The next brother, Louis, became Dauphin, and the youngest, Jean, then two years old, was created Duc de Touraine. The duchy of Guyenne was also added to the territory of the Dauphin.
The Queen’s father, Stephan of Bavaria, came to France this year and remained some time. He was again a widower and Isabeau wanted to marry him to the widow of the last Sire de Coucy who had great possessions, but the princes objected to placing a Bavarian in a powerful position close to Paris, so it had to be given up.
The King’s attacks got no better; he had six during 1399. Sometimes he was childish, played, laughed, and ran about all over the hôtel St. Paul or wherever he happened to be, so that they had to wall up a great many of the entrances and places he could fall out of. At other times he was raving and furious, so that it was dangerous to approach him, and sometimes sad and melancholy. The Queen was not entirely separated from him, because every now and then he got well and then they were together and he gave his orders and often tried to put to rights the mischief and wrong done in his absence, and recalled friends who had been exiled or imprisoned. He had insisted on Juvenal des Ursins, provost of Paris, being left with him and not molested, and it was of no use for his enemies to try to prevent it. He would not listen to them, but exclaimed angrily, “Where is my provost? I will have my provost!” He was well for part of the summer of 1400, and was at services of thanksgiving in consequence at St. Denis and Notre Dame, but was soon after taken ill again and not well till Christmas. The Princess Catherine was born October 27th, at St. Paul.
In spite of the King’s frequent attacks of madness, the Queen contrived to amuse herself very well. From what one can gather from the records of the times she seems to have been generally on good terms with him when he was well, and not to have allowed the pleasures and diversions of her life to be interfered with when he was ill. The court was still disturbed and excited by the rivalry of the Duchesses of Burgundy and Orléans, but Isabeau, who, if she had been a different sort of woman, could and ought to have ruled them both, did nothing of the kind. She hated the Duchess of Burgundy and was rather inclined to be jealous of Valentine, but still on the whole seems to have got on well enough with her notwithstanding her liaison with the Duc d’Orléans. Louis and Isabeau were nearly always together; they made excursions and gave balls and dinners and suppers at St. Paul, the hôtel Barbette, and other places; they hunted and drove in the royal forests and their proceedings created continual gossip and scandal in society and all over Paris. Louis at the same time was carrying on a more than usually scandalous intrigue[194] with the beautiful wife of the Sire de Canny, which is noticeable because the result of it was the birth of the great Dunois, the far-famed Bastard of Orléans, renowned in French song and story.