Louis I, Duke of Orléans

Louis I (13 March 1372 – 23 November 1407) was Duke of Orléans from 1392 to his death. He was also Count of Valois, Duke of Touraine (1386–1392), Count of Blois (1397–1407), Angoulême (1404–1407), Périgord, Dreux, and Soissons.

Louis was son of King Charles V of France and Joanna of Bourbon and younger brother of Charles VI.

Succession in Hungary, Poland and Naples

In 1374, Louis was betrothed to Catherine, heiress presumptive to the throne of Hungary.

Louis and Catherine were expected to reign either over Hungary or over Poland, as Catherine's father, Louis I of Hungary, had no sons. Catherine's father also planned to leave them his claim to the Crown of Naples and the County of Provence, which were then held by his ailing and childless cousin Joanna I.^[1][2] However, Catherine died in 1378 and the marriage negotiations were stopped.

In 1384, Elizabeth of Bosnia started negotiating with Louis' father about the possibility of Louis marrying her daughter Mary, notwithstanding Mary's engagement to Sigismund of Luxembourg. If Elizabeth had made this proposal in 1378, after Catherine's death, the fact that the French king and the Hungarian king did not recognize the same pope would have represented a problem. However, Elizabeth was desperate in 1384 and was not willing to let the schism stand in the way of the negotiations. Pope Clement VII issued a dispensation which annulled Mary's betrothal to Sigismund and the proxy marriage between Louis and Mary was celebrated in April 1385. Nonetheless, the marriage was not recognized by the Hungarian noblemen who adhered to Pope Urban VI. Four months after the proxy marriage, Sigismund invaded Hungary and married Mary, which ultimately destroyed Louis' chances to reign as King of Hungary.^[3][4]

Hundred Years' War

Louis had an important political role during the Hundred Years' War. With the increasing insanity of his elder brother Charles the Mad (who suffered from either schizophrenia, porphyria or bipolar disorder), Louis disputed the regency and guardianship of the royal children with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. The enmity between the two was public and a source of political unrest in the already troubled France. Louis had the initial advantage, being the brother rather than the first cousin of the king, but his character and rumour of an affair with the queen consort Isabeau of Bavaria made him extremely unpopular. For the following years, the children of Charles VI were successively kidnapped and recovered by both parties, until the Duke of Burgundy managed to be appointed by royal decree guardian of the Dauphin and regent of France.

Louis did not give up and took every effort to sabotage John's rule, including squandering the money raised for the relief of Calais, then occupied by the English. After this episode, John and Louis broke into open threats and only the intervention of John of Valois, Duke of Berry and uncle of both men, avoided a civil war.

Murder

On Sunday 20 November 1407 a solemn reconciliation was vowed in front of the court of France between the contending Dukes, but only three days later, Louis was brutally assassinated in the streets of Paris, when armed men under the orders of John the Fearless attacked him while he was mounting his horse. Louis was stabbed by fifteen masked criminals led by Raoulet d'Anquetonville, a servant of the duke of Burgundy.^[5] The unarmed servants who were escorting him were powerless to protect him.

The Duke of Burgundy had the support of the population of Paris and the University. He could even publicly admit the killing. Rather than deny it, John the Fearless had the scholar Jean Petit of the Sorbonne deliver a peroration justifying the killing of tyrants.

Louis' murder would spark a bloody feud and civil war between Burgundy and the French Royal family which would divide France for the next seventy years and only end with the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy in 1477.

Family

In 1389, Louis married Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, with whom he had:

• a daughter (1390)
• Louis (1391–1395)
• a son (1392)
• John Philip (1393)
• Charles, Duke of Orléans (1394–1465), father of King Louis XII of France
• Philip (1396–1420), Count of Vertus
• John, Count of Angoulême (1404–1467), grandfather of King Francis I of France
• Marie (1401)
• Margaret (1406–1466), Countess of Vertus, married in 1423 Richard of Brittany, Count of Étampes. Their son was Francis II, Duke of Brittany.

His illegitimate son by Mariette d'Enghien, was "Jean Levieux Valois des Orléans" better known as John of Dunois (1402–1468), Jean is the ancestor of the Dukes of Longueville.

Ancestry

Notes