unscrupulous as himself, and Borsellen came back to his castle a much greater man than he was when he left it.

He had seen, too, a great deal of the world since his departure. He had been at Paris and had seen the mysteries as they were enacted to the great delight of the poor King in his moments of half sanity; and brought back some of the newly invented cards, which were the rage of the Court then, and over which Messire Jehan and his friend would sit and gamble all night. He had danced, too, at the Queen's hotel of Saint Paul-nay, carried his gallantry so far as to bring back for his lady mother a robe and headdress just such as Her Majesty wore. Poor Alice was wonderfully delighted with the giver, though she blushed as she wore his gift. The gown had an immense train that her two women laughed as they carried. It was embroidered with the great green griffin of the Borsellens and her own arms alternately; above it was a tight velvet jacket trimmed with ermine, having big light sleeves which trailed to the ground, and cut so exceedingly low at the neck as to make an honest country matron blush with good reason. But the marvel of all was the head-piece. It was of red velvet of the shape of a huge crescent, or pair of horns (not an ox in the farmyard had such a pair of horns), from which hung two streamers of gauze or lace that should properly have been left to flaunt in the air behind the noble wearer, but which the lady insisted upon tying round her throat, for all the fashion.

What stories had Jehan to tell of the balls and galas at the Court, of the magnificence of Berri, the prodigality of Orleans, the wild pranks of the King of Navarre, and above all of the splendour of his own lord of Burgundy, who eclipsed them all. And then the poor devils of citizens-what a life they led of it! Messire Jehan brought back with him a whole wardrobe of linen bed-furniture that he had procured at Paris at the cheapest rate. As an officer of the Duke, he had but to enter any citizen's house and take what he fancied-a parcel of napkins and sheets, or a piece of claret, a sack of oats for his horses-nay, a horse for the oats, if it so minded him. Every prince of the blood, and every officer of a prince in consequence had this privilege of robbery, and availed himself of it accordingly.

There was the Duke of Orleans—one of the best jokes ever heard had been perpetrated by him. The Duke for many years had received in his own hands half the taxes of the kingdom, and never paid one farthing of his own debt. Riding out one day, his horse

took fright, well-nigh plunged him into the Seine, and set my lord into such a tremor that he thought a judgment was coming upon him, and vowed he would pay every one of his creditors. Next day his intendants called them together, and they came to the number of eight hundred; but his greatest fright was over, and he thought of paying no more. When the varlets began to remonstrate, the Duke ordered his men out with sticks and offered the knaves the choice of a beating or a retreat. These stories were told by Messire Jehan in the simple way in which the chroniclers of the time record them. His mother and sister listened to them with wonder, as good simple mothers and sisters will do, but his young brother was lost in delight at the tale and respect for the accomplished teller of them.

One part of the story, however the last and most important part of it-Messire Jehan did not tell. Was it that he was ashamed of his share in the action, or that it was too grave a subject to talk of with little boys and ladies? It was this. His master, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Duke of Orleans, after their long quarrel, had been reconciled, and great festivities had taken place in consequence of their peace. But both knew how hollow the truce was, and assembled their men about Paris to the number of many thousands, and each prepared to resist or to overcome the other.

Then took place, as the chronicler says, 'the most woeful and piteous adventure that had occurred for a long time in the Christian kingdom of France. On Wednesday, being St. Clement's day, November 23, 1407, eighteen men who were lodged in an hotel having the sign of Our Lady near to the gate Barbette of Paris, in which city the Duke of Orleans then was, sent forward a certain Thomas Courthame, valet de chambre of the king, to the said Duke, who had gone to visit the Queen, then residing in her hotel near the above gate of Barbette. The which Thomas, coming before the Duke as from the King, said to him, "Monseigneur, the King orders that without delay you come to him, as he would speak with you hastily in regard of matters that nearly concern you and him.'

'On which the said Duke, wishing to obey the command of the King (as he fancied it), did incontinently mount on his mule, having in his company only four or five varlets on foot, carrying torches before and behind him, and two squires; for thus did he go abroad privately, although there were at that hour in Paris six hundred squires and knights in his pay.

The night was rather dark as he came to the above-named gate

of Barbette, and eighteen men who had armed themselves privily placed themselves under cover of a house near the gate, and as he passed rushed suddenly out upon him, crying loudly, “Kill, kill!” One struck him with an axe, so that his hand was cut off clean at the wrist. Whereon the Duke began to cry, "I am the Duke of Orleans." "That is what we want," replied they, striking him, and beat him off his mule and struck him in such a manner on the head that his brains were scattered over the pavement. With him was most piteously slain a young man, a German by nation, who had been the Duke's page, who, when he saw his master down, laid himself upon his body to save him, but helped him nothing. The two squires were riding upon one horse, which, when it heard the tramping and clattering of arms of those upon it, began to snort and to run and ran a long space before they could stop it. And when they stopped it, the Duke's mule came up without their lord. . . . And those who had done the murder began incontinently to cry "Fire," and set fire to the hotel in which they were, and escaped on horse or foot as best they might, some of them going to the hotel of Artois, where their master, the Duke of Burgundy, was, who, as he afterwards publicly confessed, had commanded the murder.

The next day the body was buried in great state, the Duke of Burgundy holding the pall. But at the council after the burial the Duke, being troubled, confessed the action of which he had been guilty, which the lords hearing were in such wonder and sorrow that they could scarcely give him an answer. But the day after, the Duke going as before to the Council, Count Waleran of Saint Pauls forbid him to enter; hereon in great doubt the Duke returned to his hotel, and there without a moment's loss taking horse rode away with only six of his men out of the gate of Saint Denis and rode without stopping at any place, but changing horses frequently, until they reached the Duke's castle of Bapaume. When he had there slept a little, he rode away until he reached Lille in Flanders, and the people whom he had left in Paris in great doubt lest they should be taken and arrested, speedily followed him. Especially Raymond d'Actonville and his accomplices, who quitted the city in various disguises and came all together to lodge at the castle of Sens in Artois by order of Duke John of Burgundy, their master and lord.'

It does not appear that John of Burgundy, after performing this act of vengeance and flying from the consequences of it, abdicated for any considerable period his title of John without Fear."

As soon as he arrived in his own country he summoned his lieges and councillors about him, who as in duty bound took his side in the quarrel, and he hired a famous theologian and special pleader of the day, Master John Petit, to compose and publish that famous apology for murder which may be found in the Chronicles entire.

It is a curious monument of the learning of the age-a kind of learning which has passed out of vogue luckily in every country but ours, where Doctor Petit would be the distinguished head of a college, no doubt, and, after having lectured on Aristotle and edited a few Greek plays, might look forward to a bishopric at the very least as the reward of his piety and learning. Petit's scholarship was considerable for his time. He adduced all the instances of homicide recorded in Holy Writ-how Moses killed the Egyptian, how Joab 'the constable' of King David slew the prince his son; how Athalia caused Achab to be murdered on the steps of the altar. From Scripture the Doctor passed to the Fathers, of no less authority in his eyes; from the Fathers to the Greek and Latin classics; and showed by major and minor, by twelve subdivisions and arguments in honour of the twelve apostles-first that it is proper to kill tyrants; second, that the Duke of Orleans was a tyrant; and therefore the reader may draw the conclusion for himself, if he chooses but to admit the premises.

The reply to the harangue is not less curious, for the Duchess of Orleans hired her advocate Sevisy, who solemnly in presence of the Queen and the Lords of the Council pronounced a defence of the slaughtered Prince, and exculpated him from the charge of sorcery, of which Petit and the Duke of Burgundy accused him.

He proved the absurdity of this accusation first from Solomon and next from Ovid: and concluded by declaring that Master John de Bar himself, so skilled in that cursed art, and who had been burned with all his books, declared at his last confession that the Devil had never appeared to him, and that of his invocations and sorceries no effect had ever come, although he had declared the contrary in order to get money from the great lords. 'Doctor Sevisy in the same manner upset other misstatements of Doctor Petit. Valentin Visconti, the Duke's widow, a woman beautiful and of high spirit, who in spite of all his excesses had been most tenderly attached to her lord, stood by Sevisy as he made his discourse before the Queen. She gave him the document with her own hands as if to authorise every word of it, and was surrounded