e of Burgundy to dine with him the next Sunday. The Parisians
took pleasure in observing these little matters, and in hoping for the
re-establishment of harmony in the royal family. They were soon to be
cruelly undeceived.

On the 23d of November, 1407, the Duke of Orleans had dined at Queen
Isabel's. He was returning about eight in the evening along Vieille Rue
du Temple, singing and playing with his glove, and attended by only two
squires riding one horse, and by four or five varlets on foot, carrying
torches. It was a gloomy night; not a soul in the streets. When the
duke was about a hundred paces from the queen's hostel, eighteen or
twenty armed men, who had lain in ambush behind a house called Image de
Notre-Dame, dashed suddenly out; the squires' horse took fright and ran
away with them; and the assassins rushed upon the duke, shouting, "Death!
death!" "What is all this?" said he; "I am the Duke of Orleans." "Just
what we want," was the answer; and they hurled him down from his mule.
He struggled to his knees; but the fellows struck at him heavily with axe
and sword. A young man in his train made an effort to defend him, and
was immediately cut down; and another, grievously wounded, had but just
time to escape into a neighboring shop. A poor cobbler's wife opened her
window, and, seeing the work of assassination, shrieked, "Murder!
murder!" "Hold your tongue, you strumpet!" cried some one from the
street. Others shot arrows at the windows where lookers-on might be. A
tall man, wearing a red cap which came down over his eyes, said in a loud
voice, "Out with all lights, and away!" The assassins fled at the top of
their speed, shouting, "Fire! fire!" throwing behind them foot-trippers,
and by menaces causing all the lights to be put out which were being
lighted here and there in the shops.

[Illustration: Murder of the Duke of Orleans----38]

The duke was quite dead. One of his squires, returning to the spot,
found his body stretched on the road, and mutilated all over. He was
carried to the neighboring church of Blancs-Manteaux, whither all the
royal family came to render the last sad offices. The Duke of Burgundy
appeared no less afflicted than the rest. "Never," said he, "was a more
wicked and traitorous murder committed in this realm." The provost of
Paris, Sire de Tignouville, set on foot an active search after the
perpetrators. He was summoned before the council of princes, and the
Duke of B