brother, the Duke of Orleans, refused to have any part in it. Against
the other councillors of the king the prosecution was continued, with
fits and starts of determination, but in general with slowness and
uncertainty. Under the influence of the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry, the
parliament showed an inclination towards severity; but Bureau de la
Riviere had warm friends, and amongst others, the young and beautiful
Duchess of Berry, to whose marriage he had greatly contributed, and John
Juvenal des Ursins, provost of the tradesmen of Paris, one of the men
towards whom the king and the populace felt the highest esteem and
confidence. The king, favorably inclined towards the accused by his own
bias and the influence of the Duke of Orleans, presented a demand to
parliament to have the papers of the procedure brought to him. Parliament
hesitated and postponed a reply; the procedure followed its course; and
at the end of some months further the king ordered it to be stopped, and
Sires de la Riviere and Neviant to be set at liberty and to have their
real property restored to them, at the same time that they lost their
personal property and were commanded to remain forever at fifteen
leagues' distance, at least, from the court. This was moral equity, if
not legal justice. The accused had been able and faithful servants of
their king and country. Their imprisonment had lasted more than a year.
The Dukes of Burgundy and Berry remained in possession of power.

They exercised it for ten years, from 1392 to 1402, without any great
dispute between themselves--the Duke of Burgundy's influence being
predominant--or with the king, who, save certain lucid intervals, took
merely a nominal part in the government. During this period no event of
importance disturbed France internally. In 1393 the King of England,
Richard II., son of the Black Prince, sought in marriage the daughter of
Charles VI., Isabel of France, only eight years old. In both courts and
in both countries there was a desire for peace. An embassy came in state