Charles VI’s bouts of insanity

Charles VI’s bouts of insanity transformed a royal military procession into a scene of danger and abruptly undermined the king’s claim to rule independently. The first public episode came on August 8, 1392, during a campaign in Brittany: after a warning in the forest and a sudden clang of steel, Charles lost his recognition of the people around him and began acting as if he were under attack. His attendants eventually subdued him without further harm, but the campaign was abandoned. The episode was the first public sign of a condition that would recur throughout his reign and shift authority back to his family.

Background and the approach to crisis

Charles’s campaign had been launched after Pierre de Craon, a disgraced nobleman, attempted to assassinate Olivier de Clisson, the constable of France. Craon blamed Clisson for his exile from court, attacked him in the streets of Paris, and then found protection with the Duke of Brittany, who refused to surrender him. Charles therefore raised an army to bring the duke and Craon to justice. In the summer of 1392, Jean de Carrouges rode with the king’s retinue, newly appointed to the rank of chevalier d’honneur and accompanied by ten squires.

The king had only recently escaped the political control of his uncles and declared himself sole ruler. Against that background, the expedition was not simply a military undertaking: it displayed the authority Charles had asserted for himself. The account does not present the crisis as the campaign’s intended outcome. Instead, it builds toward it through a succession of warnings and disturbances, then makes the king’s loss of command the event that stops the army.

On August 8, the army crossed a large forest near Le Mans in very hot, dry weather. A bare-headed man in a smock ran into the road, seized the king’s horse by its bridle, and warned him not to ride farther because he was betrayed. The attendants treated the stranger as mad and beat him; once he let go, the procession continued. The warning was thus dismissed at the moment it was given, but it remained in the account as part of the circumstances preceding Charles’s breakdown.

The first public episode in 1392

Around noon, the army emerged from the forest and crossed an exposed sandy plain. Charles rode apart from his uncles, the dukes of Berry and Burgundy, partly to avoid the dust. He wore a black velvet jerkin and a scarlet hat in the heat. A page behind him carried a polished steel helmet, and another page followed with a lance. When the second page accidentally dropped the lance, it struck the helmet of the page ahead with a loud clang.

The sound precipitated the crisis. Still preoccupied with the stranger’s warning, Charles imagined that enemies were closing in. He spurred his horse forward, drew his sword, and turned on the pages, no longer recognizing them or the other people around him. He called on those nearby to attack the supposed traitors. The frightened pages moved out of the way, and in the confusion several men in the royal entourage died. Charles then saw his brother, Louis of Valois, and pursued him with his sword raised. The dukes recognized that the king was out of his mind and called for the mounted company to catch him.

Jean de Carrouges was in the king’s retinue and may have joined the pursuit. The account describes the king’s brother leading the chase, with Charles close behind and a long line of horsemen following across the plain. Eventually Louis outran the king, while the men-at-arms caught up with Charles and surrounded him. They parried his blows and let him tire rather than injure him. When he was exhausted, a knight restrained him from behind; the others removed his sword and lifted him from his horse. Charles did not recognize his brother or uncles and was carried back to Le Mans in a litter. The army’s expedition was immediately called off.

Recurrence and political consequences

The episode of 1392 was the first public display of the madness that would affect Charles for the rest of his life. For the following thirty years, until his death in 1422, he alternated between periods when he seemed lucid and normal and bouts that left him severely incapacitated. The account also describes his sensitivity to bright light and loud noise, and his belief at times that he was so brittle he might break like glass. These details give the recurring condition a pattern of fluctuation rather than portraying him as continuously incapacitated.

The political reversal was immediate. Charles had declared himself the sole ruler of France after throwing off his uncles’ control; after the episode, he could not reliably govern himself, much less the kingdom. Power passed back to his uncles and to Louis of Valois, the brother who had just escaped the king’s pursuit. The same family members who had been riding apart from Charles on the campaign again became central to the exercise of authority. His illness therefore had consequences beyond his own capacity to command: it reopened the question of who would govern in his place.

The Bal des Ardents

Within a year, another crisis brought Charles close to death and further unsettled his condition. He and five young nobles entered a crowded ballroom chained together and disguised as savages in linen costumes covered with pitch and flax. The young men, who were friends of the king, intended the prank to distract him from his melancholia and raise his spirits. During the gathering, a guest brought a candle too close to the costumes, which caught fire. The nobles died, while Charles survived after stepping away to show himself to the ladies; the Duchess of Berry protected him by wrapping her skirts around him.

The episode became known as the Bal des Ardents. The narrative presents it as a near-fatal disaster that shattered what remained of Charles’s nerves and seemed to worsen his dementia. Its setting and cause differed from the 1392 breakdown: that crisis arose during a military procession, after a warning and an accidental clash of metal, whereas this one began as a courtly entertainment meant to lift the king’s spirits. Together, the episodes show how fragile the boundary between royal ceremony and danger had become, and how the king’s recurring illness continued to shape both his personal safety and the stability of his rule.