v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. t^ Bavaria, a dull, selfish woman, lost to all sense of duty. She neglected her husband in his fits of madness, leaving him deprived of all comforts and decencies, and unheeded by any one save the Milanese wife of the Duke of Orleans, Valentina Visconii, who could soothe and cheer him when in his saddest state. The two rival kingdoms were in no state for war, and in 1 396 a truce was made, and after- wards prolonged for twenty-eight years, on condition that Richard should restore Brest to Britanny, and Cherbourg to France, and should marry Isabel, the seven-years-old daughter of Charles. In the same year John, count of Nevers, known as the Fearless, the son of the Duke of Burgundy, led a great force to help Sigismund, King of Hungary (who was afterwards Emperor) against the Ottoman Sultan Bajazet. But the Christian army was defeated at Nikopolis, and most of the Burgundian knights were massacred by the Turks. Count' John and some others were ransomed. 17. Rivalry of Orleans and Burgundy, 1402. — In 1399 the dethronement of Richard II. threatened to disturb the truce with England, for the Duke of Orleans would not acknowledge Henry IV. Phihp of Burgundy took his part, and there were such fierce disputes between the uncle and nephew that they nearly came to blows. Lewis of Orleans appears to have had no notion save of making the people supply means for the pleasures of their masters ; but the Duke of Burgundy was for sparing and protecting them, and thus so gained the hearts of the people of Paris that they were devoted to his family for three generations. In him the unhappy king lost one true friend on his death in 1404. Even during his illness the Duke of Orleans broke into the treasury and seized 800,000 gold crowns, two-thirds of the contents, causing such a scandal that the king, in a lucid interval, sent for the new Duke John of Burgundy. Lewis of Orleans fled at his ap- proach, carrying off the queen, her children, and those of John himself. However the children were overtaken and brought back, and Duke John fortified Paris and armed the citizens. War was prevented by the Dukes of Berry and Bourbon, and a sort of reconciliation was made, though the two cousins hated one another with deadly hatred. Lewis squandered the public money, and disgraced the queen and himself by their vices, while John showed some desire for the welfare of the kingdom, though not so much as for his own greatness. F
