It was seven or eight in the evening, and the
inhabitants of the quarter were abed. He set forth in haste,
accompanied by two squires riding on one horse, a page, and a
few varlets running with torches. As he rode, he hummed to
himself and trifled with his glove. And so riding, he was
beset by the bravoes of his enemy and slain. My lord of
Burgundy set an ill precedent in this deed, as he found some
years after on the bridge of Montereau; and even in the
meantime he did not profit quietly by his rival's death. The
horror of the other princes seems to have perturbed himself;
he avowed his guilt in the council, tried to brazen it out,
finally lost heart and fled at full gallop, cutting bridges
behind him, towards Bapaume and Lille. And so there we have
the head of one faction, who had just made himself the most
formidable man in France, engaged in a remarkably hurried
journey, with black care on the pillion. And meantime, on
the other side, the widowed duchess came to Paris in
appropriate mourning, to demand justice for her husband's
death. Charles VI., who was then in a lucid interval, did
probably all that he could, when he raised up the kneeling
suppliant with kisses and smooth words. Things were at a
dead-lock. The criminal might be in the sorriest fright, but
he was still the greatest of vassals.
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