The unamiable elements in the character of the Duke of Burgundy had been called into active exercise in very early life. While Duke de Nevers, he was defeated at Nicopolis, and made prisoner by Bajazet, surnamed "Ilderim," or the Thunderer. What rendered this defeat the more mortifying was, the boastful expectation of success proclaimed by the Christian army. "If the sky should fall, we could uphold it on our lances," they exclaimed, but a few hours before their host was scattered, and its leaders prisoners to the Moslem. Jean-sans-peur was detained in captivity until an enormous ransom was paid for his deliverance. Giovanni-Galeazzo was suspected of connivance with Bajazet, both in bringing the Christians to fight at a disadvantage, and in putting the Turks on the way of obtaining the heaviest ransoms. The splenetic irritation of this disaster seems to have clung long after to the Duke of Burgundy. His character was quite the reverse of that of his confiding kinsman of Orleans. He was subtle, ambitious, designing, crafty--dishonorably resorting to guile, where he dared not venture on overt acts of hostility. For the various reasons we have mentioned, he bore a secret but intense hatred to his cousin Louis. In the early winter of 1407, the Duke of Orleans, finding his health impaired, bade a temporary adieu to the capital, and secluded himself in his favorite chateau of Beauté. He seems to have been previously awakened to serious reflections. He had passed much of his time at the convent of the Celestines, who, among their most precious relics, still reckon the illuminated manuscript of the Holy Scriptures presented to them by Louis of Orleans, and bearing his autograph. To this order of monks he peculiarly attached himself, spending most of the time his approaching death accorded to him. A spectre, in the solitude of the cloisters, appeared to him, and bade him prepare to stand in the presence of his Maker. His friends in the convent, to whom he narrated the occurrence, contributed by their exhortations to deepen the serious convictions pressing on his mind. There now seemed a reasonable expectation that Louis of Orleans would return from his voluntary solitude at his chateau on the Marne, a wiser and a better man, cured, by timely reflection, of the only blemish which tarnished the lustre of his many virtues.