I lose both my nephews!” The Duke of Burgundy went out in great confusion, and the council separated.  Research brought about the discovery that the crime had been for a long while in preparation, and that a Norman nobleman, Raoul d’Auquetonville, late receiver-general of finance, having been deprived of his post by the Duke of Orleans for malversation, had been the instrument.  The council of princes met the next day at the Hotel de Nesle.  The Duke of Burgundy, who had recovered all his audacity, came to take his seat there.  Word was sent to him not to enter the room.  Duke John persisted; but the Duke of Berry went to the door and said to him, “Nephew, give up the notion of entering the council; you would not be seen there with pleasure.”  “I give up willingly,” answered Duke John; “and that none may be accused of putting to death the Duke of Orleans, I declare that it was I, and none other, who caused the doing of what has been done.”  Thereupon he turned his horse’s head, returned forthwith to the Hotel d’Artois, and, taking only six men with him, he galloped without a halt, except to change horses, to the frontier of Flanders.  The Duke of Bourbon complained bitterly at the council that an immediate arrest had not been ordered.  The Admiral de Brabant, and a hundred of the Duke of Orleans’ knights, set out in pursuit, but were unable to come up in time.  Neither Raoul d’Anquetonville nor any other of the assassins was caught.  The magistrates, as well as the public, were seized with stupor in view of so great a crime and so great a criminal.

But the Duke of Orleans left a widow who, in spite of his infidelities and his irregularities, was passionately attached to him.  Valentine Visconti, the Duke of Milan’s daughter, whose dowry had gone to pay the ransom of King John, was at Chateau-Thierry when she heard of her husband’s murder.  Hers was one of those natures, full of softness and at the same time of fire, which grief does not overwhelm, and in which a passion for vengeance is excited and fed by their despair.  She started for Paris in the early part of December, 1407, during the roughest winter, it was said, ever known for several centuries, taking with her all her children.  The Duke of Berry, the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Clermont, and the constable went to meet her.  Herself and all her train in deep mourning, she dismounted at the hostel of St. Paul, threw herself on her knees before the king with the princes and council around him, and demanded of him justice for her husband’s cruel death.  The chancellor promised justice in the name of the king, who added with his own lips, “We regard the deed relating to our own brother as done to ourself.”  The compassion of all present was boundless, and so was their indignation; but it was reported that the Duke of Burgundy was getting ready to return to Paris, and with what following and for what purpose would he come?  Nothing was known on that point.  There was no force with