procured his rival
to be assassinated in the streets of Paris: he endeavored for some time
to conceal the part which he took in the crime; but being detected, he
embraced a resolution still more criminal and more dangerous to society,
by openly avowing and justifying it.[*]

* Le Laboureur, liv. xxvii. chap. 23, 24.

The parliament itself of Paris, the tribunal of justice, heard the
harangues of the duke's advocate in defence of assassination, which he
termed tyrannicide; and that assembly, partly influenced by faction,
partly overawed by power, pronounced no sentence of condemnation against
this detestable doctrine.[*]

* Le Laboureur, liv. xxvii. chap. 27. Monstrelet. chap. 39.

The same question was afterwards agitated before the council of
Constance; and it was with difficulty that a feeble decision in favor of
the contrary opinion, was procured from these fathers of the church, the
ministers of peace and of religion. But the mischievous effects of that
tenet, had they been before anywise doubtful, appeared sufficiently from
the present incidents. The commission of this crime, which destroyed
all trust and security, rendered the war implacable between the French
parties, and cut off every means of peace and accommodation. The princes
of the blood, combining with the young duke of Orleans and his brothers,
made violent war on the duke of Burgundy; and the unhappy king, seized
sometimes by one party, sometimes by the other, transferred alternately
to each of them the appearance of legal authority. The provinces were
laid waste by mutual depredations: assassinations were every where
committed, from the animosity of the several leaders; or, what was
equally terrible, executions were ordered, without any legal or
free trial, by pretended courts of judicature. The whole kingdom was
distinguished into two parties, the Burgundians and the Armagnacs; so
the adherents of the young duke of Orleans were called, from the count
of Armagnac, father-in-law to that prince. The city of Paris, distracted
between them, but inclining more to the Burgundians, was a perpetual
scene of blood and violence; the king and royal family were often
detained captives in the hands of the populace; their faithful ministers
were butchered or imprisoned before their face; and it was dangerous for
any man, amidst these enraged factions, to be distinguished by a strict
adherence to the principles of probity and honor.

During this scene o