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 Berry asked him if he had discovered anything.  “I believe,” said the provost, “that if I had leave to enter all the hostels of the king’s servants, and even of the princes, I could get on the track of the authors or accomplices of the crime.”  He was authorized to enter wherever it seemed good to him.  He went away to set himself to work.  The Duke of Burgundy, looking troubled and growing pale, “Cousin,” said the King of Naples, Louis d’Anjou, who was present at the council, “can you know aught about it?  You must tell us.”  The Duke of Burgundy took him, together with his uncle, the Duke of Berry, aside, and told them that it was he himself who, tempted of the devil, had given orders for this murder.  “O God!” cried the Duke of Berry, “then