In the chaos of misrule and villainy into which France was falling, the determining factor was the deadly feud which existed between the house of Burgundy and that of Orleans. Upon the death of the first Duke of Burgundy, his son John seized the regency for himself, snatching it from the Duke of Orleans, the king's brother. At this point started the feud which was to tear France asunder from end to end. While the Orleanists were gathering their adherents to drive him out, John was intrenching himself in Paris. Like many another villain, this Duke of Burgundy posed as the friend of the people. He could doff his cap and speak smilingly to starving men. He knew how to work upon their passions, and to please by torturing and executing those they believed had wronged them. He told them how he pitied them for the extortions of the Duke of Orleans and Queen Isabella, kindly giving them pikes to defend themselves, and iron chains to barricade their streets, if they should be needed. Then, extending his hand to his enemy of Orleans, brother of the king, they were reconciled: the past was to be buried. Then it is a pleasant picture we behold of the period: the two friends partaking together of communion, and dining, and then embracing at parting with effusive words and promises to meet at a dance on the morrow, the unsuspecting Duke of Orleans going out into the dark, where hired assassins were waiting to hack him in pieces. Then a court of justice trying and acquitting this confessed murderer of the king's brother, upon the ground that tyrannicide is a duty; the sad, crazed wraith of a king saying the words he had been taught: "Fair cousin, we pardon you all." And the tragedy and comedy were over! There was now no check upon the Burgundian power. In the worst days of English occupation of her land, France had been in less danger from Edward III. than she now was from the Duke of Burgundy, champion and defender of the people! The immediate object of the Burgundian or people's party, and the Orleans and aristocratic party, was the possession of the person of the king, and control of his acts during his few lucid moments. There was civil war in a land divested of every vestige of government. England would have been blind had she not seen her opportunity; but, too much occupied with her own revolution, she had to wait. And when Henry IV., the first Lancastrian, was king, he needed both hands to hold his crown firmly on his head. But when the young Henry V. came to the throne, with the energy and ambition of youth, the time was ripe for the recovery of the lost possessions in France. The battle of Agincourt (1415) reopened the war with a great defeat for the French chivalry, which represented the Orleanist party. The wholesale slaughter of princes, bishops, and knights on this fatal day was clear gain for the traitor Burgundy, the champion of the people! The climax of his villainy was at hand.