“No one really knew the truth of the matter”
The Last Duel“No one really knew the truth of the matter” is Jean Le Coq’s admission of uncertainty about the accusation against Jacques Le Gris, and a phrase the book returns to when weighing the case’s contested history. It marks the boundary between what the surviving testimony and records can establish and what they cannot finally prove: uncertainty remains, but it does not erase the evidence or make every explanation equally convincing.
Origin in Le Coq’s Account
Jean Le Coq, Le Gris’s lawyer, ends his commentary on the case with the phrase. His position gave him unusual access to the proceedings and to his client, yet the book emphasizes that even this privileged viewpoint could not resolve the central question. Le Coq appears to have had doubts about Le Gris’s truthfulness, but his closing words stop short of claiming certainty about guilt. Their force lies in that restraint: the lawyer acknowledges the limits of his knowledge rather than converting suspicion into a verdict.
The comment came after a drawn-out legal inquiry. Adam Louvel and a maidservant said to have been at the Carrouges residence on the day of the alleged crime were examined under torture, but neither confessed to anything. Le Coq also recounted the defense’s claims, including that knights had seen Le Gris with Count Pierre throughout the day in question. He noted that some said Le Gris persisted in denying the accusation partly because a confession would bring scandal upon his sons and friends, after Count Pierre had already declared him innocent. These competing claims sharpen the uncertainty without resolving it.
What the Phrase Leaves Open
The phrase concerns more than a lack of a conclusive answer at the end of a trial. The case had passed through overlapping centers of authority: Count Pierre heard the original complaint, while Jean de Carrouges could appeal an allegedly unfair judgment to the king’s court in Paris. Count Pierre was Le Gris’s patron and favorite, making impartiality a serious concern. In the royal proceedings, Le Gris could also have sought clerical jurisdiction, which would have taken the case away from the Parlement of Paris and avoided a duel; on Le Coq’s account, however, he rejected that advice.
The circumstances also made proof difficult. The alleged attack had no supporting eyewitnesses, and French law required a woman to have her husband, father, or male guardian’s cooperation to bring charges. Marguerite faced the additional disadvantage of her family’s tarnished standing and Le Gris’s connections. These conditions help explain why uncertainty persisted, but they do not themselves establish that her accusation was false or true. The phrase names an evidentiary limit produced within an unequal legal and social world, not a finding that the competing accounts deserve equal weight.
Repetition and Historical Judgment
The book brings the phrase back when assessing the case’s later controversies. It notes that some chroniclers doubted Marguerite’s account, while others credited her testimony, which she maintained under oath despite the risks of public accusation. The author considers mistaken identity unlikely: Marguerite said she saw both Le Gris and Louvel in daylight, spoke with them before the attack, and heard Louvel name Le Gris before he appeared. The author also points to a weakness in the theory that she knowingly lied: naming Louvel as well added another accusation to prove, without an eyewitness in her support.
That analysis does not turn probability into certainty. Le Gris died in the judicial duel without confessing, and accounts of the duel’s meaning remained divided; his family later continued to protest what it regarded as an unjust death. By repeating Le Coq’s phrase at the point of historical assessment, the book preserves the distinction between a reasoned judgment and complete proof. The expression is neither a declaration that the case is unknowable in every respect nor a license to invent a definitive answer. It holds the unresolved question in view while leaving the evidence, and its limits, intact.
