bear; and Valentine Visconti, beautiful, amiable, and unhappy even in her
best days through the fault of the husband she loved, sank under this
trial. At the close of her life she had taken for device, "Nought have I
more; more hold I nought" (Bien ne m 'est plus; plus ne m 'est rien);
and so fully was that her habitual feeling that she had the words
inscribed upon the black tapestry of her chamber. In her last hours she
had by her side her three sons and her daughter, but there was another
still whom she remembered. She sent for a child, six years of age, John,
a natural son of her husband by Marietta d'Enghien, wife of Sire de
Cany-Dunois. "This one," said she, "was filched from me; yet there is
not a child so well cut out as he to avenge his father's death."
Twenty-five years later John was the famous Bastard of Orleans, Count
Dunois, Charles VII.'s lieutenant-general, and Joan of Arc's comrade in
the work of saving the French kingship and France.

[Illustration: Death of Valentine de Milan----45]

The Duke of Burgundy's negotiations at Tours were not fruitless. The
result was, that on the 9th of March, 1409, a treaty was concluded and an
interview effected at Chartres between the duke on one side and on the
other the king, the queen, the _dauphin_, all the royal family, the
councillors of the crown, the young Duke of Orleans, his brother, and a
hundred knights of their house, all met together to hear the king declare
that he pardoned the Duke of Burgundy. The duke prayed "my lord of
Orleans and my lords his brothers to banish from their hearts all hatred
and vengeance;" and the princes of Orleans "assented to what the king
commanded them, and forgave their cousin the Duke of Burgundy everything
entirely." On the way back from Chartres the Duke of Burgundy's fool
kept playing with a church-paten (called "peace"), and thrusting it under
his cloak, saying, "See, this is a cloak of peace;" and, "Many folks,"