llors of the crown, the young Duke of Orleans, his brother, and a
hundred knights of their house, all met together to hear the king declare
that he pardoned the Duke of Burgundy. The duke prayed "my lord of
Orleans and my lords his brothers to banish from their hearts all hatred
and vengeance;" and the princes of Orleans "assented to what the king
commanded them, and forgave their cousin the Duke of Burgundy everything
entirely." On the way back from Chartres the Duke of Burgundy's fool
kept playing with a church-paten (called "peace"), and thrusting it under
his cloak, saying, "See, this is a cloak of peace;" and, "Many folks,"
says Juvenal des Ursins, "considered this fool pretty wise." The Duke of
Burgundy had good reason, however, for seeking this outward
reconciliation; it put an end to a position too extended not to become
pretty soon untenable; the peace was a cause of great joy at Paris; the
king was not long coming back; and two hundred thousand persons, says the
chronicle, went out to meet him, shouting, "Noel!" The Duke of Burgundy
had gone out to receive him; and the queen and the princes arrived two
days after-wards. It was not known at the time, though it was perhaps
the most serious result of the negotiation, that a secret understanding
had been established between John the Fearless and Isabel of Bavaria.
The queen, as false as she was dissolute, had seen that the duke might be
of service to her on occasion if she served him in her turn, and they had
added the falsehood of their undivulged arrangement to that of the
general reconciliation.

But falsehood does not extinguish the facts it attempts to disguise. The
hostility between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy could not fail to
survive the treaty of Chartres, and cause search to be made for a man to
head the struggle so soon as it could be recommenced. The hour and the
man were not long waited for. In the very year of the treaty, Charles of
Orleans, eldest son of the murdered duke and Valentine of Milan, lost his
wife, Isabel of France, daughter of Charles VI.; and as early as the
following year (1410) the princes, his uncles, made him marry Bonne
d'Armagnac, daughter of Count Bernard d'Armagnac, one of the most
powerful, the most able, and the most ambitious lords of Southern France.
Forthwith, in concert with the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Brittany, and
several other lords, Count Bernard put himself at the head of the Orleans
party, and prepar