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The bitterness of the avuncular factions was now intensified. The House of Burgundy by marriage and other means had grown to be one of the most powerful in Europe and was at fierce enmity with the House of Orleans. At the death of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, his son Jean sans Peur, sought to assume his father's supremacy as well as his title: the Duke of Orleans, strong in the queen's support, determined to foil his purpose. Each fortified his hôtel in Paris and assembled an army. Friends, however, intervened; they were reconciled, and in November 1407 the two dukes attended mass at the Church of the Grands Augustins, took the Holy Sacrament and dined together. As Jean rose from table the Duke of Orleans placed the Order of the Porcupine round his neck; swore bonne amour et fraternité, and they kissed each other with tears of joy. On 23rd November a forged missive was handed to the Duke of Orleans, requiring his attendance on the queen. He set forth on a mule, accompanied by two squires and five servants carrying torches. It was a sombre night, and as the unsuspecting prince rode up the Rue Vieille du Temple behind his little escort, humming a tune and playing with his glove, a band of assassins fell upon him from the shadow of the postern La Barbette, crying "

Succours from France stirred the king to a renewed attack on Glyndwr in November; but with the same ill-success. Storms and want of food wrecked the English army and forced it to retreat; a year of rest raised Glyndwr to new strength; and when the long-promised body of eight thousand Frenchmen joined him in 1407 he ventured even to cross the border and to threaten Worcester.

Thence the wretched peasants fled to the deserted limestone Causse of Quercy and occupied the abandoned villages and farms. They obtained but a short respite, for in 1407 the Companies returned to their former quarters. Charles VI. imposed a heavy tax on the whole kingdom to enable him to carry on the war against the English.

His was, in foreign policy, an inglorious and disastrous reign; at home, a time of comfort and material prosperity. The heir to the crown was Francois d'Angouleme, great-grandson of that Louis d'Orleans who had been assassinated in the bad days of the strife between Burgundians and Armagnacs, in 1407, and great-great-grandson of Charles V. of France.

Part of the ditch had been made and perhaps revetted as early as 1407, but it was not till twenty years later that it began to be dug to the enormous breadth and depth which it boasts to-day. The size of it was always a source of pride to Nurembergers, and it was perhaps due to this reason that up till as recently as 1869 it was left perfectly intact. On the average it is about 100 feet broad.

Some privileges of trade were judiciously extended to them, and, in 1407, Henry granted to the Mayors of the city the privilege of having a gilded sword carried before them, in the same manner as the Mayors of London.

It is supposed that the first foundations of a church on this spot were laid in the year 365, in the reign of Valentian I. It was subsequently several times rebuilt, a portion of the work which was executed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries still remaining. The other portions were built in 1407, by the duke of Burgundy, and are of a deep red color.

It was, however, but a very short time afterwards that, on the 23d of November, 1407, as the Duke of Orleans was returning from having dined with the queen, and was riding with only two esquires and four or five men on foot carrying torches, twenty armed men sprang out from behind a house and rushed upon him.

Are we going to have a winter such as we had three years ago, in '80, when wood cost eight sous the measure?" "Bah! that's nothing, Master Thibaut, compared with the winter of 1407, when it froze from St. Martin's Day until Candlemas! and so cold that the pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every three words, in the Grand Chamber! which interrupted the registration of justice."

She started for Paris in the early part of December, 1407, during the roughest winter, it was said, ever known for several centuries, taking with her all her children. The Duke of Berry, the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Clermont, and the constable went to meet her. Herself and all her train in deep mourning, she dismounted at the hostel of St.