was going on sluggishly; he testified a certain spirit of conciliation by
going to pay a visit to his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, lying ill at his
castle of Beaute, near Vincennes; when the Duke of Orleans was well
again, the two princes took the communion together, and dined together at
their uncle's, the Duke of Berry's; and the Duke of Orleans invited the
new Duke of Burgundy to dine with him the next Sunday. The Parisians
took pleasure in observing these little matters, and in hoping for the
re-establishment of harmony in the royal family. They were soon to be
cruelly undeceived.

On the 23d of November, 1407, the Duke of Orleans had dined at Queen
Isabel's. He was returning about eight in the evening along Vieille Rue
du Temple, singing and playing with his glove, and attended by only two
squires riding one horse, and by four or five varlets on foot, carrying
torches. It was a gloomy night; not a soul in the streets. When the
duke was about a hundred paces from the queen's hostel, eighteen or
twenty armed men, who had lain in ambush behind a house called Image de
Notre-Dame, dashed suddenly out; the squires' horse took fright and ran
away with them; and the assassins rushed upon the duke, shouting, "Death!
death!" "What is all this?" said he; "I am the Duke of Orleans." "Just
what we want," was the answer; and they hurled him down from his mule.
He struggled to his knees; but the fellows struck at him heavily with axe
and sword. A young man in his train made an effort to defend him, and
was immediately cut down; and another, grievously wounded, had but just
time to escape into a neighboring shop. A poor cobbler's wife opened her
window, and, seeing the work of assassination, shrieked, "Murder!
murder!" "Hold your tongue, you strumpet!" cried some one from the
street. Others shot arrows at the windows where lookers-on might be. A
tall man, wearing a red cap which came down over his eyes, said in a loud
voice, "Out with all lights, and away!" The assassins fled at the top of