On December 29, 1386, before a crowd presided over by French king Charles VI, Carrouges and Le Gris eyed each other warily. Soon after, de Carrouges went on a campaign to Scotland and though it was a military failure, he distinguished himself with his courage. Apart from the dubious, sketchy, and inconsistent reports in the two chronicles, no external evidence for this hazy legend has ever been offered in support of the oft-told tale of a last-minute confession by the true culprit. Beneath him were three main ranks of nobility: barons, knights and squires. That was at the root of everything. Le 29 dcembre 1 386 se droula un duel d'honneur entre deux seigneurs normands", "Who is Marguerite de Carrouges? He also had a reputation as a seduceror worse. Le Gris raped me., Le Gris countered with a detailed alibi for not just the day in question but the entire week, calling numerous witnesses to establish his whereabouts in or near another town some twenty-five miles away. But if Marguerites story is true and Le Gris was guilty as charged, why did the squire increase his risk of being found out by bringing an accomplice in the first place? This is when she is surprised by Adam Louvel (Adam Nagaitis) who asks her to open the door so he can wait, and when she does he reveals that Le Gris is also there to proclaim his love for Marguerite. Wife of Sir Jean De Carrouges IV, Chevalier d'Honneur. The article offers a garbled, error-strewn version where, in 1385, Le Gris was accused of attacking the lady by night, with his face masked, as she awaited her husbands return from the Holy Land. Does he truly believe his innocence at the end? Affleck reflects of Le Gris. HIP/Art Resource, NY. Scott rightly ends The Last Duel on a triumphant note. Known as the judgment of God, these ordeals were thought to have a divinely ordained outcome, with the loser proving his guilt by the very act of defeat. The story of the duel inspired Ridley Scott's 2021 film The Last Duel based on the 2004 book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager in which she was played by Jodie Comer. The combat was decreed on December 29, 1386 in Paris.[3]. The film is told in three chapters, from the perspectives of Carrouges (Damon), Le Gris (Adam Driver) and Marguerite (Jodie Comer). The fly in this ointment is another aspect of Marguerites testimony that has not been given due attentionnamely, the inclusion of Adam Louvel in the criminal charges. In real life, as in the film, de Carrouges has to first ask Count Pierre for a trial, which is obviously biased in favour of Le Gris. Death: Immediate Family: Daughter of Robert De Thibouville. If you've been affected by the issues raised in this story, you can access more information from Rape Crisis England and Wales, who work towards the elimination of all forms of sexual violence and sexual misconduct, on their website or by calling the National Rape Crisis Helpline on 0808 802 9999. In Marguerite's version, which the movie frames as 'the truth' (rather than the truth according to whomever) her protests are loud and clear as she screams for help. Of course, Jean de Carrouges was destined for the life of warfare - this was the common fate for many nobles and their sons in medieval France. Directed by Ridley Scott, the movie stars Matt Damon as Carrouges, Adam Driver as Le Gris and Jodie Comer as Carrouges' second wife, Marguerite. Jean de Carrouges stabbed him through the throat with a 6-inch blade, killing his arch-nemesis immediately. Shes going to face some kind of penalty. Instead of being executed, however, most women on the losing side of rape cases endured custodial or financial [punishment], which in medieval terms is kind of the end of everything anyway, according to Skoda. It was a patriarchal and deeply misogynist [time]. The Last Duel starts on the day of the duel, but before it shares the results of Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris' fight, the movie shares the three perspectives at the center of why the . But the count, infuriated by the accusation against his favorite, declared at a legal hearing that Marguerite must have dreamed it and summarily dismissed the charges, ordering that no further questions ever be raised about it.. | The nonfiction work catalogs the events leading up to Frances last government-sanctioned trial by combat, held between Jean de Carrouges and his former friend, Jacques Le Gris. By the union of Marguerite . If Carrouges won the duel, the couple would go free, their claims vindicated. The two men seized her by the arms and legs, she testified, and dragged her up a nearby stairway, while she struggled and shouted for help. [4], Marguerite de Carrouges accused Jacques Le Gris of rape,[5][6] leading to one of the last judicial duels permitted by the French king and the Parliament of Paris (the actual last duel occurred in 1547[7] opposing Guy Chabot de Jarnac against Franois de Vivonne). Historical scandals, much like the contemporary ones filling our tabloids, news sites, and now-ubiquitous Facebook feeds, are built on a widely shared sense of certainty about what really happeneda feeling that often belies the elusive truth. We gave this great filmmaker the opportunity to dramatize the essence of it and make it compelling to an audience, rather than do literally what happened.. Note: The following article contains discussion of rape that some readers may find upsetting. Because rape was viewed less as an act of sexual violence than a property crime against the victims husband or guardian, rapists often avoided harsh penalties by paying a fine to the man in question. And one includes the ladys penitential retreat to a convent, while the other omits this finale. I gave her the opportunity to go get a low-cut dress in the style of the queen, which she was later shamed for wearing. Popular historical fiction abetted the theory of mistaken identity, exploiting its shock effect. A feature film based on The Last Duel is scheduled to be released in 2021. Carrouges died roughly a decade after the duel, falling in combat against the Ottoman Turks. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission. Marguerite replied that she had no wish to speak with Le Gris, and that Louvel should stop his overtures at once. Marguerite testified repeatedly under oath that on a certain day in January 1386Thursday the eighteenthshe was attacked by the two men, Le Gris and Louvel. Cookie Settings, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat, Historical European Martial Arts and Sports Community. French law stipulated that noblemen appealing their cause to the king could challenge the accused to a judicial duel, or trial by combat. Did Le Gris stumble? And even if the assailant, as Pintoin claims, had actually (and contra the actual testimony) made his visit late in the day, its wholly unlikely that Marguerite, who must have been very familiar with her husbands complaints against the squire, would have offered a meal and overnight lodging to her husbands rival (or to a man she mistook for the same), especially during her husbands absence. But not for as long as you need me to. Tossing a sack of coins at the young woman, Le Gris taunted her, claiming that his friends would give him an airtight alibi. Other accounts provide more technical detail, even suggesting that Le Gris slipped on his opponents blood. Really embracing the kind of freedom that gave her. When he leaves he says she should tell no one, especially her husband because he might kill her if he finds out. Even a small mistake, such as misstating the day the attack happened, could result in the case being thrown out and the victim being punished for perjury. Carrouges, now in control, shouted one word at his enemy: Confess. We would have looked like two tin cans. But then, just moments after Carrouges has killed Le Gris on the battlefield, a dusty courier rides up with the astounding news that another man has confessed to the crimenews that is now too late to save the innocent Le Gris. The combat was decreed on December 29, 1386 in Paris. But whats so amazing about Nicole and what Nicole has brought to the piece is this sense of imagination. The mistaken-identity theory was also embraced abroad, as by American historian Henry Charles Lea, who in his influential 1866 study of medieval law, Superstition and Force, stated as a matter of fact that Le Gris was subsequently proved innocent by the deathbed confession of the real offender. Lea even faulted Froissart for having omitted any mention of the confession. Le Coq seems to have had some doubts about his clients truthfulness, while admitting that this was the thorniest of he said, she said cases. Lied, by Eugne Lomont, c. 1895. The screenwriters changed the scene to allow for more nuance. The entire royal court was gossiping about the rape, the trial, and the likelihood of a duel. We gave Ridley, This is what took place. Because it was such a famous event, there was a record. Though the film portrays Jacques le Gris as guilty of raping Marguerite de Carrouges, this was never definitively proven and the facts of the case remain a topic of heated debate to this day. No institution could long survive so open a confutation, and it was annulled by the Parlement.. [4] The case dragged on for some months until ultimately Count Pierre was forced to visit his cousin King Charles VI to officially confirm his ownership of the land and his right to give it to whomever of the followers he chose. The latter explanation is the very one that Le Gris put forward in his own defense, and it has been echoed by at least one modern historian as recently as 1992. Still, The Last Duel does stick closely to historical fact. Her story is detailed and persuasive, and she ran such a great risk to speak up at a time when women were supposed to keep silent about such things. As it turns out, the description of the event in Eric Jager's book The Last Duel is rather different from the five surviving medieval accounts of the fight. (At this point, the two men were in their late 50s, which places Damon at close to the right age for his role but Driver a good generation off the mark. If there are reasons for believing in the possibility of Le Gris innocence, the doubtful story of a belated confession by another man certainly is not and never has been one of them. He challenged Jacques to a duel to the death in the king's court. (Le Gris and Carrouges both started out as squires and vassals to Count Pierre, but Carrouges was knighted for his military service in 1385.) Digital image courtesy of theGettys Open Content Program. Some have suggested that her husband forced the story out of her to avenge himself on Le Gris, his former friend turned rival at court. Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Last Duel. I would call that historically accurate, even though we dont have direct testimony that Marguerite did this or that at the time.. The moral was plain: Le Gris rose in the world and then suddenly fell, he dominated but finally was vanquished, he committed a crime in secret and was publicly exposed. Damon and Affleck took the dialogue directly from Jagers book. We gathered from research that she was really capable and educated, Holofcener says. She refuses his advances, after which he rapes her. Centuries later the story of the innocent Le Gris falsely accused and forced to defend himself in a barbaric and unjust trial by combat was further popularized by Enlightenment thinkers. Louvels naming of Le Gris just prior to the squires own arrival would seem to put Le Gris indisputably thereunless Marguerites story was a deliberate fabrication. They leave, with the crowds cheering for de Carrouges. The movie ends with Marguerite playing with her son, seemingly at peace with her life. ( 20 th Century Studios ) At the time, the French were engaged in a bitter conflict with the English. The film does show that at the same time as Marguerite was pregnant, so was the queen. A seasoned warrior with more fighting experience than Le Gris, Carrouges quickly rebounded from his injury, gaining the upper hand and pushing his opponent to the ground. Of the judicial duels that actually took place, few ended in death. Birthdate: estimated between 1321 and 1381. The earlier of the two is the Saint-Denis Chronicle, an official royal history by the monk Michel Pintoin probably written around 1400. The knights victory saved both him and his wife, earning the formerly notorious couple wealth and prestige. They still spoke out, and they still fought against the grain.. Its also significant that the Parlement of Paris found Marguerites story credible enough to vacate Count Pierres official exoneration of Le Gris and to authorize the rare judicial duel, whose official purpose, however doubtful the procedure may seem today, was to determine the truth in cases where witness testimony and other evidence was insufficient for reaching a verdict. I do not know, he adds in a poignant aside, for I never spoke with her, whether she had not often regretted having gone so far with the matter that she and her husband were in such grave dangerand then finally there was nothing for it but to await the outcome.. Meilan Solly Carrouges, without whom his wife could not even bring a case, resolutely rode off to Paris to appeal for justice to the king. Marguerite de Carrouges : My father told me my life would be blessed with good fortune. Charles I de Lorraine, duc d'Elbeuf (Joinville, 18 October 1556 - Moulins, 4 August 1605) was a French noble, military commander and governor during the French Wars of Religion.The son of the most minor cadet house of the children of Claude, Duke of Guise, Elbeuf initially lacked the prominence of his cousins, however his succession to the Rieux inheritance made him important. Unable to rise due to the weight of his body armor, Le Gris resisted Carrouges calls to confess, declaring, In the name of God, and on the peril and damnation of my soul, I am innocent of the crime. Enraged, Carrouges delivered the death blow, perhaps by stabbing Le Gris exposed neck or thighs. Cases had to meet four requirements, including exhausting all other legal remedies and confirming that the crime had actually occurred. Le Gris was the counts favorite and his administrative right hand. She married Jean de Carrouges in 1380. Theres a certain arrogance rooted in that assumption. No one really knew the truth of the matter. In his own defense, Le Gris claimed that Nicole had found nothing amiss upon her return and didnt believe her daughter-in-laws later allegations. In an entry on duels, the Grand dictionnaire universel (186677), overseen by respected editor Pierre Larousse, describes the 1386 affair as one of the most remarkable in history, claiming that the wide belief in its injustice helped to bring the custom of trial by combat to a speedy end. In real life, there was another complicating factor de Carrouges bought land and was forced to turn it over to Pierre, blaming Le Gris for it. Given the absence of any witnesses in her own favor, Marguerites accusations against Louvel were a gratuitous and risky addition to her testimony if her story of the attack and rape was indeed a deliberate lie. Marguerite, who had accused Le Gris of raping her, watched from the sidelines; clad entirely in black, she was keenly aware that her husbands defeat would be viewed as proof of perjury, vindicating her attacker and ensuring her execution by burning at the stake for the crime of bearing false witness. In court, he also claimed to have seen Marguerite only twice in his entire life: during the Parlements official inquiry, and also not less than two years earlier at a social gathering at the home of a mutual friend, Jean Crespin, where Carrouges and Le Gris apparently put aside their recent quarrels and Carrouges ordered his wife to kiss Le Gris as a sign of renewed friendship. There [wasnt] going to be a settlement without one of them losing their reputation., After hearing both parties testimony, the Parlement of Paris agreed to authorize a duelFrances first trial by combat for a rape case in more than 30 years. You know whether my cause is just and true. She replied, My Lord, it is so, and you can fight with confidence, for the cause is just. And so Le Gris trial by combat began. Marguerite de Thibouville (a very different character from Comer's Villanelle in Killing Eve) was the only daughter of Robert de Thibouville, a wealthy Norman lord viewed as a traitor for siding against the French king in territorial disputes with England. When Marguerite told Le Gris that he must not speak to her in this way, he seized her by the hand, forced her to sit down beside him on a bench, and told her that he knew all about her husbands recent money troubles, offering to pay her well. Rather than this idea of somebody, through the lens of their own experience and acculturation, not understanding their behavior. That was really sad. We knew who this woman was generally by the way she spoke out in the time in which she was living in.. Pointing out that womens voices are actually loud and clear, albeit filtered through the court system and notaries, in many medieval documents, the historian explains, Its a really nice way of sort of flipping our stereotypes of the Middle Ages. According to court documents and testimony, Le Gris accomplice, Adam Louvel (Adam Nagaitis), participated in the rape. Women of that status, on these feudal estates, were in charge of a lot of things, especially when their husbands were away at war or on important business. In his youth, Jean served in the retinue of . By now the case had become a cause clbre. Marguerite de Carrouges : No. Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Marguerite claimed that Nicole took with her nearly all of the household servants, including a maidservant whom Jean had specifically instructed never to leave Marguerites side, thus leaving Marguerite virtually alone.. That testimony takes up nearly a thousand words of Latin in the Parlements official summary of the case, preserved today at the Archives Nationales, on the Right Bank, in the Marais, a short walk from the old priory where the battle unfolded on that cold winter day. In the winter of 1386, a French noblewoman by the name of Marguerite de Carrouges found herself at the centre of a criminal case that electrified Paris, captivated the king and culminated in blood being spilled before an enormous crowd in a field just outside the French capital. Some argued that shed falsely accused Le Gris, either mistaking him for someone else or acting on the orders of her vindictive husband. Le Gris, a large and powerful man with a reputation as a womanizer, is too self-centered to acknowledge the unwanted nature of his advances and too self-assured to believe that, once the deed is done, Marguerite will follow through on her threat of seeking justice. An elaborate example appeared in 1829, just a few years after Du Bois conjecture that the accused squire had been mistaken for a look-alike, in Lhistorial du jongleur, an anonymous collection of medieval tales. The fate that awaited Marguerite if her husbands attempts failedbeing burned at the stake for bearing false witnessrepresented an extreme example of the potential repercussions faced by accusers. In the six centuries after the quarrel ended, however, the moral that was to be derived from it changed considerably. Jager, for his part, tells Medievalists.net that he never would have embarked on writing this book if I had not believed Marguerite. Le Gris lawyer, Jean Le Coq, arguably summarized the case best, noting in his journal that no one really knew the truth of the matter.. From the mechanics of trial by combat to the prosecution of sexual violence in medieval society, heres what you need to know about the true history behind The Last Duel ahead of the films October 15 debut. In 1380 Carrouges married Marguerite de Thibouville (Jodie Comer), daughter of the controversial known traitor Robert de Thibouville who had sided against multiple French Kings in. de Carrouges knows that even the King is biased against him, and decides to ask for a trial by duel, in which God decides the outcome by letting the liar die. De Carrouges sued Pierre for the land and lost, which only put him further on the outs with the count. Marguerite was born as Marguerite De Thibouville in Normandy in the year 1362. Even the characters haircuts which have been the butt of some online jokes match up with what we know about the period, according to Jager. Being caught beneath a horse would mean certain death. Sir Jean de Carrouges : I am risking my life for you! Her father had sided against the king twice, and. But the overwhelming likelihood is that she was telling the truth. According to Eric Jager's book The Last Duel, the alleged rape of Jean de Carrouges' wife Marguerite happened on January 18, 1386. Marguerites fate is unknown, though later historians convinced of the falsity of her claims suggested she retired to a convent out of shame. But a public accusation of rape, at the time a capital offense and often a cause for scandalous rumors endangering the honor of those involved, could have grave consequences for both accuser and accused, especially among the nobility. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Duels of honor, as well as judicial duels authorized by other governing bodies, continued to take place centuries after Carrouges triumph. The book, exhaustively compiled from existing documents and records, recounts how Carrouges' wife, Marguerite, accused Le Gris of rape, leading to the pair fighting to the death with. [2][3], Shortly after his marriage, Carrouges revealed another motive for the union. If your husband hears of it, he may kill you. de Carrouges, whose wife and son died of an unknown illness, eventually marries Marguerite, a wealthy but reputationally damaged young woman. As she argues, Instead of a duel that was long and drawn out and involved many different weapons and a whole variety of exciting scenarios, it seems to have been a very short affair that shocked the audience., Two likely eyewitnessesthe author of the Chronicle of the Monk of Saint-Denis and Le Coqagree that Le Gris landed the first blow, piercing Carrouges thigh with his sword. Despite the threat of public humiliation and potentially deadly outcome of disclosing ones rape, women like Marguerite spoke out, perhaps as a way of working through their trauma or simply refusing to passively accept [what had] happened to them, says Skoda. I was a good wife. Only in the final section of the film, when Marguerite is allowed to speak for herself, does the truth of the mens personalities emerge: Carrougesa jealous and contentious man, in Jagers wordsis mainly concerned with saving his own pride. And thats one of the things we didnt focus as much on: They truly believed God would make happen whatever was the fair thing to happen, so it would be Gods will.
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