540 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



1405, Jacques Legrand, an Augustine monk, preaching before Queen Isabeau 

 of Bavaria, exhorted her to exchange her sumptuous attire for a plain dress, 

 and walk through the streets of Paris to hear what the people said of her. 

 In another sermon, preached before the court at the Hotel St. Pol, the same 

 preacher boldly reproached Charles VI. with having caused the tears and the 

 groans of the people. But in 1408, Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, had 

 his enemy, the Duke of Orleans, assassinated, and he convoked at the residence 

 of the King, who was insane, a numerous congregation, in whose presence the 

 Grey Friar, Jean Petit, pronounced a solemn justification of the murder and of 

 the murderer. In this set discourse, which was indirectly addressed to the 

 whole of France, Jean Petit, after a pompous eulogy of the Duke of Burgundy, 

 had the audacity to set forth his reasons for taking up the Duke of Burgundy's 

 defence. He said, " The first of these reasons is that I am compelled by the 

 oath which I took three years ago to serve him. The second is that he, 

 seeing how poorly I was paid, has given me a large pension each year, to 

 assist me in keeping up my schools, from which pension I have been able 

 to defray a large part of my expenses, and shall continue to do so, if it still 

 please his grace." After this fulsome exordium the orator set forth the 

 division of his speech, comprising a major, in four parts, to prove : 1st, that 

 covetousness is the mother of all evils ; 2nd, that it leads to apostasy ; 3rd, 

 that it makes subjects disloyal and untrue to their sovereign ; 4th, that it is 

 lawful to kill apostates, traitors, and disloyal subjects. This fourth point, 

 composed of eight principal truths, eight corollaries, and twelve syllogisms, 

 formed the capital object of the discourse. Jean Petit had recourse to all 

 the quibbles of dialectics to justify the murderer and glorify the murder. 

 He invoked the examples of Lucifer, Absalom, and Athaliah in support of 

 his detestable doctrines ; he showed, finally, that the Duke of Orleans had 

 fallen into the sin of covetousness by trying to usurp the crown ; that he 

 was, therefore, an apostate, a traitor, a disloyal subject, guilty of high treason ; 

 and that the man who had killed him had done what was praiseworthy in 

 the sight of God and of man. 



This disgraceful discourse so excited public curiosity that Jean Petit had 

 to pronounce it over again upon the following day from a platform erected 

 upon the square in front of Notre-Dame, in presence of an enormous crowd. 

 Nevertheless, the widow of the murdered man, Valentine of Milan, had 

 obtained permission from King Charles VI. to have herself and her children 



