At that very hour, Jaquette, the wife of a poor cobbler, was in her room, high above the street, awaiting her husband's return. While taking in a garment that had been hanging out of the window to dry, she saw a nobleman pass by on horseback, and, a moment after, while putting her child to bed, she heard the shouts of "À mort! à mort!" She ran to the window with her child in her arms, and, throwing open the casement cried, "Au meurtre, au meurtre!" "Taisez-vous mauvaise femme!" cried one who noticed her, and arrows rattled upon the wall of the house. A moment later, all was over. A big man in a red chaperon drawn down over his eyes, who seemed to be the leader, shouted, "Put out all lights, and let us be off; he is dead!" Some sprang on to their horses which were in waiting at the gates of the Maison Notre Dame, and with a last blow or two at the lifeless body of the Duke, they made off, mounted and on foot, crying, "Au feu! au feu!" in response to the cries of "murder" raised by some of the Duke's men who had come upon the scene.
The assassins had set fire to the Maison Notre Dame. As they fled, they threw down behind them iron traps to prevent pursuit, and coerced terrified shopkeepers into extinguishing the lights in the shops along their route. The Duke's men found their master in a pitiable plight. The skull lay open in two places, the left hand was cut off, and the right arm was almost severed. Beside the dead Duke, the young German page, Jacob, lay gasping out his life.
"Ah! mon maître, ah! mon maître!" Il se complaignoit moult fort, come s'il vouloit mourir.[157]
When it was known that the murdered body of young Louis of Orléans was lying in the Hotel de Rieux, all Paris was in consternation. Death veiled his faults from the people. They could see only his virtues. A prince so gallant and debonair, to die so young! the pity of it! Women and men, noble and base-born, wept for him, so foully slain. Did not even his great rival of Burgundy echo their grief?[158]
"Never" was he heard to say, "was more wicked nor traitorous murder committed nor executed in his kingdom."
