ance, and as her policy was directed by personal
considerations and by her love of splendour she further added to the
general distress. The relations between John the Fearless and the duke
of Orleans became more embittered, and on the 23rd of November 1407
Orleans was murdered in the streets of Paris at the instigation of his
rival. The young duke Charles of Orleans married the daughter of the
Gascon count Bernard VII. of Armagnac, and presently formed alliances
with the dukes of Berry, Bourbon and Brittany, and others who formed the
party known as the Armagnacs (see ARMAGNAC), against the Burgundians who
had gained the upper hand in the royal council. In 1411 John the
Fearless contracted an alliance with Henry IV. of England, and civil war
began in the autumn, but in 1412 the Armagnacs in their turn sought
English aid, and, by promising the sovereignty of Aquitaine to the
English king, gave John the opportunity of posing as defender of France.
In Paris the Burgundians were hand in hand with the corporation of the
butchers, who were the leaders of the Parisian populace. The
malcontents, who took their name from one of their number, Caboche,
penetrated into the palace of the dauphin Louis, and demanded the
surrender of the unpopular members of his household. A royal ordinance,
promising reforms in administration, was promulgated on the 27th of May
1413, and some of the royal advisers were executed. The king and the
dauphin, powerless in the hands of Duke John and the Parisians, appealed
secretly to the Armagnac princes for deliverance. They entered Paris in
September; the ordinance extracted by the Cabochiens was rescinded; and
numbers of the insurgents were banished the city.

In the next year Henry V. of England, after concluding an alliance with
Burgundy, resumed the pretensions of Edward III. to the crown of France,
and in 1415 followed the disastrous battle of Agincourt. The two elder
sons of Charles VI., Louis, duke of Guienne, and John, duke of Touraine,
died in 1415 and 1417, and Charles, count of Ponthieu, became heir
apparent. Paris was governed by Bernard of Armagnac, constable of
France, who expelled all suspected of Burgundian sympathies and treated
Paris like a conquered city. Queen Isabeau was imprisoned at Tours, but
escaped to Burgundy. The capture of Paris by the Burgundians on the 20th
of May 1418 was followed by a series of horrible massacres of the
Armagnacs; and in July Duke John and Isabeau, who ass