The brigands had reappeared all over the country and great distress prevailed, large tracts of land went out of cultivation, travelling was unsafe owing to the highwaymen who infested the roads, but the fêtes at court grew more brilliant and licentious and the royal favourites more insolent. Charles de Savoisy, who had long been a favourite of the King, and was _grand-maître d’hôtel_ to the Queen, was one of the most conspicuous. One of his pages, galloping down the streets as a procession belonging to the university was going by, knocked down some of the students, out of insolent bravado. The others surrounded and gave him a blow. The page fled to the hôtel Savoisy and demanded vengeance, whereupon the retainers of Savoisy attacked the procession which was already entering the church of Ste. Catherine, striking with sticks and swords those who were still outside, and firing off cross-bows into the church, wounding several people and injuring the sacred images, ornaments, and vestments of the priests. When first Savoisy heard of it, he said his men had done quite right to maintain the honour of his house; but finding that the University had laid a complaint before the Queen and the Dukes of Burgundy and Orléans, he was frightened and offered to give up the culprits to be hanged. The University, however, proceeded with the case, the Duc d’Orléans took it up, and just then the King came to his senses and was very angry. He ordered Savoisy to be banished, his hôtel razed to the ground, and a chapel built there at his expense instead. Savoisy was, after a time, recalled and enriched again.[206]
Meanwhile Louis d’Orléans, Isabeau, and her brother were amassing an enormous amount of treasure, which they kept in safe places distributed about. A convoy drawn by six horses and loaded entirely with gold coin was stopped near Metz, being on the way to Germany, sent by Isabeau. The people learned from the drivers of it that several others[207] of these convoys had safely reached their destination. But they did not pay their tradesmen nor any of their debts. The servants of the household of the King, Dauphin, and other royal children, could not get their wages, so that thus it was nearly impossible to procure them proper food, clothes, and attendance. An Augustine monk named Jacques Legrand, preaching before the Queen on Ascension Day, harangued against the dissolute habits of the court, where he declared that Venus reigned and corruption was general. He said that drunkenness, debauchery, and licentious dances went on all night, that the Queen had introduced the excessive luxury and extravagance in dress which everywhere prevailed, as she would hear if she went out in disguise. The Queen was very angry and some of her ladies told the monk that they could not imagine why he was not afraid to say such things, to which he replied that he could still less understand why they dared to do them. He treated with indifference the threats aimed at him, and when some of the courtiers told the King that he had been speaking disrespectfully of the Queen and her goings on, he said he was very glad of it, and that the monk should preach to him in his oratory on Whitsunday. Charles listened with much attention to his sermon on the excesses of the court and society, and when it was over praised him for his fidelity and courage, took him under his protection, and resolved to reform the state of things he complained of. But he fell ill again in June and remained so during half July, so nothing was done.[208]