The death of the Duc de Berry brought these precious pages, begun under such brilliant auspices, to a sudden standstill; and in consequence of that prince's debts--which arose chiefly from his expensive artistic tastes--a sale of his property immediately took place. The Duc de Bourbon and the Comte d'Armagnac (the husbands of his two daughters and co-heiresses) were making war upon one another on account of the murder of the Duc d'Orléans by _Jean Sans Peur_--a war known in history as the War of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Amid these disturbances there was scarcely time to think of illuminated MSS.; for which reason the work of Pol de Limbourg and his brothers was suspended, and was not resumed until the year 1454, long after their death--unfortunately by a far inferior hand--that of Jean de Colombe. By that time the volume had come into the possession of Charles of Savoy and his wife Blanche of Monferrat. It is not difficult to explain how this _Breviary_ came into the House of Savoy--a fact which is proved by the armorial bearings and two miniature portraits of Charles--because both husband and wife were descendants in direct line from Bonne de Berry (one of the daughters of the Duc de Berry), who had first been married to a Count of Savoy. In 1501 the MS. passed to Margaret of Austria, wife of Philibert of Savoy, a Royal patroness of the Arts who corresponded with Jean Perréal regarding the tomb of her husband in the church at Brou. By her this MS. was provided with a velvet cover and a silver padlock; and she no doubt took it to Flanders with her after her husband's death. [Illustration: Plate XXXI. Photo. Giraudon. JUNE. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 162._] Comte Paul Durrieu identifies the _Très Riches Heures_ with a MS. mentioned also in an _Inventory_ of 1523 as "_une grande heure escripte à la main_," whereby it can be explained how the _Grimani Breviary_,[34] executed about the end of the sixteenth century, and other Flemish MSS. have obviously taken this famous Codex as a model; and even in some points copied it very closely. When Margaret of Austria died in 1530 the volume passed into the hands of one of her executors, Jean Buffant, Treasurer to the Emperor Charles V; and from that time there occurs a gap which even Paul Durrieu has so far been unable to fill. The present binding of red morocco leather belongs to the eighteenth century and bears the coat-of-arms of the Spinola family, which points strongly to the probability that the volume also once belonged to the celebrated General Spinola, who captured the town of Breda--an historical event immortalised by Velasquez. From the Spinolas it came into the family of the Sèvres, a fact proved by another coat-of-arms amongst the illuminations; and from a member of that family it was acquired by the Duc d'Aumale, by whom it was deposited at Chantilly.