he trusts the new councillors he is taking, he will be deceived, and it will end ill, as you will see.  As for the present, we must support him.  The time will come when we will make those councillors, and the king himself, rue it.  Let them do as they please, by God:  we will return to our own dominions.  We are none the less the two greatest in the kingdom, and so long as we are united, none can do aught against us.”

The future is a blank, as well to the anxieties as to the hopes of men.  The king’s uncles were on the point of getting back the power which they believed to be lost to them.  On the 13th of June, 1392, the constable, Oliver de Clisson, was waylaid as he was returning home after a banquet given by the king at the hostel of St. Paul.  The assassin was Peter de Craon, cousin of John iv., Duke of Brittany.  He believed De Clisson to be dead, and left him bathed in blood at a baker’s door in the street called Culture-Sainte-Catherine.  The king was just going to bed, when one of his people came and said to him, “Ah! sir, a great misfortune has happened in Paris.”  “What, and to whom?” said the king.  “To your constable, sir, who has just been slain.”  “Slain!” cried Charles; “and by whom?” “Nobody knows; but it was close by here, in St. Catherine Street.”  “Lights! quick!” said the king; “I will go and see him;” and he set off, without waiting for his following.  When he entered the baker’s shop, De Clisson, grievously wounded, was just beginning to recover his senses.  “Ah! constable,” said the king, “and how do you feel?” “Very poorly, dear sir.”  “And who brought you to this pass?” “Peter de Craon and his accomplices; traitorously and without warning.”  “Constable,” said the king, “never was anything so punished or dearly paid for as this shall be; take thought for yourself, and have no further care; it is my affair.”  Orders were immediately given to seek out Peter de Craon, and hurry on his trial.  He had taken refuge, first in his own castle of Sable, and afterwards with the Duke of Brittany, who kept him concealed, and replied to the king’s envoys that he did not know where he was.  The king proclaimed his intention of making war on the Duke of Brittany until Peter de Craon should be discovered, and justice done to the constable.  Preparations for war were begun; and the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy received orders to get ready for it, themselves and their vassals.  The former, who happened to be in Paris at the time of the attack, did not care to directly oppose the king’s project; but he evaded, delayed, and predicted a serious war.  According to Froissart, he had been warned, the morning before the attack, by a simple cleric, of Peter de Craon’s design; but, “It is too late in the day,” he had said; “I do not like to trouble the king to-day; to-morrow, without fail, we will see to it.”  He had, however, forgotten or neglected to speak to his nephew.  Neither he nor his brother, the Duke of Burgundy, there is reason to suppose, were