These closing years of the reign of the mad king,[164] from 1418 and on to 1425, were the darkest in all the history of France. War, famine, pestilence, three grim spectres, stalked over the land. Every evening a starving crowd surged round the bake-houses of Paris. In all the town were heard the piteous lamentations of little children crying: "Je meurs de faim!" Upon a dung-heap, thirty boys and girls died of hunger and cold. The dog-knacker was followed by the poor, who, as he slew, devoured all, "chair et trippes."[165] Nor were things better without the town. The fields, deserted by their normal labourers, were re-peopled with wolves, that, scouring the country in great packs, grew fat upon the corpses they scratched up. The people lived only in the woods and the fortresses; the towns teemed with men at arms; all culture was abandoned, except around the ramparts, within sight of the sentry upon his tower. When the enemy appeared upon the horizon, the sound of the tocsin moved man and beast, by a common instinct, to seek shelter within the walls.[166] Hunger made brigands of all.
France was receiving at the hand of God full measure for all her sins. The dead man's pall, that Jean sans Peur had been bearing through twelve wretched years of misery and blood, were soon to cover his own mangled body. Murder, as of old, was to breed murder. He who had taken the sword, was to perish by it.
Several attempts, more or less futile, had been made to patch up a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the Orleanist Dauphin, a boy of sixteen years. In the autumn of the year 1419, a meeting was arranged to be held in a long, wooden gallery, specially erected on the bridge of Montereau, at the junction of the Seine and the Yonne.
Burgundy's fortunes at this time were at a low ebb, and the Dauphin's principal counsellors thought the time had come to deal their enemy a crushing blow. The rumour of their intention spread, and Jean was warned many times of his danger; but he made light of it. In vain his servants assured him that a plot was laid, that he was going to his death. He would not listen. At the last moment, however, he seems to have felt some compunction; for he delayed his coming so long that Tanneguy du Chatel was sent to fetch him. The duke hesitated no more. "This is he in whom I trust," said he, and he laid his hand upon du Chatel's shoulder.
The accounts of the final scene differ materially; the exact truth will probably never be known. On coming into the Dauphin's presence, the Duke removed his velvet cap, and kneeling, made a profound obeisance. Hardly had he risen to his feet when a confused mêlée arose, and the young Dauphin was led off to the Castle of Montereau. Meanwhile the assassins had got to work. The first blow passed down the right side of the Duke's face, and cut off the hand with which he sought to ward off the stroke. The second pierced his heart, when, "with a sigh and a movement of the loins," he fell. The abandoned body was buried by the curé of Montereau in the town cemetery, where it was found, several weeks after, clothed only in hose, doublet, and breeches. "A piteous thing to see, and no man there could refrain from weeping."[167]
Thus the Duke of Orleans was avenged; but the act, as might have been expected, only raised the fallen fortunes of the party it was intended finally to destroy.
As it had been with his victim, so, in turn, it was with Jean. Death expiated the murder, and veiled the murderer's faults. The many, who had been lukewarm for Burgundy, returned to their allegiance again.
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