John (Jean) Fearless, the son of Philip the Bold, who bore the title of Count of Neversky until his father's death, is perhaps the brightest representative of the valiant family. Brave, proud and arrogant, the young count did not shy away from commoners, which made him very popular among the people.
John the Fearless gained military glory during the crusade against the Turks, which ended in the tragic battle of Nikopol. Returning from Turkish captivity, John the Fearless, who inherited the title of Duke of Burgundy in 1404, became actively involved in the protracted political struggle between the court parties of the Bourguignons and Armagnacs.
A strange sight was presented at the beginning of the 15th century by France, which found itself under the rule of the mad king Charles VI and the dissolute queen Isabella of Bavaria. Armagnacs (supporters of the king's brother, Louis d'Orléans) and bourguignons (adherents of the Burgundian dukes) fiercely fought among themselves for regency under the mentally ill king. After the death of his father, John the Fearless, who led the party of bourguignons, devoted all his strength to this struggle.
In bed with the enemy
The Duke of Burgundy, obsessed with hatred, did not stop at anything.
In an effort to crush the sworn enemy, he even went to an alliance with the British. Flirting with commoners, the modest in everyday life John branded Louis of Orleans for unacceptable luxury and extravagance "at a time when many ordinary people were suffocating under the burden of taxes and were reduced to poverty."
Indeed, the people of the split kingdom were going through terrible times. None of the parties that turned out to be equal in strength could in no way triumph over the other. And suddenly, in November 1407, sensational news spread around Paris: implacable enemies were solemnly reconciled. With numerous witnesses, they swore an oath of "true brotherhood in arms and great loyalty to each other, as is customary among noble people." Louis d'Orléans and John the Fearless, having drunk wine from the same glass, exchanged chains with their initials. Then the first of them, showing a special favor, invited the former rival to his palace, and the second, to show how he trusted him, agreed to stay with him for the night and even share one bed with him. All those present at the scene of reconciliation were moved to tears.
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Further events developed as if in a dashing detective story. Louis d'Orléans cordially received his dear guest and, after an exquisite dinner, introduced him to all the premises of the most luxurious palace. And suddenly something strange happened. Passing the next room, Louis made a movement to open the door, but for some reason changed his mind and moved on. This movement did not go unnoticed by the attentive John. To the guest's question, in a deliberately indifferent tone, why they had passed the locked room, the somewhat embarrassed host replied that he had lost the key to this door.
Twilight fell. The servants lit a night lamp in the bedroom and made the bed and left. The Duke of Burgundy fell asleep almost instantly. A quarter of an hour later Louis began to snore too.
At midnight, John got up, searched the pockets of Louis' camisole and found the key to the mysterious room. Opening the door, John the Fearless was dumbfounded: he saw in front of him … the face of his adored wife, the beautiful Marguerite de Hainaut. Louis d'Orléans, an unsurpassed womanizer, kept here a huge collection of images of former and current mistresses. The next morning, after a light breakfast, the former enemies said goodbye like best friends.
A few days later, everyone learned the amazing news: the Duke of Orleans was killed. His body was found on the rue Temple. The duke's left arm was cut off. Half of the skull, blown away by the blow of the ax, lay in the ditch. Next to the mutilated corpse lay the stabbed page Jacob de Mer.
Soon exposure
At the funeral, many cried, but the most bitter sob was the inconsolable Duke of Burgundy. Charles VI, who had another short period of enlightenment of the mind, ordered to immediately convene the royal council and begin an investigation into the murder of his brother. At the council, all the courtiers agreed that the murder of Louis of Orleans was the work of some cuckold husband. The amorous adventures of the late duke were well known to everyone, and therefore such a version seemed the most likely. At that moment, a certain merchant foreman, who was on patrol on the night of the murder, turned to the council. He declared under oath that he had followed a group of armed men who, looking around suspiciously and trying not to make noise, hastily disappeared behind the doors of the Burgundy Palace.
Always unperturbed, John suddenly turned pale, got up from the table and walked unsteadily to the window.
The Duke of Berry, John's uncle, inquired about his health. In response, the Duke of Burgundy whispered barely audibly:
- I ordered the assassination of the Duke of Orleans. I don’t understand how it happened. Some devilish obsession has come over me!
After that, he left the meeting room. The confused council members did not even try to detain him. On the same night, John the Fearless, with an escort of six horsemen, fled from Paris, collapsing the Maxansky Bridge behind him in order to delay a possible pursuit. The fugitive went to Flanders, where he sat out for six months.
In the meantime, the circumstances of the murder have finally become clear. In addition to the merchant foreman, there were other witnesses. The perpetrator of the crime was the Norman knight Raoul d'Anquetonville - it was he who smashed the head of Louis of Orleans with an ax. However, it was not possible to capture the killer - he was gone.
Six months later, John the Fearless, accompanied by a thousand horsemen, unexpectedly returned to Paris. And the king, instead of arresting the murderer, was filled with sympathy for the duke and allowed him to justify himself. At the trial, the duke's lawyer turned the whole case as if his client had committed not a crime at all, but a commendable act that saved the king from the most vile of his subjects. As a result, John the Fearless was acquitted, and the widow of the Duke of Orleans left the royal court in protest.
The whole nobility of France again split into two camps, and gradually the armed conflict between the bourguignons, who had as a distinctive sign the cross of St. Andrew on a red band, and the Armagnacs, who decorated their sleeves with white bands, grew into a real civil war.
Tragedy on the Montero bridge
12 years have passed since the assassination of Louis Orleans. A lot of blood was shed during this time. John the Fearless, supported by the British, was irresistibly striving for power. Now his main rival was Dauphin Charles, the future King of France Charles VII. The Dauphin mortally hated the bourguignons, who staged a monstrous massacre in Paris in 1418, from which he only miraculously got out alive. But the enmity between Armagnacs and Bourguignons had been going on for more than 20 years, with no end in sight. Realizing how disastrous this state of affairs is for the kingdom, the Dauphin invited the Duke of Burgundy to begin peace negotiations. He answered with consent. The appointment was made at the Pont de Montero, 45 miles southeast of Paris. Especially for this meeting, a small wooden pavilion was erected in the middle of the bridge, which had two entrances from opposite sides.
On September 10, 1419, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the Duke of Burgundy, surrounded by his retinue, arrived at the meeting place. Leaving his weapon (this was the main condition), the duke, accompanied by his nobles, hurried to the pavilion. Here is how the French chronicler Philippe de Commines describes what happened:
“When the conversation began, the Duke of Burgundy was either invited or he himself wished to pay his respects to the king (more precisely, to the Dauphin. - Ed. Note), but he opened the gate, which was opened from the other side, and went with these three (noblemen from of his retinue. - Ed.). He was immediately killed, as well as those who were with him, and because of this, as you know, many troubles happened later."
Other historians add to this that an ax was hidden in the pavilion, and that someone from his own retinue killed the duke. All this is impossible to prove or disprove, but one very curious detail should be noted: John the Fearless was cut off his left hand, which he instinctively closed himself with from the blow, and cut his skull to the very chin. Exactly the same wounds and with the same weapon were inflicted 12 years ago on Louis of Orleans.
Oleg VOVK