Bal des Ardents
The Bal des Ardents ("Ball of the Burning") refers to a charivari (a hen party in the event of remarriage), which King Charles VI. on January 28, 1393. Charivaris were forbidden by the church, so the celebration was a sacrilege. A fire at the ball killed four friends of the king, who afterwards - already mentally disturbed - finally went mad.
Whether the accident occurred in the royal residence, the Hôtel Saint-Paul , or in the so-called Hôtel de la reine blanche in Faubourg Saint-Marcel , located in the south of Paris, has not yet been clarified.
The ball
The occasion for the ball was the wedding of Queen Isabeau's maid of honor , Catherine l'Allemande , widow of a Herr von Hainceville (or Hainserville, today Answeiler ), who wanted to marry Etzel von Ortenburg, a nobleman chosen by the queen, in her third marriage . In such cases it was customary to organize a charivari (hen party).
During the day there were parties and banquets to which the entire court was invited. In the evening a ball was on the program. Karl and Hugo von Guisay wanted to appear as “ wild men ” with four friends, Jean, Count von Joigny , Yvain von Foix , Ogier von Nantouillet and Aymard von Poitiers . They smeared themselves with pitch , covered themselves with feathers and tow, and chained one another.
Around midnight the lights went out, the six savages mingled with the guests, gesticulating and shouting; the initially surprised ball company soon took part in the game. The Duke Ludwig von Orléans , the king's brother, and his uncle, Duke Johann von Berry , who had spent part of the evening in an inn, joined them later. Aroused curiosity, Ludwig took a torch to find out who was hiding under the masks. But he got too close to the costumed people, so that their disguise caught fire.
The chains prevented the six from separating from each other. The king got away because his aunt Jeanne de Boulogne , the Duchess of Berry, immediately wrapped him in her dress and petticoat and smothered the flames. Ogier von Natouillet was able to free himself from his chains and jumped into a wine barrel. Yvain von Foix tried to reach the door, where two servants caught him with a wet piece of cloth without being able to put out the fire. The others burned before the king's eyes for the next half hour. All four died one by one from their burns over the next few days.
Ludwig von Orléans had a penitential chapel built in the Cölestiner church , in which a daily mass was read in memory of the victims.
consequences
A few days later, Charles VI transferred. the reign of his brother Louis of Orléans; but since he was considered too young, the government fell to his uncles, the Duke of Berry and Philip the Bold of Burgundy. Charles was not yet 25 years old and France - writes the Connétable Olivier V. de Clisson - now had three kings.
Trivia
The accident served Edgar Allan Poe as the inspiration for his story Hop-Frog .
source
- Jean Juvénal des Ursins : Histoire de Charles VI. Roy de France, et des choses mémorable advanues durant quarante-deux années de son regne depuis 1380 jusque en 1422 . Around 1430.
- Pierre Gascar: Charles VII. Le Bal des Ardents . Paris 1977.
- Jacques Hillairet: Dictionnaire Historique des rues de Paris . Vol. I, Editions de Minuit, Paris 1963, ISBN 2-7073-0092-6 .
Web links
- Reports from contemporary witnesses (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Not to be confused with the Hôtel de la reine blanche in rue de la Tixeranderie, which was inhabited by Blanka of Navarre (around 1331–1398), widowed since 1350 and aged at the time of the accident , the second wife of Charles VI. Great-grandfather Philip VI.
- ↑ The testimony of Jean Froissart (1337–1405), who set the event in the Hôtel Saint-Pol, contrasts with that of Jean Juvénal des Ursins (1388–1473), who used the l'hostel de le Reyne-Blanche à Saint- Marcel près Paris states (quoted in Hillairet, see below, p. 592). Hillairet considers Juvenal des Ursins, who spent his life in Paris and at court, to be more credible, especially since his father Jean Jouvenel († 1431; at the time of the Bal des Ardents garde de la prévôté des marchands ) when he did not attend the ball Security must have known about it. On the other hand, Froissart's chronicle, who was mostly abroad, was also incorrect elsewhere (Froissart gave the Hôtel Saint-Paul as the place where Charles V died, and he actually died in Beauté-sur-Marne Castle ). The historian Georges Bordonove follows Froissart's version.
- ↑ On. On May 9, 1393, Katharina von Answeiler is mentioned as his wife when Pope Clemens VII granted a portable altar to Count Etzel, cf. Friedrich Hausmann : The Counts of Ortenburg and their male ancestors, the Spanheimers in Carinthia, Saxony and Bavaria, as well as their branch lines . In: East Bavarian border marks. Passauer Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde . No. 36, Passau 1994, p. 26