Louis went straight to see the Queen, and then presented himself before his brother and claimed the 5,000 francs.
This adventure does not seem to have done Louis any harm, but it was declared by the doctors to have been most injurious to Charles, and to have helped to over-excite and unsettle his brain.
The King returned from his southern tour weakened, exhausted, and very angry with all he had found out about the oppressions and cruelties of the Duc de Berry. He had held a Parliament at Toulouse, punished some of the officials, dismissed others, and tried to redress some of the worst grievances. But though Charles was generous and kind-hearted, neither he nor his brother nor any of his uncles, except the Duc de Bourbon, had any idea how to govern, and the latter was entirely opposed to the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy; so much so, indeed, that a melancholy romance was the result of their dissensions.
The youngest daughter of the Duke of Burgundy had been, in 1386, betrothed to the Comte de Clermont, son of the Duc de Bourbon. But they were too young at the time for the marriage to take place, and meanwhile the quarrels of their families caused it to be broken off. They appear, however, to have been deeply attached to each other, for Bonne de Bourgogne, or, as she is named in her epitaph, Bonne d’Artois, declared that she would have no other husband than the Comte de Clermont, and, after refusing every other alliance suggested to her, died at Arras, 1399. The Comte de Clermont also refused to marry any one else as long as she lived.[131]
The Queen was again _enceinte_, and the court were at Saint Germain-en-Laye for the summer. Money was wanted, as usual, for the extravagant follies of the royal household, and in spite of the compassion of the King for the suffering of the people, it was proposed to levy new taxes.
It was a calm, cloudless day in July; the Council was sitting, the King presiding, and the Queen had gone to mass in her private chapel, when suddenly the sky became black with clouds, forked lightning flashed through the darkness accompanied by awful claps of thunder, and a violent wind tore the windows from their hinges and shattered all the panes of glass in the Queen’s Chapel. Mass had to be finished low and hurriedly lest the Host[132] be torn out of the hands of the officiating priest, the palace seemed to shake, and everybody was prostrate with terror. The Queen went trembling to the King, saying that this was an expression of the anger of God for their oppression of the people, and they had better give up the new taxes. The Council was dismissed accordingly and the taxes abandoned. Many trees were torn up in the forest, and four officers of the royal household killed by the lightning.[133] Isabeau had always the greatest terror of a thunderstorm; she had a vaulted cellar under the Palais de la Cité on purpose to take refuge in on those occasions.[134]