Noble Blood - A Duke Murdered in the Streets of Paris

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

When King Charles VI of France suffered from severe mental illness, a council ruled in his place. And on that council was his brother, Louis of Orleans, and his uncle, Philip of Burgundy. As they vied for power, their rivalry would turn bloody, and ultimately, set France on the path to Civil War. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hey, this is Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. I am so excited that my novel

immortality is now, I'm pretty sure, officially out in the world. And it would mean the world to me if you went out and ordered a copy or found one or gave it as a gift. It's a story of a young woman in Regency, London, and a lot of historical characters that I've covered on this podcast and make an appearance. I don't want to spoil more than that, but if you like this podcast, I really think you'll like it. It's called Immortality, a Love Story. Let's see, other than that. If you want to support our show, you can do that at patreon.com slash nobleblood Tales. We have merch that I've linked in the episode description,

and as always, just thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Paris 1407. On a cold November night, Jacquesette Griffard was putting her baby to bed on the top floor of their house on the Rueviet de Tont. Around her, residents of the city were settling in. Torches were extinguished,

and doors were being barred. against the chilled night air. From the street below her, Jacques could hear the clip-clop of a mule's hooves. She peered out of her window and saw a small party traveling toward her, a nobleman at its center, singing merrily. She watched the group for a minute and then turned back to her baby. Suddenly, she heard a cry from the street. Kill him! Kill him! A man shouted. Jekette ran back to the window and looked down in horror as a group of masked men emerged from the shadows and set upon the nobleman and his party. A man in a red hood swung his axe at the nobleman, severing his hand and knocking him to the ground. The nobleman looked frantically around him.

Two of his attendants had abandoned him in their fright. Another two had been carried away by their spooked horse. Two more had tried to defend their lord. only to be brought down by the mob. The nobleman was alone, surrounded by assailants. Blood gushed from the stump of his wrist as he crouched pitifully on the ground. What is this? he pleaded. What are you doing?

The masked men said nothing, just closed in, slashing him with their swords and axes. They meant to kill him, but they took their time with it, dealing the nobleman painful, not fatal, blow. Blood sprayed the street. Jekette stood frozen at her window, holding her baby, as one man raised his axe and brought it down on the nobleman's head, splitting his skull nearly in half, sending part of his brain into the gutter.

Shocked out of her silence, Jokquet screamed from her second-story window. Murder! Murder! She didn't know it then, but she had just witnessed one of the worst crime of medieval France, a brutal act that would lead to civil war, because the nobleman who now lay dead in the street, oozing blood, missing teeth, and a hand and part of his brain, was Louis Duke of Orleans, brother of the king of France. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. Close relatives of royals are often powerful figures in society. but rarely more so than during the reign of King Charles the 6th of France.

Since 1392, Charles had suffered bouts of severe mental illness, rendering him unable to rule. For more on Charles' specific problems, including periods of believing he was made of glass, you can listen to our episode Charles the Beloved, the Mad, the Fool. You might recall a sad story we talked about in that episode from before Charles, his descent into madness, where he and some of his men dressed up as wild men for a costume ball. Unfortunately, their costumes were extremely flammable, and when the king's brother leaned in with a torch to get a better look at them, the men went up in flames. The king survived, but four of his friends did not. Years later, the king would fall into the madness that incapacitated him as a ruler.

During the king's absences, control of the country fell to his closest relatives, including his uncles, the dukes of Barry, Bourbonne, and Burgundy, and his brother, Louis, Duke of Orleans, who happened to have been the one with the torch leaning in on that fateful night during the ball of the burning men. For most of the 1390s, the most prominent of these men controlling France was the Duke of Burgundy, a man called Philip the Bold. A commanding character, Philip had earned his nickname thanks to his bravery in battle

when he was just 14. Now, middle-aged, Philip controlled unparalleled wealth and land and used his position, on the King's Council, as his uncle, to take even more. Philip wasn't alone in this self-interested approach to ruling. Being on the King's Council

gave all of the Dukes the power to enrich themselves, and they didn't hesitate to do so. Many of them had served on Charles's Regency Council during the first years of his reign, since the king had been crowned at the young age of 11, and they had suffered during the years between Charles coming of age and his first episode of mental illness, a period during which Charles, as a lucid king, brought on new advisors, who advocated for a more equitable distribution of wealth. These policies had won Charles the love of his subjects, but not long after he first fell ill in 1392, they were reversed by the Dukes, who resumed their earlier program of raiding the Treasury and using their ill-gotten gains to bribe government officials.

France was in a precarious position, given its ongoing war with England, at this point where about 60 years into the 100 years war, but instead of seriously defending their country, the dukes used the war as a pretext for raising taxes and reaping the profits. By the late 1390s, the dukes were all enormously rich, that is, except for the king's brother, Louis. Unlike their uncles, Louis had struggled to assert himself in the royal council. He was also disliked by much of French society, especially because of his role as guy who brought a torch to party with flammable costumes. In general, the French saw Louis as a reckless, greedy womanizer with an unhealthy interest in the occult. The perception wasn't too far off base. Louis loved to gamble, throw extravagant parties,

investigate the dark arts, and seduce married noble women. He was even rumored to have a private portrait gallery, consisting of nude paintings of his conquests. In one particularly notorious, possibly apocryful incident of debauchery, Louis was said to have invited a nobleman to his palace. When the man arrived, Louis took him into a room, which had a naked woman lying on the bed, her face covered by a veil. Louis asked the nobleman to judge how beautiful his mistress was.

The horrified man quickly realized that the veil naked woman was his wife. Pretty rude of Louis, and if I had to weigh in, probably a pretty good way of making enemies. But Louis was also a savvy politician. He knew that he had one major advantage over his uncles, his close relationship with his brother, the king. Louis and Charles had been inseparable since childhood when their parents' early deaths had made them reliant on one another. The king was also fond of Louis's Italian wife, Valentina Visconti, too fond, some thought, leading to Valentina's exile from court in 1396 due to her rumored witchcraft. Stories for another time. And soon the tide would change. Louis, not his uncles, would become the dominating force on the

king's council. The transition began in 1399, when an epitaphys, of plague exploded in Paris. Louis stayed in the city with the king, even as other dukes retreated to their country estates. This period of constant companionship cemented the brothers' relationship forever. Louis began to receive royal grants, increasing his territory and his treasury immensely. With his new resources, he executed a political shake-up, filling the government with his allies. And as his power grew, Louis' public reputation underwent a makeover. He became more discreet in his affairs, more mature in his interests. A man who had once been criticized for his inappropriate fondness for the finer things was now praised for his excellent taste. He wasn't extravagant with

his money. He was just generous with it, Quartier's exclaimed, as they conveniently benefited from said generosity. For many, as the historian Jonathan Sumpton writes, Louis was, quote, the kingly figure that Charles X might have been. Less impressed by the new Louis was Philip, Duke of Burgundy, who saw his influence Wayne as Louis waxed. By Philip's death in 1404, Louis had all but supplanted him as the most powerful man on the council, and perhaps the king's him. This reversal did not sit well with Philip's son and heir, John. Like his father, John was intelligent, ambitious, and determined. But he lacked his father's legendary diplomatic skills. John was quick to anger, constantly paranoid and prone to violence. In the cutthroat political

environment of the Royal Council, these qualities would both help and hurt him. He adopted opted a populist strategy, casting himself as an opponent of the corrupt of indulgent elites who raised taxes on the poor to feed their expensive habits, a political class whose most viable representative was Louis, Duke of Orleans. To what extent John actually believed in the principles he publicly proclaimed is difficult to know. His tirades against the government handouts to the rich never stopped him from accepting those same handouts. But he was a genuinely skilled administrator and military leader,

and the excesses and inefficiencies he saw in the French government must have infuriated him. This conflict between John and Louis quickly escalated. The French public, especially the Parisians, were sick of the high taxes raised by the Royal Council. Simultaneously, the members of the Royal Council were getting concerned at how much power Louis had. In July 1405, things came to ahead when King Charles, briefly of sound mind, agreed to summon an emergency council in Paris to address the state of affairs. John, with his characteristic light touch, decided to bring 600 armed men with him to the meeting. Upon hearing of this, Louis rallied his own troops and headed to the city. Battle lines were drawn in the Royal Council, which was pretty evenly split between the two men.

But those lines were also being drawn in Paris, where nearly all of the citizens supported John. For months, France teetered on the edge of civil war. But war is expensive. The dukes who had allied themselves with Louis and John eventually started to withdraw their men, citing costs. Louis and John, despite their vast wealth, were also feeling the financial burn. On October 16th, the men reached a truce, vowing to keep the peace and be brothers forever. Unsurprisingly, this happy moment did not last. To prevent further power struggles of this sort, the council was recognized with Queen Isibo, the king's wife, at its head.

The thought was that the Queen would be an impartial vote, serving only the best interests of her husband and their kingdom. In reality, it put Isobo in an impossible position and gave Louis an advantage. Over the years, he and Isabel had formed a close relationship, which was sometimes rumored to be romantic. Throughout 1405 and 1406, Louis and John maintained a cordial if chilly relationship, but they couldn't trust each other, and in April, 1406, Louis struck a decisive blow against his rival. At a meeting attended by the king, the Dauphan, and all of the major royal council members, except for John who was not invited, the council was once again reorganized.

John's allies were removed, not just from the council, but also from the treasury and finance departments. When John learned of this policy upon his arrival in Paris a week later, there was nothing he could do. With the most important government bodies now aligned against him, it was impossible for John to access the money the crown had previously given him to support his duchy. It was a dire state of affairs. Without money to administer his territory,

John stood to lose everything. It seemed he had only one course of action, reconcile with Louis, who, it appeared, had bested him once and for. for all. Despite his stubbornness, John was a clear-eyed strategist. Louis was too powerful to be beaten. So, in November, John agreed to a formal reconciliation, organized by their uncle, the Duke of Barry. He and Louis went to mass together on November 20th, and exchanged vows of perpetual friendship. Louis, perhaps relishing his victory, seemed inclined toward graciousness.

The two men had a drink together on November 22nd and made plans to meet for dinner later that week. Observers heaved a collective sigh of relief. With these two great forces finally at peace, the whole country could now rest easy. Or so they thought. After that fatal ball of the Burning Man back in 1393, Louis had endowed a chapel at the Celestine Priory in Paris as a part of his penance. Men can contain multitudes, along with his proclivity for beautiful women and illicit stories of sorcery, Louis was also deeply religious. He occasionally spent the night at the chapel, meditating and praying in the small sleeping chamber he'd built for that purpose.

After one such night in November 1407, according to the 17th century historian Louis Bureet, Duke Louis woke up panting in terror. He'd had a terrible nightmare, he told the prior, a dream of his own death. He found himself, as he said, in a magnificent orchard filled with gleaming fruit. But when he reached for the fruit, the figure of death appeared before him, brandishing its scythe, the black shrouded skeleton told Louis, I carry away both the young and the old. Louis blinked and found himself before the throne of God,

waiting in agony for judgment. Would it be heaven or hell? He would not find out, at least not that night, because at the moment of judgment, Louis awoke. Profoundly rattled by the dream, he hurried to the prior and begged to convince. confess his sins. The prior heard his confession and absolved him, but Louis could not shake the dread the dream had imparted. It was a strange time for Louis to be dreaming of his death. After a number

of tumultuous years, his political position was more secure than ever. He had wealth, influence, and a burgeoning relationship with his former enemy, John Duke of Burgundy. But within the week, Louis was dead. Though the Duke may have predicted his own death, no one else saw it coming. The people of France, noble, and common alike, were shocked and horrified by the brutal crime. The Duke of Orleans may not have been the most popular figure,

but certainly no one deserved to die like that. The government quickly began an investigation, led by the provost of Paris, Guillaume de Tignoville, who the historian Eric Jagger, describes in Blood Royal as, quote, one of history's first detectives. Detignonville had no shortage of suspects.

There were furious husbands of all the women Louis had seduced. There were angry Parisians impoverished by Louis' policies. There were English spies who wanted to weaken the country. There were the lesser lords whose property Louis had absorbed in his pursuit of power. And there were his political rivals, including, of course, John. But John and Louis had recently reconciled, and the Duke of Burgundy seemed devastated by the death of his longtime enemy turned newfound friend. He had helped escort Louis' coffin into the Celestine Priory, where he wept through the funeral service. So Tignonville had to look elsewhere.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of witnesses, including Jocquette, the young woman who had watched the attack from her window. Detinionville and his staff interviewed them all. Soon, a picture of the crime emerged, and it was not one of random violence, but of careful premeditated murder. On the night of his death, Louis had gone to visit Queen Isabel at her residence, the Hotel Barbette.

Two weeks earlier, Isabel had lost a newborn son shortly after his birth, and Louis visited regularly in an attempt to keep her spirits up. At eight o'clock, a man came to the house, announcing himself as a valet of the king, and declared that the king needed to speak to his brother at once. Louis, along with his small traveling party, quickly departed, setting off down the Rue Ville de Tampre.

At the intersection of the Rue de Rocier, he was attacked. After their deadly work was done, the assailants fled, knocking out any lit torches they passed to obscure their path, throwing caltrops, clusters of metal spikes meant to disable pursuing men or horses behind them. Several observers claimed to have seen the men coming from a house across the street from Jaquette's, and de Tignonville later determined that the assassins had rented the home under false names, using it as a base of operations.

The assailants had begun their search for a house more than five months earlier, hinting at the level of planning involved. All of Paris watched Detinionneville's progress closely. The city was on lockdown, with all the gates leading out tightly shut, and people were arming themselves, fearful that the murder was only the beginning of the bloodshed. After all, Louis had been the closest thing they had to a king at the time, given his brother's mental illness.

Now that Louis was dead, who would keep order in? in France. The Dukes of the Royal Council were asking themselves the same question. On November 27th, they summoned Detinionville to a meeting and asked him to report on his progress. Detinionville replied that he had learned many things, but had not yet gathered enough evidence

to conclusively identify the murderers. To get to the truth, he told the assembled men, he might need to search the royal residences, including their own. It was a bold request, one that these high-ranking dukes had every right to refuse, but they knew that the stability of the government

relied on uncovering the murderer. One by one, they agreed to let Tetonionville search their homes. All of them agreed, that is, except for John, Duke of Burgundy. At D'Tinionville's request, he had gone pale, As everyone awaited his answer, an awkward silence grew.

Suddenly, John stood and beckoned for two of his uncles, the dukes of Barry and Anjou, to join him in a side room. Confused, the men agreed. Once they were out of the council's hearing, John turned to his uncles and exclaimed, I did it. By the tempting of the devil, I did it. The dukes were horrified and shocked. the Duke of Barry, who had facilitated Louis and John's reconciliation ceremony only days earlier, cried,

Now I have lost two nephews. But they agreed to keep John's confession quiet for the moment in order to determine next steps. The Duke of Anjou returned to the main room and adjourned the meeting. Detignonville didn't know what John had said, but it's likely he could guess. It was the conclusion he had predicted. His request to search the Duke's houses had been his way of flushing John out. Despite the Duke's outward grief, Detinionville had quickly narrowed in on him after witnesses reported seeing the fleeing assassins

wearing the Burgundian colors. The next morning, Barry and Anjou called a meeting of the Royal Council. They purposefully did not invite John, but he showed up anyway. When Barry, shocked at John's boldness, turned him forcefully away, John was confused. He seemed to have taken Barry and Anjou's silence

the day before as a tacit approval of his actions. But it wasn't. He stormed down the stairs, bumping into another uncle, the Duke of Bourbonne, who asked where he was going. Furious and flustered, John allegedly yelled,

I'm going out to piss. Smooth move. In reality, John was fleeing Paris. His uncle's rejection revealed to him that he was no longer safe. And indeed, when the Duke of Bourbon learned of John's confession from Barry and Anjou, he demanded to know why John had been allowed to leave. Quote, this thing must be handled in the right way, he declared, but it was too late. Somehow, John and his retinue had managed to slip through one of the city's closed gates,

and they were gone. Gone too were the action. killers, retainers of John's who had been paid handsomely for their work. By the beginning of December, John was safely back in his own territories. In Paris, the Dukes were at a standstill. They were worried that sending men after John would provoke an armed retaliation leading to civil war. The king, however, was in a period of good health, and he was more willing to act. On December 10th, Louis' widow, Valentina, arrived. in Paris, after more than a decade in exile. Remember her alleged witchcraft?

She pleaded with King Charles for justice for her husband, and he agreed, declaring that he would avenge Louis. But in early January, he relapsed into psychosis. The weak-willed dukes walked back his promises to Valentina, and instead decided to organize a conference with John, set for January. emboldened by the lack of response from Paris, John decided to double down. He told his uncles in December that he had been possessed by the devil when he decided to murder Louis. Now he changed his tune, shaping a shocking defense for himself,

in which he claimed it was not the devil who inspired him to kill, but God. At the conference on January 20, 1408, John astounded listeners by DeKineers. declaring that the murder had been both righteous and necessary, given Louis' immoral character and abuses of power. And, John continued, he would return to Paris to make his case to anyone who wished to hear. This was just what the other dukes had most feared. Paris, where Louis' taxes had hurt thousands, was home to the most receptive audience for John's arguments,

and an inflamed populace riled up with tales of justifiable murder was a recipe for disaster. On February 28, 1408, John rode into Paris. Despite warnings from the Royal Council, he had brought hundreds of armed men with him. Thousands of Parisians thronged the streets to witness his entrance, cheering him on loudly. Despite all of the fans,

John knew his popularity wasn't universal. He quickly set about adding a fortified tower to his Paris mansion so he could sleep in safety. And when he showed up at his public defense, a carefully staged show trial that John himself had organized, he was wearing chain mail under his fine robes. It was now March 8th, and most of the high-ranking citizens of Paris

had turned up at the Hotel Saint-Pol, the king's main residence, to hear John's attempt to justify his action. Notably absent was the king, who was suffering another bad spell. Presiding instead was the 11-year-old d'ophon, who sat alongside the dukes of Barry, Bourbonne, Anjou, and Burgundy himself, on a bench at the front of the hall. John had enlisted Jean Petit, a theologian from the University of Paris, to present his defense, and Petit came ready to rumble. Standing in front of the crowd, Petit delivered a shocking four-hour-long speech, which began with the statement that it is, quote,

permissible and meritorious to kill a tyrant, and the Duke of Orleans was a tyrant, end quote. Continued with an allegory in which Louis was the devil and John the Holy Avenger, and he moved into allegations of witchcraft, including claims that Louis had used demonic powers to create cursed swords with which to kill the king. He also outlined a variety of ways that Louis had betrayed the king and the French and concluded with the statement that John deserved not just a royal pardon for his act,

but also, quote, love, honor, and riches. When Petit finished, a stunned silence filled the hall. None of those present had expected John to be particularly repentant for his crime, but no one had expected him to actively argue he deserved to be rewarded for what he had done. When Petit asked if John endorsed all he had said, John replied that he did. Later, John would have Petit's oration made into four costly, beautifully illuminated books, titled The Justification of the Duke of Burgundy. Despite John's satisfaction with Patea's speech, not everyone on Team Burgundy was so enthusiastic.

Jean Gerson, once an ally of John's, would later write that the justification was, quote, text for damnation, a treatise for death, a charter of dishonor, and a message from the pit of hell. The only person whose opinion really mattered, though, was King Charles. The next day, with the king briefly lucid, John and his allies pushed Charles for a royal pardon, which the king granted. Charles also signed a document, likely drafted by John's team,

that empowered John to pursue and punish anyone who insulted him, the 15th century equivalent of a license to kill. Unsurprisingly, this outcome did not sit well with many nobles, especially not Queen Isobo or Louis' widow Valentina. When John was forced to return to his lands to quell an uprising in July, Valentina and Isabel began plotting their revenge. On July 2nd at a council meeting attended by the king, John's royal pardon was revoked.

Two months later, the women hosted a show trial of their own, at which John was denounced for his treachery and ordered to surrender to the king's justice. Meanwhile, John was decisively putting down a rebellion in liege. His commanding performance at the Battle of Ote earned him the nickname John the Fearless, which would stick with him for the rest of his life. The battle also brought monetary reward in the form of compensation paid by the newly defeated rebels. His newly energized army and his newly flesh treasury terrified the Oralienists.

With these resources, John might be able to take and indeed, when John returned to Paris in November, he brought 2,000 troops with him. Afraid of war, the Royal Council once again capitulated to John. They met little opposition. Valentina, her husband's greatest advocate, had died in December and the couple's surviving children were still young. The oldest, Charles, the new Duke of Orleans, was only 14, so it was wasn't hard for the royal counselors to push through their plan for reconciliation. On March 9, 1409, the houses of Burgundy and Orleans met at the Chautrey Cathedral to reconcile. The king, slipping in and out of sanity, presided.

Speaking first, John declared that while he did not apologize for having Louis killed, he did apologize for the pain that this act had caused the king. The king accepted his, let's say, non-apology. Now it was the Orleans' brothers' turn. The boys were sobbing and had to be pushed to recite their statement of pardon. It was humiliating for the boys and horrifying to many onlookers. The clerk of parliament wrote of the ceremony, Peace, peace, and yet no peace.

Far from assuaging the Orleans supporters or Orleanists, The Treaty of Chartre recommitted them to revenge. The young Charles of Orleans began to recruit allies, including the powerful Count Bernard of Armagnac, whose daughter he would eventually marry. In Paris, John was inadvertently helping Charles cause. Through a series of short-sighted, poorly executed, and tactless political moves through the fall of 1409, John alienated nearly all the most powerful. the powerful dukes of the council.

Charles and his party eagerly welcomed these discontented dukes. In April 1410, the Orleanists vowed to raise an army against John. In response, John started mustering his own troops. By 1411, the Orleanists and the Burgundians were engaged in a full-blown civil war. I'll note here that histories of the time usually refer to the Orleanists as Army Arminiacs, thanks to the central role at this point of the Count of Arminiac. But we'll keep calling them for the sake of this episode, the Orleanists, so you know these are the men who supported the deceased Duke of Orleans and then his young son, the new Duke of Orleans. For more than two years, the civil war devastated the cities and countryside around Paris.

Civilians were just as likely to be killed as soldiers. Towns were burned and homes looted. The two parties would occasionally pause to draw up some sort of unsatisfactory treaty, which would quickly be broken. It seemed like the war would never end. But in mid-1413, something crucial shifted. Parisians, longtime supporters of John, began to turn against him. They blamed him for the war which was ruining their businesses and cutting off the city's food supply. pro-orlinist sentiment rose. And then, in a fitting moment for this Satan-filled saga,

a flyer began appearing all around Paris, addressed from the Dark Lord himself. It was a thank-you letter of sorts, in which Lucifer, the, quote, King of Hell, Prince of the Shadows, master, regent, guardian, and governor of all the devils in hell, expressed his gratitude for the service of his, quote, dearest and well-loved lieutenant and proctor general in the west, John of Burgundy. There's not much you can do to contest an endorsement from Satan and John saw, quite literally, the writing on the wall. He had lost Paris. On August 23rd, he once again fled the city. Outside of the ongoing fighting, the French had to worry about the English. Both the Burgundians and the Orleanists had requested French assistance in the Civil War,

giving the new English king, Henry V, a clear picture of the internal French turmoil. He knew it was the perfect opportunity to strike, and in 1415, he did, taking the city of Harfleur after a relatively short siege. The French, already ravaged by years of civil war, did their best to resist, bringing a massive force to face the English at,

Angkor in late October. But maybe you know this story already. The French forces weren't enough. The English annihilated the French in one of history's most famous defeats. Charles of Orleans, leader of the Orleanists, was captured by the English at Agincourt and spent the next 25 years as a prisoner in England. John of Burgundy, by contrast, had failed to show at the battle. Even as the country fought off the English, the infighting continued. In 1418, John retook Paris, executing a bloody coup which left hundreds dead, but eventually even he could not deny the threat the English represented. If the French wanted to repel their foreign enemies, they needed to unite internally.

John began negotiations with the teenaged Dauphan of France, who had created a shadow Orleanist government in Borge following John's capture of Paris. The Dauphan seemed amenable to the idea of a truce, but his advisors, middle-aged men who had spent the past decade fighting for the Orleanist cause, were not as enthusiastic. Nonetheless, negotiations progressed, and a treaty of reconciliation was drawn up in July 1419. The Duke and the Dauphan planned to formalize the treaty on the bridge at Montreux in September.

A special enclosure was built in the center of the bridge for the meeting, with heavy wooden doors on each side. The men would each enter from one side, accompanied by only ten companions. All were to be unarmed, though they were allowed to wear armor. Of course, each man also brought hundreds more armed men to wait just outside the enclosure, just in case. At 5 o'clock on September 10th, 1419,

John the fearless entered the enclosure through his side of the bridge. He wore scarlet robes and dripped with jewels. The Delphonse was already waiting for him. Removing his hat, John knelt before the prince and greeted him. The Dolphan bade him to stand, telling him he had spoken well. For a moment, the promise of peace hung over the bridge. But then the Delphan looked to his advisors, and one of them yelled, kill, kill. The door on the Dauphan's side of the enclosure swung open and armed men flooded in.

They swarmed the Duke, swinging at him with axes and swords, brutally wounding him before they struck the final blow. The parallels to Louis' murder were intentional. One of the killers, a devoted or lenist, almost severed John's hand as the Duke tried to defend himself. He shouted, you cut off my master's hand and I shall cut off yours. On the other side of the bridge, the Duke's troops were desperately trying to get into the enclosure, but they were brought down by the Dauphan's archers who had appeared on the riverbanks. There was nothing they could do anyway. The Duke was dead. The Dauphins men stripped his body of its finery and threw it in a wooden coffin,

which was eventually buried at a nearby church. The assassination of John of Vosvenor, Burgundy was a victory for the Orleanists, but ultimately a tremendous tragedy for France. The Civil War reignited more fiercely than before and eventually led John's son, the new Duke of Burgundy, to ally himself with the English instead of the French for more than 15 years. The whole country suffered immensely in the all-out war that followed, and though cause and effect is a tricky business to trace in history, it's hard. to imagine that things would have played out exactly the same way had not the Duke of Burgundy's

men set out on a dark Parisian night to kill their master's mortal enemy. But in a classic case of two wrongs don't make a right, it's equally hard to imagine that France would have been so terribly affected by the English had it not been for the killing of John of Burgundy. More than a century after John's death in 1521, King France's of France, who was, in fact, Louis's great-great-grandson, was presented with the Duke's skull by a Burgundian monk. Sire, the monk is alleged to have said, pointing to a wound in the skull. By that hole, the English entered France. That's the story of the assassination of Louis of Orleans, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about the

legendary rivalry between Louis and John of Burgundy. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent. He said if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes,

but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.

I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.

Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Although John and Louis' rivalry eventually reached murderous proportions, it also had its prettier moments. Take their emblems, for example.

Like all good royals, each man had selected a symbolic image to represent themselves, which they had embroidered on their clothes, and engraved on their armor, and carved into their castles. For his emblem, Louis chose a wooden club. In response, John made his emblem a carpenter's plane, capable of shaving down, say, a wooden club. After the murder, some Parisians were said to have remarked, marked, the naughty club has been planed. And then there were their mottoes. When John and Louis had nearly gone to war

against one another in the summer of 1405, their troops had paraded around, carrying banners emblazoned with their leaders' respective mottos. Louie's read, I want it, or I challenge him, depending on the translation. But I Want It is a fair translation. And John's, you might be able to guess it, is banners red. I have it. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is produced by Rima Il-Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on. a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be

that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.