I watch many videos about British history. I like one about Charles VI of France. Riding into battle, someone dropped a spear, which hit a shield, and he PTSD’ed into killing four of his own guys before he could be restrained.
Takes guts to restrain a king. Like Martin Luther going to to toe with the pope.
In fairness, Charles VI’s buddy had just survived an assassination attempt.
That’s why I like Charles VI. He freaked out. He took stuff to heart. He wasn’t Machiavelli.
One night, Charles VI was partying with his brother, Louis I, Duke of Orleans. There were five dancers to entertain everyone, wearing highly flammable costumes. The Duke brought in a torch, and perhaps held it up to identify the dancer. Maybe the Duke of Orleans was drunk! Honestly I’ve never seen a drunken Frenchman, but it could happen. Four of the six dancers who were performing were killed in the fire.
How do you survive a party fire? Either be the king, so someone will take you under her skirts to protect you, or jump in a vat of wine. Otherwise, according to the Monk of St Denis, you would be “burned alive, [your] flaming genitals dropping to the floor … releasing a stream of blood”
Their people (those of France and those of Orleans) didn’t think that was cute at all. They were hella mad that the upper class was partying so hard that they almost got the king killed. But, that’s what the upper class does (see the Epstein files).
They were also more than ready to blame the foreign queen, Isabeau. That always works.
These events are referred to as the Bal des Ardents, Ball of the Burning Men.
King Charles VI rode his horse through the streets, headed for Notre Dame, to repent of what he had done.
It’s crazy to be in Notre Dame, where things like this actually happened, and regular people were there watching, just like I watched Obama’s helicopter take off from the White House grounds one time.
A pope of the time wrote about Charles’ rather irrational fears. For one, Charles thought he was made of glass, and he was afraid of breaking. It has been said that he had iron rods secured to his clothes so that he would not break.
Have you felt that way?
Absolutely.
In a poetic sense.
It’s all poetry until you’re actually insane.
However insane he was, Charles, like other European assholes, tried to expel Jews from France, which is dumber than believing you are made of glass (in my opinion).
It gets weird here. Here’s where it connects to what you already know. Charles VI’s people are fighting Henry V.
His son, eventually Charles VII, was reinstalled through the almost unbelievable activism of Joan of Arc, perhaps because Henry V didn’t actually have Shakespeare as a speechwriter. Henry V didn’t actually say,
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
But if he had, I would have been putty in his hands.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
I mean.
Henry V is impossible, Joan of Arc is impossible, but Charles VI strikes me as someone I could have gone to high school with, had I gone to high school in the 1380s.
Or: English history claims Henry V as a hero, and Joan as a heroine, but Charles VI, merely “beloved,” gets remembered as a person, like us, except the king of France in the 14th century, trying to get by without psychiatric care.
The headline image is from a miniature from a manuscript written by Jean Froissart, with events from 1300 to 1427. The Ball was in 1393.
Going On 