against the house of Burgundy.
[Illustration: Charles VI.

and Odette----71] For thirty years, from 1392 to 1422, the crown remained on the head of this poor madman, whilst France was a victim to the bloody quarrels of the royal house, to national dismemberment, to licentiousness in morals, to civil anarchy, and to foreign conquest.
When, for the first time, in the forest of Le Mans, the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy saw their nephew in this condition, their first feeling was one of sorrow and disquietude.

The Duke of Burgundy especially, who was accessible to generous and sympathetic emotions, cried out with tears, as he embraced the king, "My lord and nephew, comfort me with just one word!" But the desires and the hopes of selfish ambition reappeared before long more prominently than these honest effusions of feeling.
"All!" said the Duke of Berry, "De Clisson, La Mviere, Noviant, and Vilaine have been haughty and harsh towards me; the time has come when I shall pay them out in the same coin from the same mint." The guardianship of the king was withdrawn from his councillors, and transferred to four chamberlains chosen by his uncles.

The two dukes, however, did not immediately lay hands on the government of the kingdom; the constable De Clisson and the late councillors of Charles V.remained in charge of it for some time longer; they had given enduring proofs of capacity and fidelity to the king's service; and the two dukes did not at first openly attack them, but labored strenuously, nevertheless, to destroy them.

The Duke of Burgundy one day said to Sire de Noviant, "I have been overtaken by a very pressing business, for which I require forthwith thirty thousand crowns; let me have them out of my lord's treasury; I will restore them at another time." Noviant answered respectfully that the council must be spoken to about it.