The queen was no Blanche de Castille, able to rule a kingdom, and the king's uncle, Philippe de Bourgogne, was at first the real power in France. He was opposed by Isabeau de Bavière and her paramour and brother-in-law, Louis d'Orléans, brother of the king; and the history of the next few years is largely a record of shameless intrigues between these people to obtain control of the mad king, in whose name many an odious thing was done. The regency should, by rights, have devolved upon the king's eldest brother, Louis d'Orléans, who was twenty-one years of age at the time of Charles's madness; but the Dukes of Burgundy and Berri set him aside for "his too great youth." There might have been found some precedent for recognizing Isabeau as regent; but there is no evidence that she ever made any serious efforts to establish her claim; for she was content with that which the Duke of Burgundy was quite willing to allow her, viz., the squandering of money--not his money--in her pleasures. Isabeau was nominally associated in the council that exercised the powers of regency, but she was really under the control of the Duchess of Burgundy, whom the chroniclers call "a haughty and cruel woman." With such care as the doctors of the period were likely to give him, there was not much hope of the permanent restoration of the king's reason. One learned physician, however, did have the correct idea as to the cause of Charles's malady and prescribed a moderate diet and a quiet life for him. Under this wise treatment Charles soon recovered as much reason as he had ever had; but the regimen imposed by the physician's orders was as distasteful to the king as it was to Isabeau. The queen, under pretext of furnishing diversions for him, began again the wild life of debauchery which had been the prime cause of Charles's insanity. It was at one of these festivals that occurred the famous "dance of savages" that so nearly deprived France of her mad king.