and utterly unscrupulous, and capable of any deed to gratify either his
passions, jealousies, or hatreds. At first he cloaked his designs against
Orleans by an appearance of friendship, paid him a visit at his castle
near Vincennes, where he was at the time lying ill. When he recovered, the
two princes went to mass together, dined at their uncle's, the Duke of
Berri, and together entered Paris; and the Parisians fondly hoped that
there was an end of the rivalry that had done so much harm. It was,
however, but a very short time afterwards that, on the 23d of November,
1407, as the Duke of Orleans was returning from having dined with the
queen, and was riding with only two esquires and four or five men on foot
carrying torches, twenty armed men sprang out from behind a house and
rushed upon him.

"'I am the Duke of Orleans,' the prince cried; but they hurled him from
his mule, and as he tried to rise to his feet one blow struck off the hand
he raised to protect his head, other blows rained down upon him from axe
and sword, and in less than a minute the duke lay dead. The Duke of
Burgundy at first affected grief and indignation, but at the council the
next day he boldly avowed that Orleans had been killed by his orders. He
at once took horse and rode to the frontier of Flanders, which he reached
safely, though hotly chased by a party of the Duke of Orleans' knights.
The duke's widow, who was in the country at the time, hastened up to Paris
with her children, and appealed for justice to the king, who declared that
he regarded the deed done to his brother as done to himself. The Dukes of
Berri and Bourbon, the Constable and Chancellor, all assured her that she
should have justice; but there was no force that could hope to cope with
that which Burgundy could bring into the field, and when, two months
later, Burgundy entered Paris at the head of a thousand men-at-arms, no
attempt was made at resistance, and the murderer was received with
acclamations by the fickle populace.