Pannier, Léopold. “Les joyaux du duc de Guyenne, recherches sur les goûts artistiques et la vie
privée du dauphin Louis, fils de Charles VI.” Revue archéologique n.s. 26 (1873):158–70, 209–
25, 306–20, 384–95; 27 (1874):31–42.
LOUIS, DUKE OF ORLÉANS
(1372–1407). The second surviving son of Charles V of France and Jeanne de Bourbon,
Louis played a role of great importance during the reign of his brother, Charles VI. His
assassination in 1407 caused a war that raged through the rest of Charles’s reign and had
repercussions lasting well beyond.
Louis was called count of Valois as early as 1375–76. In September 1385, he prepared
to leave France to marry Marie, the child queen of Hungary, but Sigismund, son of the
emperor Charles IV, took her by force for himself. In 1386, Louis received from his
brother hereditary title to the duchy of Touraine and the counties of Valois and
Beaumont. In the same year, France began negotiations to marry him to Valentina
Visconti, daughter of the ruler of Milan, who came to France as his bride in 1389. On
June 4, 1392, Charles VI gave Louis the duchy of Orléans in place of Touraine.
Louis’s possession of Asti, as part of Valentina’s dowry, drew him into Italian politics,
but he went to Italy himself only once during his life, in February and March of 1391. A
plan in 1393–94 for him to be infeudated by the Avignonese pope Clement VII with the
kingdom of Adria, consisting of the papal states in central Italy, came to nothing.
After the onset of Charles VI’s schizophrenia, Louis developed a rivalry with their
uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, as both struggled to control royal policy. Their
conflict escalated to alarming proportions in 1401, and despite an official settlement of
their differences by arbiters in January 1402 they continued to outmaneuver one another.
In 1403, Louis prepared for a military expedition to Lombardy to resolve a crisis in Milan
and perhaps to pave the way for a return to Rome of the Avignonese pope, Benedict XIII,
who was to bestow upon him in return, so it was said, the imperial crown. He abandoned
the project, however, early in 1404 while with the pope in southern France. After the
death of Philip the Bold (April 27, 1404), Louis was more successful in his quest for
riches and power. For the fiscal year of October 1404 to October 1405, he received over
400,000 francs from the king. The proclamation of a new tax in 1405 turned the populace
against him, and John the Fearless, Philip’s son, became his new rival. Louis was able to
keep the royal council full of his partisans, and he worked against John’s interests on so
many fronts that John finally had him assassinated on November 23, 1407. Louis was
considered charming, cultivated, and an eloquent orator, but his cleverness was tainted by
a selfish unscrupulousness.
Richard C.Famiglietti
[See also: ARMAGNACS; CHARLES VI; JOHN THE FEARLESS; PHILIP THE
BOLD]
Circourt, A. de. “Le duc Louis d’Orléans, frère de Charles VI: ses enterprises au dehors du
royaume.” Revue des questions historiques 42 (1887):5–67; 45 (1889):70–127; 46 (1890): 91–
168.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1068