Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/445

Rh with blood, shed in their quarrel, by their orders were strewed with flowers, and the whole city re-echoed with music and sounds of joy. Isabella appearing in a car richly decorated, while her dress displayed her luxurious mind, alighted at the hotel of St. Paul's, where her husband awaited her arrival. She did not dread his presence; but, superior to reproach, dead to remorse, and insensible to shame, the blush of modesty and conscience had long ceased to flush her cheek, which was alone tinged with the glow of vice.

The senseless monarch received her as a beloved wife, and his treacherous kinsman as an affectionate friend. They exercised sovereign authority in Paris, and the streets again flowed with blood. In this second massacre 14000 persons, of which 5000 were women, were murdered. Charles VI. died in 1422. The duke of Burgundy was afterwards assassinated at a conference with the dauphin, 1419; though it is thought by many he was not privy to the design.

Thus the ambitious, vindictive, and cruel Isabella publicly had twice seen the object of her affections murdered, and fired with indignation, she resolved to complete the infamy of her character. She had long since violated the duties of a wife and queen, and now determined to silence the voice of nature; abjuring the name of mother, she immediately caused a violent declaration to be published, denouncing vengeance against the dauphin and his adherents, as murderers of the duke of Burgundy, ordering a dreadful proscription to be published every week, and then implored the assistance of England, which was in France every where victorious, and invited the son of Burgundy to join the common cause. Within a fornight after the duke's death, Henry V. was offered the crown of France, with the princess rine;