his death; he was not sincerely
mourned by the infamous queen whom he had led away from her duty to her
pitiful, insane husband; but he was mourned by the woman whom he had
most deeply wronged--his wife.

This wife was the lovely Italian, Valentine Visconti, daughter of the
Duke of Milan, who had married Louis in 1389 and was a sharer in the
splendors of the gorgeous entry of Isabeau de Baviere into Paris. From
the first she had just cause of complaint--and yet never complained--of
the infidelity of a husband whom she loved with her whole heart, but
whose love she could not retain. Froissart, who was no friend of hers,
tells us a most curious and extraordinary story of one of Valentine's
rivals, whom Louis had preferred to his wife as early as 1392. It
appears that Louis d'Orleans had rashly confided the details of an amour
to that Pierre de Craon whom we have mentioned before, and this knight
revealed them to Valentine. The young duchess sent at once for the lady
to whom Louis was devoting himself: "Wilt thou do me wrong with my lord,
my husband?" The woman was abashed, and in her confusion confessed her
guilt. Then said Valentine: "Thus it is: I am informed that my lord
loveth you, and you him, and the matter is so far gone between you that
in such a place and at such a time he promised you a thousand crowns of
gold to be his paramour; howbeit, you did refuse it as then, wherein you
did wisely, and therefore I pardon you; but I charge you on your life
that you commune nor talk no more with him, but suffer him to pass and
hearken no more to his commanding." From the treatment he received at
the next meeting with his lady-love, Louis discovered that something was
amiss, and she finally told him of the interview with Valentine. Louis
then went home to his wife, "and showed her more token of love than ever
he did before," finally wheedling her into telling him who had been the
talebearer. The sequel we know: how Craon was driven from court, and
returned to attempt the assassination of De Clisson.

But if her husband did not love her, the king manifested a real and
innocent affection for Valentine, his "dear sister," remembering her and
asking for her when, in his madness, he knew no other. Yet even out of
this there was to come evil for Valentine; for the Duchess of Burgundy,
fearing the growth of the Orleans influence over the king, spread evil
reports about the innocent relations between Charles and Valentine.
Adding