Wonderful to relate, this scene of horror at the dance of savages does not appear to have occasioned an immediate relapse on the part of the king. Isabeau, who had manifested extreme terror and sympathy at the moment of her husband's peril, joined him in making virtuous resolutions to lead a more regular and sober life. But the love of pleasure was too firmly rooted; there were renewed debauches, and Charles became more violently mad than before, knowing neither his wife nor his children, and even denying his own identity. And so it continued throughout his life: following the regimen of his doctors, Charles would have a lucid interval; then he chased the doctors from the palace and went back to debauchery and to madness. Astrologers were sent for to enlist the sidereal powers in his behalf; one astrologer brought a book which he affirmed the Lord had sent to Adam by the hand of an angel; what good it had done to Adam appeareth not, but it certainly did not relieve the king. Then there were two Austin friars (!) who made a draught of powdered pearls and enlisted all the forces of sorcery in the king's behalf; but the king did not recover, and the friars were handed over to the Inquisition, condemned, and decapitated.
Meanwhile any affection that Isabeau may have felt for her husband had passed away. She had found the Duke of Burgundy at last unendurably parsimonious; Louis d'Orléans was far more liberal with the money of the kingdom; besides, he was a handsome rake, whom all the women loved; it was inevitable that Isabeau should ally herself with the man who was willing not only to share her wanton pleasures but to squeeze out of the people the money required for them. The people, particularly the people of Paris, hated the Duke of Orléans because he was always imposing more taxes, and loved the Duke of Burgundy because he was politic enough to pretend to reduce taxes. It is therefore not surprising that we have so many accounts of the outrageous conduct of Isabeau de Bavière and Louis d'Orléans; for if the people are long-suffering, they yet do not forget.
In order to meet some part of the expenses incurred by the prodigality of the court, Louis d'Orléans and the queen, in 1405, imposed a new tax. The prisons were soon crowded with poor wretches who could not pay the impost even by selling all their belongings, to the very straw of their beds. While the queen amused herself the people cursed. Not knowing what could become of the great sums raised and squandered by the worthless pair, the people said that Isabeau sent cartloads of gold into Bavaria and that Louis wasted it in magnificent structures on his domain at Couci and at Pierrefonds.
The wild accusations of a maddened people, however, were not without excuse. This miserable wanton who was Queen of France left her husband, the poor, good-natured madman, and her children to the care of servants whose wages, in the midst of all this waste of the public money, she forgot to pay. The servants neglected both children and husband; the King of France was allowed to remain in filth and rags, covered with vermin that made repulsive sores upon him, while the little dauphin was but a half starved ragamuffin. One of the physicians discovered in what state Charles was: he had refused to bathe or to change his clothes for five months, and there was danger of his dying from sheer filth. Disguising some of his attendants in fearful costumes, the physician sent them into the mad king's den, where they terrified him into passivity and managed to bathe him, dress his sores, and change his clothes before the fit of terror passed away. When Charles next had a lucid interval he learned of the neglect of Isabeau, thanked those who had been more tender than his wife, and gave one lady, who had tried to care for the dauphin, a goblet of gold.
The indignation of the people was great; all classes united in abhorrence of this shameless wife and mother. An Austin friar, bolder than the rest, preached a sermon before Isabeau and openly reproved her wantonness: "At your court reigns dame Venus, and her waiting maids are Lechery and Gormandise." The queen and her idle and vicious courtiers wished him punished for his effrontery; but Charles, hearing what he had said, declared that he liked such sermons, sent for the preacher, listened with interest and attention to his recital of the woes of the kingdom, projected reforms--and went mad again.
While the fit of reform was on, Louis d'Orléans, terrified by a storm that had overtaken him and Isabeau in one of their pleasure-jaunts, vowed to repent and pay his debts. At these glad tidings over eight hundred creditors assembled; but the clouds rolled away, and with them went Louis's desire to be honest. He laughed at the creditors and gave secret orders to debase the coinage.
The poor king was just sane enough to realize that things were going wrong; he appealed for help to the Duke of Burgundy. The vigorous and pitiless Jean Sans Peur, who had succeeded Philippe le Hardi in Burgundy, came down upon Paris, and Isabeau fled with Orléans to Melun, abandoning Charles, but planning to carry off next day the royal children and those of the Duke of Burgundy. Jean de Bourgogne, however, overtook the children and brought them back to Paris, where he now (August, 1405) established himself in the Louvre.
So outrageous had been the spoliation under Isabeau and Louis that the Parisians welcomed Jean as a deliverer. The queen, under cover of a pretended right to appropriate goods for royal uses, had systematically not only taken the necessaries of life, provisions and the like, but had seized merchandise, jewels, money stored away by the owners, and furniture, plundering even the hospitals, and storing these stolen goods with the intention of selling them at auction. Greed was her predominating trait, and so we are not surprised to find her hatred of Jean Sans Peur increasing to the point of virulence when she was deprived of the opportunity of robbing unmolested. Unfortunately for her, Orléans was not a man of ability or energy sufficient to cope successfully with Jean de Bourgogne, and the struggle between the two dukes merely exhausted the resources of Orléans without seriously impairing those of his opponent. Isabeau, moreover, was not bloodthirsty; both her indolence and her interest impelled her to favor the peace between the two dukes which was brought about in the closing months of 1407.
Louis was ill; in mere kindness his cousin of Burgundy visited him, and a reconciliation was effected. As soon as Louis was recovered from his indisposition the two, accompanied by the old Duke de Berri, who was anxious to promote peace, heard mass and took communion together, swearing fraternal love for each other. This was on Sunday, November 27, 1407. On the next Wednesday evening Louis d' Orléans went as usual to sup with Isabeau at the Hotel Barbette, and was in particularly high spirits, attempting to divert the queen, who had been much distressed at the birth of a stillborn child, a love child, as people said. About eight o'clock in the evening, a message, apparently from the king, summoned Louis, and as he went in response to the summons, accompanied by but a few pages and servants, he was set upon and hacked to pieces in the streets of Paris by a gang of ruffians under one Raoul d'Octonville.
The assassins made good their escape before people knew what had happened. When the death of the king's brother was discovered, great was the consternation; for all knew that such a crime had not been committed by an obscure scoundrel, and the question was asked, what great man had hired the assassins? In a few days Jean de Bourgogne, in a mood between terror and impudent bravado, confessed that he was guilty of the foul murder of the man to whom he had so recently sworn amity in the sight of God. Fearing that even his rank could not sufficiently shield him from punishment for this shedding of the blood royal, Jean fled from Paris to his own dominions.