of the parliament, fifteen archbishops or bishops, the provost of Paris, the provost of tradesmen, and a hundred burgesses of note attended it. Thereupon Master Juvenal des Ursins, king’s advocate, announced the intention of Charles VI. in his illness to confer the government upon the queen, set forth the reasons for it, called to mind the able regency of Queen Blanche, mother of St. Louis, and produced royal letters, sealed with the great seal. Immediately the Duchess of Orleans came forward, knelt at the dauphin's feet, demanding justice for the death of her husband, and begged that she might have a day appointed her for refuting the calumnies with which it had been sought to blacken his memory. The dauphin promised a speedy reply. On the 11th of September, accordingly, a new meeting of princes, lords, prelates, parliament, the university, and burgesses was held in the great hall of the Louvre. The Duchess of Orleans, the Duke her son, their chancellor, and the principal officers of her household were introduced, and leave was given them to proceed with the justification of the late Duke of Orleans. It had been prepared beforehand; the duchess placed the manuscript before the council, as pledging herself unreservedly to all it contained, and Master Serisy, Abbot of St. Fiacre, a monk of the order of St. Benedict, read the document out publicly. It was a long and learned defence, in which the imputations made by the cordelier, John Petit, against the late Duke of Orleans, were effectually and in some parts eloquently refuted. After the justification, Master Cousinot, advocate of the Duchess of Orleans, presented in person his demands against the Duke of Burgundy. They claimed that he should be bound to come, “without belt or chaperon,” and disavow solemnly and publicly, on his knees before the royal family, and also on the very spot where the crime was committed, the murder of the Duke of Orleans. After several other acts of reparation which were imposed upon him, he was to be sent into exile for twenty years beyond the seas, and on his return to remain at twenty leagues’ distance, at least, from the king and the royal family. After reacting these demands, which were more legitimate than practicable, the young dauphin, well instructed as to what he had to say, addressed the Duchess of Orleans and her children in these terms: “We and all the princes of the blood royal here present, after having heard the justification of our uncle, the Duke of Orleans, have no doubt left touching the honor of his memory, and do hold him to be completely cleared of all that hath been said contrary to his reputation. As to the further demands you make, they shall be suitably provided for in course of justice.” At this answer the assembly broke up.
It had just been reported that the Duke of Burgundy had completely beaten and reduced to submission the insurgent Liegese, and that he was preparing to return to Paris with his army. Great was the consternation amongst the council of the queen and princes. They feared above everything to see the king and the dauphin in the Duke of Burgundy’s power; and it was decided to quit Paris, which had always testified a favorable disposition towards Duke John. Charles VI. was the first to depart, on the 3d of November, 1408. The queen, the dauphin, and the princes followed him two days afterwards, and at Gien they all took boat on the Loire to go to Tours. The Duke of Burgundy on his arrival at Paris, on the 28th of November, found not a soul belonging to the royal family or the court; and he felt a moment’s embarrassment. Even his audacity and lack of scruple did not go to the extent of doing without the king altogether, or even of dispensing with having him for a tool; and he had seen too much of the Parisian populace not to know how precarious and fickle was its favor. He determined to negotiate with the king’s party, and for that purpose he sent his brother-in-law the Count of Hainault, to Tours, with a brilliant train of unarmed attendants, bidden to make themselves agreeable, and not to fight.
A recent event had probably much to do with his decision. His most indomitable foe, she to whom the king and his councillors had lately granted a portion of the vengeance she was seeking to take on him, Valentine of Milan, Duchess of Orleans, died on the 4th of December, 1408, at Blois, far from satisfied with the moral reparation she had obtained in her enemy’s absence, and clearly foreseeing that against the Duke of Burgundy, flushed with victory and present in person, she would obtain nothing of what she had asked. For spirits of the best mettle, and especially for a woman’s heart, impotent passion is a heavy burden to bear; and Valentine Visconti, beautiful, amiable, and unhappy even in her best days through the fault of the husband she loved, sank under this trial. At the close of her life she had taken for device, “Nought have I more; more hold I nought” (Bien ne m ‘est plus; plus ne m ‘est rien); and so fully was that her habitual feeling that she had the words inscribed upon the black tapestry of her chamber. In her last hours she had by her side her three sons and her daughter, but there was another still whom she remembered. She sent for a child, six years of age, John, a natural son of her husband by Marietta d’Enghien, wife of Sire de Cany-Dunois. “This one,” said she, “was filched from me; yet there is not a child so well cut out as he to avenge his father’s death.” Twenty-five years later John was the famous Bastard of Orleans, Count Dunois, Charles VII.‘s lieutenant-general, and Joan of Arc’s comrade in the work of saving the French kingship and France.
The Duke of Burgundy’s negotiations at Tours were not fruitless. The result was, that on the 9th of March, 1409, a treaty was concluded and an interview effected at Chartres between the duke on one side and on the other the king, the queen, the dauphin, all the royal family, the councillors of the crown, the young Duke of Orleans, his brother, and a hundred knights of their house, all met together to hear the king declare that he pardoned the Duke of Burgundy. The duke prayed “my lord of Orleans and my lords his brothers to banish from their hearts all hatred and vengeance;” and the princes of Orleans “assented to what the king commanded them, and forgave their cousin the Duke of Burgundy everything entirely.” On the way back from Chartres the Duke of Burgundy’s fool kept playing with a church-paten (called “peace”), and thrusting it under his cloak, saying, “See, this is a cloak of peace;” and, “Many folks,” says Juvenal des Ursins, “considered this fool pretty wise.” The Duke of Burgundy had good reason, however, for seeking this outward reconciliation; it put an end to a position too extended not to become pretty soon untenable; the peace was a cause of great joy at Paris; the king was not long coming back; and two hundred thousand persons, says the chronicle, went out to meet him, shouting, “Noel!” The Duke of Burgundy had gone out to receive him; and the queen and the princes arrived two days after-wards. It was not known at the time, though it was perhaps the most serious result of the negotiation, that a secret understanding had been established between John the Fearless and Isabel of Bavaria. The queen, as false as she was dissolute, had seen that the duke might be of service to her on occasion if she served him in her turn, and they had added the falsehood of their undivulged arrangement to that of the general reconciliation.
But falsehood does not extinguish the facts it attempts to disguise. The hostility between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy could not fail to survive the treaty of Chartres, and cause search to be made for a man to head the struggle so soon as it could be recommenced. The hour and the man were not long waited for. In the very year of the treaty, Charles of Orleans, eldest son of the murdered duke and Valentine of Milan, lost his wife, Isabel of France, daughter of Charles VI.; and as early as the following year (1410) the princes, his uncles, made him marry Bonne d’Armagnac, daughter of Count Bernard d’Armagnac, one of the most powerful, the most able, and the most ambitious lords of Southern France. Forthwith, in concert with the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Brittany, and several other lords, Count Bernard put himself at the head of the Orleans party, and prepared to proceed against the Duke of Burgundy in the cause of dominion combined with vengeance. From 1410 to 1415 France was a prey to civil war between the Armagnacs and Burgundians, and to their alternate successes and reverses brought about by the unscrupulous employment of the most odious and desperate means. The Burgundians had generally the advantage in the struggle, for Paris was chiefly the centre of it, and their influence was predominant there. Their principal allies there were the butchers, the boldest and most ambitious corporation in the city. For a long time the butcher-trade of Paris had been in the hands of a score of families the number had been repeatedly reduced, and at the opening of the fifteenth century, three families, the Legoix, the St. Yons, and the Thiberts, had exercised absolute mastery in the market district, which in turn exercised mastery over nearly the whole city. “One Caboche, a flayer of beasts in the shambles of Hotel-Dieu, and Master John de Troyes, a surgeon with a talent for speaking, were their most active associates. Their company consisted of ‘prentice-butchers, medical students, skinners, tailors, and every kind of lewd fellows. When anybody caused their displeasure they said, ‘Here’s an Armagnac,’ and despatched him on the spot, and plundered his house, or dragged him off to prison to pay dear for his release. The rich burgesses lived in fear and peril. More than three hundred of them went off to Melun with the provost of tradesmen, who could no longer answer for the tranquillity of the city.” The Armagnacs, in spite of their general inferiority, sometimes got the upper hand, and did not then behave with much more discretion than the others. They committed the mistake of asking aid from the King of England, “promising him the immediate surrender of all the cities, castles, and bailiwicks they still possessed in Guienne and Poitou.” Their correspondence fell into the hands of the Burgundians, and the Duke of Burgundy showed the king himself a letter stating that “the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bourbon had lately conspired together at Bourges for the destruction of the king, the kingdom, and the good city of Paris.” “Ah!” cried the poor king with tears, “we quite see their wickedness, and we do conjure you, who are of our own blood, to aid and advise us against them.” The duke and his partisans, kneeling on one knee, promised the king all the assistance possible with their persons and their property. The civil war was passionately carried on. The Burgundians went and besieged Bourges. The siege continued a long while without success. Some of the besiegers grew weary of it. Negotiations were opened with the besieged. An interview took place before the walls between the Duke of Berry and the Duke of Burgundy. “Nephew,” said the former, “I have acted ill, and you still worse. It is for us to try and maintain the kingdom in peace and prosperity.” “I will be no obstacle, uncle,” answered Duke John. Peace was made. It was stipulated that the Duke of Berry and the Armagnac lords should give up all alliance with the English, and all confederacy against the Duke of Burgundy, who, on his side, should give up any that he might have formed against them. An engagement was entered into mutually to render aid, service, and obedience to the king against his foe of England, as they were bound by right and reason to do; and lastly a promise was made to observe the articles of the peace of Chartres, and to swear them over again. There was a special prohibition against using, for the future, the words Armagnacs and Burgundians, or any other term reflecting upon either party. The pacification was solemnly celebrated at Auxerre, on the 22d of August, 1412; and on the 29th of September following, the dauphin once more entered Paris, with the Duke of Burgundy at his side. The king, queen, and Duke of Berry arrived a few days afterwards. The people gave a hearty reception to them, even to the Armagnacs, well known as such, in their train; but the butchers and the men of their faction murmured loudly, and treated the peace as treason. Outside, it was little more than nominal; the Count of Armagnac remained under arms and the Duke of Orleans held aloof from Paris. A violent ferment again began there. The butchers continued to hold the mastery. The Duke of Burgundy, all the while finding them very much in the way, did not cease to pay court to them, Many of his knights were highly displeased at seeing themselves mixed up with such fellows. The honest burgesses began to be less frightened at the threats and more angry at the excesses of the butchers. The advocate-general, Juvenal des Ursins, had several times called without being received at the Hotel d’Artois, but one night the Duke of Burgundy sent for him, and asked him what he thought of the position. “My lord,” said the magistrate, “do not persist in always maintaining that you did well to have the Duke of Orleans slain; enough mischief has come of it to make you agree that you were wrong. It is not to your honor to let yourself be guided by flayers of beasts and a lot of lewd fellows. I can guarantee that a hundred burgesses of Paris, of the highest character, would undertake to attend you everywhere, and do whatever you should bid them, and even lend you money if you wanted it.” The duke listened patiently, but answered that he had done no wrong in the case of the Duke of Orleans, and would never confess that he had. “As to the fellows of whom you speak,” said he, “I know my own business.” Juvenal returned home without much belief in the duke’s firmness. He himself, full of courage as he was, durst not yet declare himself openly. The thought of all this occupied his mind incessantly, sleeping and waking. One night, when he had fallen asleep towards morning, it seemed to him that a voice kept saying, Surgite cum sederitis, qui manducatis panem doloris (Rise up from your sitting, ye who eat the bread of sorrow). When he awoke, his wife, a good and pious woman, said to him, “My dear, this morning I heard some one saying to you, or you pronouncing in a dream, some words that I have often read in my Hours;” and she repeated them to him. “My dear,” answered Juvenal, “we have eleven children, and consequently great cause to pray God to grant us peace; let us hope in Him, and He will help us.” He often saw the Duke of Berry. “Well, Juvenal,” the old prince would say to him, “shall this last forever? Shall we be forever under the sway of these lewd fellows?” “My lord,” Juvenal would answer, “hope we in God; yet a little while and we shall see them confounded and destroyed.”
Nor was Juvenal mistaken. The opposition to the yoke of the Burgundians was daily becoming more and more earnest and general. The butchers attempted to stein the current; but the carpenters took sides against them, saying, “We will see which are the stronger in Paris, the hewers of wood or the fellers of oxen.” The parliament, the exchequer-chamber, and the Hotel-de-Ville demanded peace; and the shouts of Peace! peace! resounded in the streets. A great crowd of people assembled on the Greve; and thither the butchers came with their company of about twelve hundred persons, it is said. They began to speak against peace, but could not get a hearing. “Let those who are for it go to the right,” shouted a voice, “and those who are against it to the left!” But the adversaries of peace durst not risk this test. The Duke of Burgundy could not help seeing that he was declining rapidly; he was no longer summoned to the king’s council; a watch was kept upon his house; and he determined to go away. On the 23d of August, 1413, without a word said, even to his household, he went away to the wood of Vincennes, prevailing on the king to go hawking with him. There was a suspicion that the duke meant to carry off the king. Juvenal des Ursins, with a company of armed burgesses, hurried off to Vincennes, and going straight to the king, said, “Sir, come away to Paris; it is too hot to be out.” The king turned to go back to the city. The Duke of Burgundy was angry, saying that the king was going a-hawking. “You would take him too far,” rejoined Juvenal; “your people are in travelling dress, and you have your trumpeters with you.”