Masquerade balls are often lavish occasions. These fancy dress parties for the rich and ranked are usually attempts by the guests and the hosts to outdo themselves in the extravagance of their costume and their appearance.
Moreover, people attending the event also wear masks, as coquettish disguise is part of the thrill of attending: what if you accidentally flirt with the king? While masquerade balls, supercharged by such scandalous lapses in decorum, usually involve celebration and entertainment, they have, on occasion, been tragic.
One particular instance almost claimed the life of the French king, in an event which popularly came to be known as the “Ball of the Burning Men”. How could the king be endangered in this fashion? Could the masquerade itself be to blame?
It all started with a celebration. On the 28th of January, 1393, a masquerade ball was held to celebrate the third marriage of one of the ladies-in-waiting of the queen. The queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, looked for reasons to celebrate and entertain Charles VI of France, her husband.
The main aim was to distract the king as he had recently suffered from a psychotic break, attacking his own men while marching with his army. Known as “Charles the Mad” in his later years, the king was most definitely not well, and this ball probably did not help.
The event took place at the royal palace of Hôtel Saint-Pol. The main entertainment of the masquerade ball was a charivari, a type of performance that was given by six senior knights of the court who dressed as wild men of the woods.
The Charivari Performance
As the key events of the day came to pass, it was time for charivari. At the suggestion of a member of Charles VI’s court named Huguet de Guisay, the young king got involved in charivari. Charles VI, along with five of his companions, duly disguised themselves as “wild men”.
The costumes of charivari were usually made of linen and soaked in pitch and resin wax. Flax strands were attached to the costumes in order to give the dancers a wild and hairy look. Hair masks were also used by the dancers to completely cover their faces.
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One of the games in charivari was to guess the identities of the dancers. Very few people in the audience that day actually knew that Charles VI was one of the dancers, and the idea was to surprise the guests with the revelation that their king had been dancing in front of them.
To complete the look the six men, including the king, were bound together with the use of chains. The six men then entered the great hall and started dancing in a wild, howling, frenzied manner. They tried to entertain people by acting like wild men.
Already it is pretty clear what is going to happen, but the court officials were well aware of the risks of dressing in such a fashion in this era of torches and candlelight. A strict order had been passed down not to carry or lit any torch inside the hall, as the costumes were made of flammable materials and could easily catch fire.
The wild dance of the six men continued. The dancers continued to cavort in a frenzied fasion, making obscene gestures. The nobles present in the hall laughed and tried to guess who the dancers were.
The Disaster
At that time, two guests who had arrived late entered the hall. One of the men was the brother of the king, Louis, Duke of Orleans, and the other was one Phillipe de Bar. Both men may have been late, and they were also completely drunk and stumbled onwards, carrying their torches into the hall.
The two men quickly approached the men who were dancing. In order to identify the wild men who were dancing, Louis took a lit torch and brough it close to the face of the dancers. According to one source, a single spark from the lit torch fell on the costume of one of the dancers, and his leg caught fire.
This is a tragedy, but other sources claim it was Louis’s rowdy drunkenness that was to blame. This other source states that Louis I is believed to throw the torch. In either case, the costume of the dancer caught fire, and as he burned the flames spread rapidly from one dancer to another.
Chaos erupted in the hall. The six men who were dancing were completely on fire, including the king, Charles VI. As the queen knew that one of the wild masked men was her husband, she started shrieking in despair. Many other people in the hall also caught fire, as the great tragedy unfolded.
Among all the people present in the hall Joan, the Duchess De Berry, a 15-year noble lady, was the most composed one. She fearlessly approached the king and identified him by his features.
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Acting quickly, she gathered the train of her dress and threw it on the king to smother the flame. But the other men were not so lucky, and as the fire consumed their flesh they could be heard screaming.
The Aftermath
Among the six men who were dancing, only two survived. One of the men who survived was King Charles VI. His costume that was in flames was extinguished by Joan, the Duchess De Berry.
The other person who survived the disaster was Sieur de Nantouillet. Thinking quickly, he had jumped into a vat of water to douse his burning costume. The remaining four dancers died in the tragic event. Huguet de Guisay, who instigated the “wild man” charade, was also injured by the flames and died three days later.
The entire event aroused anger among the citizens of Paris. They started blaming Louis I, brother of King Charles VI. The anger of the citizens finally calmed down when Louis I decided to make atonement for the mistake he had committed.
He made a big donation to building a chapel at the Celestine monastery in Paris. Moreover, King Charles and his uncles rode a royal procession of humility through the city in order to apologize to the people.
The event ruined the reputation of Louis I, Duke of Orleans. His odd behavior remained imprinted in history. But this was nothing compared to the damage done to the health, and the sanity, of Charles VI.
Following the “Ball of the Burning Men” incident, the shock to Charles’s system overwhelmed his already fragile mind. He collapsed into madness and his condition worsened through his life, to the point where he believed he was made of glass.
Although he would rule for almost another 30 years and live to see the English defeat his grand army at Agincourt, until his death, his position as a king from this point on was only ceremonial. Charles may not have died that night, but he was scarred forever.
Top Image: The Wild Men burn at the Ball of the Burning Men, Charles Vi among them. Source: British Library / Public Domain.
By Bipin Dimri
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