Louis I de Valois, Duke of Orléans

Louis of Valois (March 13 1372 – November 23 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. In 1389, Louis married Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan.

History

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 of royal blood, but his character and rumour of an affair with consort queen 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. On November 20 1407 a solemn reconciliation was vowed in front of the court of France, 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, and literally amputated his arms, leaving him defenceless. Louis' murder would spark a bloody feud 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.

Louis' descendants

By his marriage with Valentina Visconti:

• a daughter (b. and d. 1390)
• Louis (b. 1391, d. 1395)
• a son (b. and d. 1392)
• John Philip (b. Paris, 1393, d. Château de Vincennes, 1393)
• Charles, Duke of Orléans (b. 1394– d. 1465), father of King Louis XII of France
• Philip (b. Paris, 1396–1420), Count of Vertus
• John, Count of Angoulême (1404–1467), grandfather of King Francis I of France
• Marie (b. and d. Château de Coucy, 1401)
• Margaret (b. 1406– d. 1466, Abbaye-la-Guiche), Countess of Vertus, married in 1423 Richard of Brittany, Count of Étampes

His illegitimate son by Mariette of Enghien, John of Dunois, is the ancestor of the Dukes of Longueville.