It had just been reported that the Duke of Burgundy had completely beaten
and reduced to submission the insurgent Liegese, and that he was
preparing to return to Paris with his army. Great was the consternation
amongst the council of the queen and princes. They feared above
everything to see the king and the _dauphin_ in the Duke of Burgundy's
power; and it was decided to quit Paris, which had always testified a
favorable disposition towards Duke John. Charles VI. was the first to
depart, on the 3d of November, 1408. The queen, the _dauphin_, and the
princes followed him two days afterwards, and at Gien they all took boat
on the Loire to go to Tours. The Duke of Burgundy on his arrival at
Paris, on the 28th of November, found not a soul belonging to the royal
family or the court; and he felt a moment's embarrassment. Even his
audacity and lack of scruple did not go to the extent of doing without
the king altogether, or even of dispensing with having him for a tool;
and he had seen too much of the Parisian populace not to know how
precarious and fickle was its favor. He determined to negotiate with the
king's party, and for that purpose he sent his brother-in-law the Count
of Hainault, to Tours, with a brilliant train of unarmed attendants,
bidden to make themselves agreeable, and not to fight.

A recent event had probably much to do with his decision. His most
indomitable foe, she to whom the king and his councillors had lately
granted a portion of the vengeance she was seeking to take on him,
Valentine of Milan, Duchess of Orleans, died on the 4th of December,
1408, at Blois, far from satisfied with the moral reparation she had
obtained in her enemy's absence, and clearly foreseeing that against the
Duke of Burgundy, flushed with victory and present in person, she would
obtain nothing of what she had asked. For spirits of the best mettle,
and especially for a woman's heart, impotent passion is a heavy burden to