Bavaria to Blois, and later to Tours, where they were compelled to live
under surveillance and in salutary simplicity. The dauphin seized some
moneys belonging to Isabeau, who henceforth cherished the most
unrelenting hatred for her own son, accusing him of being responsible
for her exile. The real grief to her, we may feel sure, was the loss of
her money.

From this time, we find Isabeau intriguing with the Duke of Burgundy. As
Jean was marching upon Paris he came into the neighborhood of Tours. The
pious Isabeau was suddenly filled with a desire to hear mass at a
particular convent some distance outside the walls. While she was
engaged in her devotions the troops of Burgundy, in ambush, surrounded
the convent and "captured" Isabeau and her guardians. The queen and her
ally, styling themselves governors of France, established a parliament
at Amiens, sent out decrees by authority of the "council of the queen
and the duke," and fought the dauphin on paper and in the field. When in
June, 1418, the Parisians, provoked beyond endurance by the exactions
and the arrogance of the Armagnac nobles, massacred every Armagnac that
they could find, Isabeau stood too much in awe of these fierce men of
the common people to enter Paris. Had she not seen their violence
before, merely because she lived in luxury while they starved? She
waited for the arrival of Jean de Bourgogne, and the two entered Paris
together on July 14th. The dauphin, the sole hope of France, fled before
the armies of his mother.

As early as May, 1419, the queen had been in negotiation with the
English to disinherit her son, when the sudden death of Jean Sans Peur,
who was assassinated at a conference with the dauphin in September,
1419, interrupted her plans; but she was determined at all hazards not
to fall into the hands of her son. She wrote a letter of condolence to
the widowed Duchess of Burgundy, and promised the new duke, Philippe le
Bon, to assist him in punishing the dauphin. Philippe, like all this
race of Burgundian dukes, was a man of action, a man of strong
character, slightly more scrupulous than his father, and yet not
entirely without inclination to sacrifice honor to policy. It is not to
be wondered at that, justly indignant at the treacherous murder of his
father, he should have sacrificed the interests of France to satisfy his
resentment against the dauphin.

The queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the unhappy king, a mere tool in
their hands