Assassinat de Louis Ier, duc d’Orléans

This illustration by Alphonse de Neuville depicts the assassination of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, in a dark street, as armed men rush in to carry out the murder. The composition shows the victim already fallen on the ground, overturned or dead horses, and attackers still in motion within a narrow urban setting, heightening the sudden brutality of the assault. The image emphasizes the premeditated nature of the ambush, the violence of political crime, and the tense atmosphere surrounding the struggles for power in the early fifteenth century. Published around 1867 in Henri Martin’s Histoire de France populaire, it is not a direct witness to the event but a nineteenth-century historical reconstruction. It reflects that era’s taste for dramatic scenes, princely assassinations, and moments of rupture in the political history of the kingdom.