‘Most redoubted and sovereign lord,--we Charles duke of Orleans, Philip count de Vertus, and John count of Angoulême, brothers, your very humble children and nephews, have, with all due humiliation and submission, considered it right to lay before you, jointly and separately, what follows. ‘Although the barbarous and cruel murder of our redoubted lord and very dear father, your brother, must for certain be most strongly impressed on your royal memory, and engraven on your heart,--nevertheless, most redoubted lord, our grief and the sense of what is due to us from all laws, human and divine, force us to renew in your memory all the minute transactions of that inhuman event. ‘It is a fact, most dear lord, that John, who styles himself duke of Burgundy, through a hatred he had long nourished in his breast, and from an insatiate ambition and a desire of governing your realm, and that he might have the office of regent, as he has clearly shown and daily continues to show, did, on the 14th day of November in the year 1407, most treacherously murder your brother, our most renowned lord and father, in the streets of Paris, and during the night, by causing him to be waylaid by a set of infamous wretches, hired for this purpose, without having previously testified any displeasure towards him. This is well known to all the world; for it has been publicly avowed by the traitorous murderer himself, who is more disloyal, cruel, and inhuman than you can imagine; and we do not believe you can find in any writings one of a more perverse or faithless character. ‘In the first place, they were so nearly connected by blood, being cousins-german, the children of two brothers, that it adds to his crime of murder that of parricide; and the laws cannot too severely punish so detestable an action. They were also brothers in arms, having twice or thrice renewed this confederation under their own hands and seals, and solemnly sworn on the holy sacrament, in the presence of very many prelates and nobles, that they would be true and loyal friends,--that they would not do any thing to the prejudice of each other, either openly or secretly, nor suffer any such like thing to be done by others. ‘They, besides, entered into various protestations of love and friendship, making the most solemn promises to continue true brothers in arms, as is usual in such cases, to demonstrate that they felt a perfect friendship for each other; and as a confirmation of their affection, they mutually wore each other’s colours and badges.