It was difficult enough to persuade the Dauphin to agree to terms, but the Queen sent the Dame de Giac, an old lady the Dauphin had been very fond of from his childhood, and who was said to have been at one time the mistress of the Duke of Burgundy, to Pouilly where the conference was going on. She went from one tent to the other and managed so to arrange matters as to bring about a reconciliation. The Dauphin, who, though he had no sense, had very pleasant manners, showed great courtesy to the Duke and when they separated frantic rejoicings took place at Paris, bells ringing, feasting in the streets, singing and dancing going on all night long.[270]
{1419}
But, as at the marriage festivities of Richard II. and Isabelle, a great storm came on during the conference, “and,” says the monk of St. Denis, “the heavens were black with clouds, there was thunder and lightning and torrents of rain and huge hailstones which destroyed the vines and crops. Some said this storm arose from natural causes, but it was most generally believed that the evil spirits could sometimes produce these disorders and that perhaps the interviews of the princes were disagreeable to them. Therefore people did not believe in the stability or durability of the treaty concluded. It was also the opinion of several of the learned astrologers. For my part I leave their judgment to Him who reigns in the heavens.”[271]
The truce with England expired and the war broke out again. The English troops took many towns and castles, the Duke of Burgundy retired with the King and Queen to Troyes, and no adequate measures were taken against the enemy. The Dauphin returned from Touraine in September, and sent Tanneguy du Chastel to Troyes to ask for another conference with the Duke of Burgundy, who at first refused, saying that there was peace between them and the Dauphin had much better come to Troyes to his father and mother. However, he allowed himself to be persuaded and consented to meet the Dauphin at Montereau, in spite of the entreaties and warnings of his own friends and followers who dreaded the vengeance of the Armagnacs for all his deeds, from the murder of Louis d’Orléans to the late massacres of their friends and relations in Paris, besides their fear of his gaining over the Dauphin the influence he already possessed over the King and Queen.
The interview was to take place on the bridge of Montereau, to which the Duke of Burgundy rode on the 10th of September, about three in the afternoon. As he dismounted to go on to the bridge, three of his servants who had been upon it examining the barrier across it, which they did not like the look of, came up to him and again begged him not to risk himself on it, but it was no use. At the barrier in the middle of the bridge he met the Dauphin, the one through which he himself passed having been locked behind him. After a few words of conversation, the Dauphin, as the Duke knelt before him, began to reproach him with having done nothing to oppose the English. At that moment one of the Armagnacs pushed him from behind, Burgundy laid his hand on his sword which had got behind him to pull it forward. Robert de Loir, who had pushed him, exclaimed, “Mettez-vous la main à vostre épée en la présence de Monseigneur le Dauphin?” Tanneguy du Chastel approached, made a sign, and saying “Il est temps” struck the Duke with an axe. He tried to draw his sword but it was too late, there was a cry of “Tuez! tuez!” a fierce scuffle; then Jean Sans-peur lay dead at the feet of the Dauphin, and Louis d’Orléans was avenged.
{1420}
The rage, consternation, and mischief caused by this event throughout the country, just as every one thought there was going to be a little peace, cannot be described. The Queen and her son-in-law Philippe, Comte de Charolais, now Duke of Burgundy, prepared to take their revenge. Philippe, overwhelmed with grief, would scarcely see or speak to any one for days. To his wife he said, “Michelle, your brother has murdered my father”; and then finding that she was fretting and making herself miserable fearing to lose his affection he comforted and reassured her. The Queen and Duke of Burgundy sent proclamations to all the chief towns in France denouncing the Dauphin for the murder of Jean Sans-peur; and made a treaty with the King of England at Troyes, by which they agreed that he should marry the Princess Catherine and not only act as regent of France during the King’s illnesses but succeed to the crown to the exclusion of the Dauphin.
Isabeau, who was then at Troyes, sent the Bishop of Arras secretly to Henry to invite him to come there, and to take him a love-letter from the Princess Catherine, with which he was delighted.[272] The young princess was deeply in love with Henry V. and very anxious to be Queen of England, and had all along persuaded her mother, whose great favourite she was, to help her in the matter and forward the alliance. Isabeau was glad enough to do so for she loved her daughter and hated her son, and this marriage fell in with her views regarding them both. The wedding was celebrated at Troyes, June 3, 1420, with extraordinary magnificence. The Kings and Queens of France and England and the young Duke of Burgundy entered Paris, and spent Christmas there; after which Henry and Catherine went on a visit to England. The young Queen seems to have felt bitterly the separation from her parents and country; an ancient chronicle says of her: “Item, ce jour party la fille de France nommée Catherine que le roy d’Engleterre avoit espousée et fut menée en Engleterre, et fut une piteuse départie, especialement du roy de France et de sa fille.”[273]
{1422}
Just before Christmas, 1421, came the news of the birth of a son to the King and Queen of England. In Paris as in London bells rang and bonfires blazed in the streets; for the child, afterwards the unfortunate Henry VI., was born the heir of both England and France. The winter was an unusually cold one, the frost being so severe that no corn could be ground except in windmills, all the watermills being frozen up.