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 prepared to proceed against the Duke of Burgundy in the cause of dominion combined with vengeance.  From 1410 to 1415 France was a prey to civil war between the Armagnacs and Burgundians, and to their alternate successes and reverses brought about by the unscrupulous employment of the most odious and desperate means.  The Burgundians had generally the advantage in the struggle, for Paris was chiefly the centre of it, and their influence was predominant there.  Their principal allies there were the butchers, the boldest and most ambitious corporation in the city.  For a long time the butcher-trade of Paris had been in the hands of a score of families the number had been repeatedly reduced, and at the opening of the fifteenth century, three families, the Legoix, the St. Yons, and the Thiberts, had exercised absolute mastery in the market district, which in turn exercised mastery over nearly the whole city.  “One Caboche, a flayer of beasts in the shambles of Hotel-Dieu, and Master John de Troyes, a surgeon with a talent for speaking, were their most active associates.  Their company consisted of ’prentice-butchers, medical students, skinners, tailors, and every kind of lewd fellows.  When anybody caused their displeasure they said, ‘Here’s an Armagnac,’ and despatched him on the spot, and plundered his house, or dragged him off to prison to pay dear for his release.  The rich burgesses lived in fear and peril.  More than three hundred of them went off to Melun with the provost of tradesmen, who could no longer answer for the tranquillity of the city.”