cid interval he learned of the neglect of Isabeau, thanked those who
had been more tender than his wife, and gave one lady, who had tried to
care for the dauphin, a goblet of gold.

The indignation of the people was great; all classes united in
abhorrence of this shameless wife and mother. An Austin friar, bolder
than the rest, preached a sermon before Isabeau and openly reproved her
wantonness: "At your court reigns dame Venus, and her waiting maids are
Lechery and Gormandise." The queen and her idle and vicious courtiers
wished him punished for his effrontery; but Charles, hearing what he had
said, declared that he liked such sermons, sent for the preacher,
listened with interest and attention to his recital of the woes of the
kingdom, projected reforms--and went mad again.

While the fit of reform was on, Louis d'Orleans, terrified by a storm
that had overtaken him and Isabeau in one of their pleasure-jaunts,
vowed to repent and pay his debts. At these glad tidings over eight
hundred creditors assembled; but the clouds rolled away, and with them
went Louis's desire to be honest. He laughed at the creditors and gave
secret orders to debase the coinage.

The poor king was just sane enough to realize that things were going
wrong; he appealed for help to the Duke of Burgundy. The vigorous and
pitiless Jean Sans Peur, who had succeeded Philippe le Hardi in
Burgundy, came down upon Paris, and Isabeau fled with Orleans to Melun,
abandoning Charles, but planning to carry off next day the royal
children and those of the Duke of Burgundy. Jean de Bourgogne, however,
overtook the children and brought them back to Paris, where he now
(August, 1405) established himself in the Louvre.

So outrageous had been the spoliation under Isabeau and Louis that the
Parisians welcomed Jean as a deliverer. The queen, under cover of a
pretended right to appropriate goods for royal uses, had systematically
not only taken the necessaries of life, provisions and the like, but had
seized merchandise, jewels, money stored away by the owners, and
furniture, plundering even the hospitals, and storing these stolen goods
with the intention of selling them at auction. Greed was her
predominating trait, and so we are not surprised to find her hatred of
Jean Sans Peur increasing to the point of virulence when she was
deprived of the opportunity of robbing unmolested. Unfortunately for
her, Orleans was not a man of ability or energy sufficient to cope