ry, it was the citizens of Paris who were compelled to pay for
all this fine foolery. Charles departed from Paris a few days after the
conclusion of his fete, leaving behind him an increased tax and an
ordinance prohibiting, under penalty of death, the use of certain silver
coins of small value; this latter restriction, which was intended to
favor the circulation of his new and debased coinage, inflicted peculiar
hardships upon the poor. Thus, Isabeau was already inflicting much
misery upon the poor of that capital which had lavished so much upon
her; and before we bestow our commiseration upon the miserable king in
after days, it is well to remember the miseries of his subjects.

Life had been as yet but a dream for Charles and his queen; though
France was rapidly going to ruin under their extravagant and heedless
rule, could they not chase away care in revels surpassing any that
France had yet seen? But the dream was soon to become a nightmare, the
hideous nightmare of insanity, for this heedless monarch.

It was not until three years after the coronation of Isabeau that her
unfortunate husband had the first attack of what was, unmistakably,
insanity, though to any reasonable creature the behavior of the whole
court would have seemed mad enough from the beginning. One of those acts
of lawless private vengeance which were so soon to become dreadfully
familiar in France first excited the king almost to the point of frenzy.
A certain Pierre de Craon, a noble who had already distinguished himself
by robbing the late Duke of Anjou, was driven from Paris by the Duke of
Orleans, to whose wife he had imprudently revealed some of the
infidelities of her too licentious husband. He fled to Jean de Montfort,
who persuaded him that the person chiefly responsible for his disgrace
was the renowned Olivier de Clisson, Conetable of France. Secretly
returning to Paris, Pierre de Craon lay in wait for the constable one
night and fell upon him with a band of bravoes. The brave De Clisson was
seriously wounded, and the villains fled, thinking him slain. Charles,
who favored De Clisson, was furious at the outrage, and breathed
vengeance against Craon. As Jean de Montfort constituted himself the
defender of this wretch, and refused to deliver him up to justice, the
lands belonging to Craon were devastated, his wife and children were
driven forth, and war was declared upon Brittany.

The king had always had a passionate love for the more th