University of Virginia Library

PREFACE

On the very day on which the Duke of Orleans died was born Dunois, Bastard of Orleans (the offspring of his amour with Madame De Chauny), who was cherished by his widow with a love not less than that which she bare to her own children, and to whose wisdom and prowess charles VII. owed the restoration of Normandy and Guyenne to the crown of France; whilst his legitimate son, Charles Duc d'Orleans, wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, applied himself to literature and poetry for his consolation during a mournful captivity of twenty-five years. “Il faisait des vers mieux que personne en France, et trouvait un douloureux plaisir à célébrer, dans de touchantes ballades, le regret de passer sa vie loin de son pays de sa famille, de ses amours, et de rester oisif et inutile, sans pouvoir gagner la gloire des chevaliers. Il déplorait aussi les calamités et rappelait l'ancienne renommée du noble royaume de France, lui reprochant ses désordres qui avaient attiré la colère celeste. Il demandait à Dieu de lui accorder, avant d'arriver à la vieillesse, les plaisirs de la paix et du retour. D'autres fois il reprochait à la Fortune d'exercer sur lui une si rude seigneurie, et de faire si fort la renchérie.

“‘Dois-je toujours ainsi languir? [OMITTED]
Hélas! et n'est-ce pas assez?

ce triste refrain revenait à chaque couplet de la ballade, et elle finissait ainsi:

“De ballader j'ai beau loisir,
Autres déduits me son cassés,
Prisonnier suis, d'amour martyr;
Hélas! et n'est-ce pas assez?’”
Barante, vol. vi. pp. 228, 229.

The gifts and attainments which adorn the exile of a Prince of the House of Orleans in our own time, are not therefore without a precedent in times past.

In this Play I have desired to give some such representation as dramatic writing can convey, of a period in the history of France under Charles VI. when society was reduced, by disorders in the realm and schism in the Church, to perhaps the worst condition of which the Middle Ages can afford an example. The only feature of the time which can be contemplated with pleasure is the exceeding love which the people bare to their afflicted King. For the alienation of his mind, though intermittent, relieved him in their eyes from responsibility for their sufferings; showing how deprivation of power in a Sovereign (casual it is true in this case, but significant perhaps of the like results in cases in which it is politically ordained), may tend to enhance, rather than abate, the love and reverence of the people. Popular indignation was directed upon others, whilst loyalty and pity held a free course; and thenyouthful errors of the King (which were not those of an evil disposition) were forgotten in his calamity. He deserved that they should be forgotten; for so often as reason returned he seemed to be as tenderly sensible of the sufferings of his subjects as they were of his; and what little precarious power he possessed from time to time, walkingalways on the edge of insanity, aws exerted for their relief.

His brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, aws the representative of the chivalry of france for the time being: “Rien si chevaleresque,” says the historian: “D'ailleurs ilétoit

aimable, agréable et doux dans ses manières; son langage étoit facile, raisonable et séduisant; il savoit s'entretenir mieux qu'aucun Prince avec les Docteurs et les hommes habiles des conseils du Roi.” And in the appeal delivered to the Council by the Abbé of St. Fiacre on the part of his widow, shortly after his death, it is averred to have been known to every one that in eloquence and discernment his equal was hardly to be found; “Sapiebat,” he adds, “siout Angelus Domini;” whilst in his life and manners he was frank, gentle, and compassionate; and in personal beauty, says the Abbé, if that were a matter to be spoken of, there needed no more to be said than that he resembled the King.

If the duke was chivalrous, not so was the age in which he lived. Nor indeed is chivalry (in the sense of nobility of mind) the attribute of any age or of Knights and nobles at large in any time or country, though there may be more individual examples of it in one age than in another. And those who, like Aristo (himself born in the fifteenth century), ascribe to a class, will generally be found, like him, to put it back to a few centuries before any times that they know much about.

th efiftenth century at alll events was full of frauds and treacheries in every walk of life; and even a chivalrous man ion those days, if sagacious, might have been expected to be suspicious. But amongst the chivalrous qualities of Louis Duke of Orleans was a gebrous, perhaps careless, confidence in men who were not worthy to be trusted. The antagonist by whom he was first confronted at his Brother's court, his Uncle Phillipe le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, was, it is true, as honourable as himself; and Louis probably made no mistake when, in a will dated in the season of their hostility, with a magnanimous faith in the other's magnaminity, he left his children to the guardianship of his enemy. But his Uncle died before him, and when the quarrel descended to Phillipe's son, “Jean sans Peur,” Louis' confidence in the honour of an enemy was fatally misplaced.

For whilst the Duke of Orleans represented the chivalry of the time such as it was (not a virtuous or stainless chivalry), the new Duke of Burgundy was an equally genuine representative of its cruelty and pride. if he was without fear, he was also without faith; and his short career was scarcely less perfidious than ferocious, from the tragedy in the Vielle Rue du Temple, till justice met him, in the form of what may be called specific retribution, on the bridge at Montereau.

The fidelity of an historian is not to be expected of a dramatist. some transposition of events and compression of time have been necessary to bring certain slaient incidents of the period within the compass of the action; and without some variation of detail truth to art must have been sacrificed to historic truth in a larger measure than is demanded for the chief ends which historic truth is designed to subserve. even incidents which, being historically true, were at at the same time eminently dramatic or picturesque, have not always been available; inasmuch as they could not be harmonized with other dramatic effects. But under these conditions (which are I believe inevitable in all such works) my endeavour has been to represent failthfully the characters of the principal persons and the temper of the times.

The contemporary or nearly contemporary authorities are the Chronicles of Jean Juvenal des Ursins, of the Religieux de St. Denys, and of Monstrelet; and a narrative almost equally minute, but less diffuse and more animated, may be read in the “Histoire des Ducs De Burgoghe de la Maison de Valois,” by M. De Barante; an author who, more than any other modern historian, seems to live in the times of which he writes.