![]() ![]() In 1380, after the death of his father Charles V of France, the 12-year-old Charles VI was crowned king, beginning his minority with his four uncles acting as regents. ![]() The incident later provided inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's short story Hop-Frog. The event was chronicled by contemporary writers such as the Monk of St Denis and Jean Froissart, and illustrated in a number of 15th-century illuminated manuscripts by painters such as the Master of Anthony of Burgundy. Scholars believe the dance performed at the ball had elements of traditional charivari, with the dancers disguised as wild men, mythical beings often associated with demonology, that were commonly represented in medieval Europe and documented in revels of Tudor England. The public's outrage forced the king and his brother Orléans, whom a contemporary chronicler accused of attempted regicide and sorcery, to offer penance for the event.Ĭharles's wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, held the ball to honor the remarriage of a lady-in-waiting. The event undermined confidence in Charles' capacity to rule Parisians considered it proof of courtly decadence and threatened to rebel against the more powerful members of the nobility. The ball was one of a number of events intended to entertain the king, who the previous summer had suffered an attack of insanity. Charles and another of the dancers survived. Four of the dancers were killed in a fire caused by a torch brought in by a spectator, Charles's brother Louis I, Duke of Orléans. The Bal des Ardents ( Ball of the Burning Men ), also called Bal des Sauvages ( Ball of the Wild Men), was a masquerade ball held on 28 January 1393 in Paris at which Charles VI of France performed in a dance with five members of the French nobility. One dancer has leapt into the wine vat in the gallery above, musicians continue to play. ![]() The Duchess of Berry holds her blue skirts over a barely visible Charles VI of France as the dancers tear at their burning costumes. The Bal des Ardents depicted in a 15th-century miniature from Froissart's Chronicles. ![]()
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