ior to the shallow, sophistical, utterly shameless harangues
which had been delivered in defence of Jean. The legal advocate asked,
on behalf of Valentine and her children, that Jean be compelled to come
humbly to the Louvre and there to apologize to the king and to the widow
and her children; that his houses in Paris be razed; that he be ordered
to expend great sums in founding churches and convents, in expiation of
his crime; and that he be banished beyond seas for twenty years, and,
after his return, be not suffered to approach nearer than one hundred
leagues to the queen and the Orleans princes.

But Valentine, though she prevailed on the queen and the princes of the
council to agree to summon Jean de Bourgogne to trial before the Court
of Parliament, was impotent to prosecute her cause. For Jean, after a
ferocious suppression of the rebellious citizens of Liege, came boldly
back to Paris, was received as a victor and a friend by the people of
Paris, and so overawed the other members of the council that the Orleans
sympathizers dared not even dream of prosecuting the trial of this
unabashed murderer.

Valentine de Milan and her sons retired to Blois, fearing even further
outrages from the triumphant Burgundians. Well might she now have
justified the pathetic motto which she had assumed at her husband's
tragic death: _Rien ne m'est plus, plus ne m'est rien,_--"There is
nothing more for me, nothing matters more." This inscription, which she
caused to be placed in the Franciscan Church at Blois, must have borne
an added bitterness to her heart when she saw the selfish Isabeau making
friends with the murderer of Louis. The wretched queen and the impotent
members of the council were glad to make peace with Jean; they accepted
his hospitality and cowered before him. Isabeau, caring nothing for the
power of the crown, caring nothing for her husband or her children,
caring indeed for but one thing, money, eagerly accepted that from the
hands still red with the blood of the man she had loved.

With her children about her, Valentine languished at Blois for a year.
She had sought out one of Louis's natural sons, for whom she manifested
affection and who, she used to say, was her own by rights, and more
fitted to avenge his father than any of the other children. Valentine
was in this a good judge, for the spirited, ardent lad whom she loved
for his father's sake was none other than Jean, Comte de Dunois,
afterward famous amon