“I am the duke of Orleans,” the duke shouted. “Then we want you,” they replied, striking him. A page tried to cover the prince with his body and was killed. A woman who witnessed the affair from a window screamed murder. One of the assassins called to her, “Shut up, wretch.” Then by the light of the torches she saw come out of the duke of Burgundy’s recently bought house, a large man with a red hat over his eyes, who, with a lantern, looked to see that there had been no slip as in the case of the constable De Clisson. But this time the murderers had well earned their wage. The body was literally hacked to pieces; the right arm was cut in two, the severed left wrist was thrown to one side, the skull split from ear to ear, and the brains scattered on the pavement. At this the man in the red hat said to the others, “Put out your lights and let us go, he is dead.” They put their torches back into the house they had occupied, strewed caltrops behind them to prevent pursuit, and retired to the Hôtel d’Artois in the rue Mauconseil. [Sidenote: [1407-1409 A.D.]] The next day John the Fearless went, like all the princes, to see the corpse, and sprinkled it with holy water, at the church of the Blancs-Manteaux. “Never,” he said, at sight of the dead, “has so foul a murder been committed in this realm.” He wept at the funeral and held a corner of the pall. Some days later, however, when the provost of Paris announced in the council that he would make every effort to find the assassins if they would give him permission to search the palaces of the princes, John the Fearless became confused and grew pale. Then it was he drew aside the duke of Berri and the king of Sicily, “I did it,” he whispered, “the devil tempted me.” This state of mind soon passed, and the duke of Burgundy resolved to admit and justify his crime. In fact the next day he boldly appeared at the council of the princes, but his uncle Berri met him at the door and said, “My good nephew, don’t come in this time. I don’t want you here.” The thought came to the guilty man that perhaps they were going to arrest him, and he fled at once to his possessions in Flanders. From there he proclaimed, preached, and wrote to the world that he had but forestalled an ambush of the duke of Orleans. A Franciscan monk, the learned John Petit, was the following year charged with the proof in twelve arguments, in honour of the twelve Apostles, that if the duke was killed it was for the glory of God, since he was a heretic; for the good of the king, since he wished to usurp the throne, and for the public welfare, since the state was rid of a tyrant.