Pictures of the old French court

by Mrs. Bearne

She also had some fools and dwarfs. One called Grand Jehan le fol died some time before, and there is a bill for 12 lbs. of wax for his funeral at St. Germain d’Auxerrois. These fools were both male and female; she had one fool, her mother, and grandmother, besides a Saracen woman some one had given her, of whom she afterwards made a sister (sœur converse) in a convent.

In August the young Queen of England came home. Henry IV. had behaved very badly to her and to her family, for it was not until after long and tedious negotiations that he would send her at all, and when he did he kept nearly all her jewels and the whole of her dowry. He went to take leave of and console her and sent her to Calais with a brilliant escort of nobles and ladies. Her father was just then in his right senses, and delighted at her coming. He sent his uncle the Duke of Burgundy to fetch her. The Duke met her halfway between Calais and Boulogne, where a magnificent tent was pitched in which she took wine and refreshments with her English ladies, who sobbed and cried as she embraced them all, gave them presents, and took leave of them. She then joined the Duke of Burgundy, who waited for her with an escort of six hundred cavalry, and journeyed by Boulogne, Abbeville, then to Picardy, and by St. Denis to Paris, where she was restored to her parents, brothers, and sisters at the hôtel St. Paul. Charles and Isabeau received her with joy and affection. The Queen took charge of her and re-arranged her household, which she diminished in numbers but placed ladies of higher rank about her.[198]

The Duc d’Orléans had raised a troop of fifteen hundred men to go to the assistance of the Emperor Wenceslas, who had been dethroned by his subjects; but although he was joined in Luxembourg by the Duc de Gueldre, who was rash, hot-headed, and a great friend of his, the expedition came to nothing, and they returned to Paris together, with the Duc d’Orléans’s troop and five hundred men of the Duc de Gueldre. They were soon joined by the Bretons who were friends of Clisson, by some Scottish and Welsh companies in the French service, and by a number of Normans and all the vassals of Orléans, ready to fight in his quarrel against the party of Burgundy.

For the rivalry and hatred between the uncle and nephew and their families had arrived at such a pitch that they seemed to be on the verge of a civil war. Besides the question of the regency between Philippe and Louis, and the mortal hatred between the Duchesses of Orléans and Burgundy, it was whispered that a new cause of offence had arisen. Louis d’Orléans had a private room—cabinet, study, or drawing-room—the walls of which he had hung with the portraits of women who he declared had been his mistresses. This room he generally kept closed, but one day by chance, Jean, Comte de Nevers, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy, went into it and found his wife’s portrait among the others. That this was nothing but an infamous boast on the part of Louis, and that no blame whatever was attached to the Comtesse de Nevers seems certain, that is to say, if the story be true at all. At any rate it was reported and believed at court and related by French historians, and has been given as a reason for the tragic climax to the feud between Burgundy and Orléans. For Jean Sans-peur, as the Comte de Nevers was nick-named, swore vengeance against his cousin for this insult; and the Dukes of Orléans and Burgundy, each with his followers and vassals, fortified themselves in their dwellings—Louis in his hôtel near the porte St. Antoine, and the Burgundians in their hôtel d’Artois[199]—while the citizens trembled at the thought of these fierce and violent men in the midst of them longing to be at each other’s throats and making no secret of their delight at the prospect of sacking Paris. Seven or eight thousand men on each side were waiting the signal to draw their swords; the King was just then mad, and the Queen and Duc de Berry vainly tried to mediate between them. So matters went on all through December, but at the beginning of January, 1402, the Duc de Berry, who was then living at the hôtel de Nesle, managed to get his brother and nephew to meet there. It was no easy matter, as although they sat at the council together they refused to speak to or salute one another, and each vehemently opposed whatever the other proposed. However, he persuaded them at last to embrace, and ride together through the streets to proclaim their reconciliation to the people, and dismiss their soldiers, to the great relief of the court and Parisians, and at the same time the King returned to his senses, so there was a general thanksgiving at St. Denis, and for a time every one breathed more freely.[200]

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In February Isabeau had another boy, and for the third time the King and Queen chose the name of Charles for their son, who was made Comte de Ponthieu and was afterwards Charles VII.

In May the Queen gave a great fête at the hôtel Barbette to the Duc de Gueldre, at which Louis, Valentine, and several other seigneurs were present.[201]

One would almost suppose that serious thunderstorms in those days must have been more frequent than at present in the north of Europe, for three of truly southern violence took place in May and June of this year. The first, accompanied by a furious wind and a shower of hailstones as big as a goose’s egg, destroyed the vines and other crops for sixteen leagues; in the second the lightning struck the hôtel St. Paul, penetrated into the Queen’s room, where that night she was not sleeping,[202] and consumed the magnificent curtains of her bed. As a thank-offering for her escape she sent offerings to several churches, and to the monks of St. Denis a sum to say three masses a year for the soul of the late Dauphin. The third storm, on the last day of June, did more harm than either of the others; it tore up trees, unroofed houses, and destroyed a great part of the halle du Lendit, near St. Denis, but left the part untouched where the judges of the royal contributions resided. The people, who were vexed and harassed by them, remarked that the devil had spared his own abode. The great cross on the priory de l’Estrée was struck down.

The King went on much the same, being tolerably well for a few weeks, and then ill for several weeks more. The Duc d’Orléans had persuaded him to appoint him regent, and to give him absolute power over all the Langue d’Oïl, or northern part of France. Some time after he had an attack of madness, and Orléans, directly he had the government in his hands, levied enormous taxes, forced loans from everybody, seized provisions both of lay and ecclesiastics, and published a decree for another heavy and universal tax throughout the kingdom, to which he attached the signatures of his uncles of Burgundy and Berry, both of whom at once publicly denied them, saying that the secretary of their nephew was a forger. There was a general commotion; Louis was declared unfit to govern, and even the Queen and Duchesse d’Orléans saw that this sort of thing could not possibly go on. So directly the King was better a council was called, in which the Queen, the Duchesse d’Orléans, all the princes of the blood, the Constable, Chancellor, the chief minister, and some of the nobles took part. By them it was settled that in case of the King’s death the chief authority should be in the hands of the Queen until the majority of her son. Meanwhile the Queen was president of the Council. The direction of affairs was taken away from the Duc d’Orléans, and the Duke of Burgundy regained his power next time the King was ill.

It had been promised by the King and Queen that the late Dauphin should marry the eldest daughter of the Comte de Nevers, and she was now betrothed to the Dauphin Louis, commonly called Duc d’Aquitaine,[203] and it was further arranged that the Princess Michelle should be married to Philippe, eldest son of the Comte de Nevers, but that she should be left to be brought up by the Queen her mother. The marriage of the Dauphin and Marguérite of Burgundy was celebrated with great pomp at Paris in the cathedral of Notre Dame in August 1404. There had been some talk of marrying Jean, the second son of the King, to another daughter of the Comte de Nevers, but this idea was given up and he was betrothed to Jacqueline, only child of Guillaume, Comte de Hainault, and Marguérite de Bourgogne, a great heiress.