d'Orléans Charles

Born in Paris in 1394, Charles d'Orléans was a French nobleman who became Duke of Orléans after his father's murder. He lived through the turmoil of the Hundred Years' War and was captured by the English at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

He spent about twenty-five years in captivity in England, and that long confinement shaped much of his writing. During those years he composed poems in French, and some in English, building a reputation for elegant, reflective lyrics about love, loss, time, and fortune.

After returning to France in 1440, he continued to be remembered less for political power than for his poetry. He is widely regarded as one of the finest courtly poets in French literature, and he was also the father of the future King Louis XII.