KAZ I WOULD LOVE TO TELL YOU
So King Charles VI of France was very unique. He w well-known for believing he was made of glass (causing him to have frequent sick days in bed to keep from harm), and after a manic episode in 1392 on the road wherein he killed 4 knights (he believed his brother the Duke of Orleans wanted to kill him), his doctor encouraged the court to create a fun and relaxing atmosphere to keep him calm.
Well, his wife Isabeau took that quite seriously, including apparently wearing giant conical hats. Legend has it the doors had to be widened in the old castle because she and her maids couldn't fit anymore. This rumor didn't help Isabeau's reputation because the poor thing was already hated by the people for being foreign-born and somehow being responsible for high taxes. Isabeau was believed to be an excessive spender as well, which the whole hat-door controversy seemed to confirm. (Sound like another French queen history loves to hate?)
Oh, and did I mention the 100 Years War between England and France is going on at the moment? Well, at the time of our Special Event, there was a tense truce. The peasantry were still really suffering economically.
Anyway-- Isabeau's lady in waiting Catherine de Fastaverin was getting married (for a 3rd time). Isabeau was I guess trying to break societal barriers and decided to hold a bachelorette party for Cat. The party was well-attended and totally lit. Actually it wasn't lit all that well, because King Charles told the servants not to allow torches at the party. Isabeau was like "that's weird but okay" and also "where even is he?".
WELL, Charles thought it would be funny to throw a charivari in Cat's honor. What's a charivari? Well, Charles learned that it's one of the cute little peasant traditions his people like to do, wherein a person in the community who does something socially taboo gets publicly shamed for it with a raucous parade of horrible sounds and weird costumes. Cat? Getting married for a THIRD time? Get the pots and spoons, we need to shame her publicly at the party my wife worked so hard to put on!
Except...actually Charles and his friends wore woodwose costumes made of flax, linen, and resin.
Okay, alright, yes. "What's a woodwose?" I hear you ask. Literally-- and I'm not exaggerating-- woodwoses are like if Bigfoot was a fae. If you Google them, you will find them in tapestries, paintings, and even holding up shields in heraldry. They're weird yet fun!
So Charles and his friends suddenly appear in their hairy Bigfoot costumes, waving sticks around and shouting. Isabeau is pissed because she was just trying to throw a nice party and now 5 men (one obviously her husband) have come in wearing hideous costumes and making a mess. To make matters worse, her brother-in-law the Duke of Orleans shows up late--and drunk-- with his servant lighting their path into the dimly lit room.
Reportedly, Charles shouts for the guests to guess who is who. Orleans is game, so he grabs the torch from his servant and holds it up close to the face of one of the woodwoses.
And what should happen, dear reader, but that one of the embers from his contraband torch falls onto the (very flammable) flax costume and CATCH THE COSTUME ON FIRE.
The other costumed men try to help, but of course they ALSO CATCH ON FIRE. The king's aunt (who knows which one is the king because no one is fooled) grabs Charles with her voluminous skirts and shields him from the flames. Everyone is screaming. This party is WAY worse than Isabeau thought. People are afraid to help because they could also catch fire (wool being the hot material of the day).
One guy jumps into the giant bucket of water (I believe it's there to put out the torches, ORLEANS). One guy dies at the party. Two more die from their severe burns days later (one of whom reportedly died shouting curses at the king for doing something so foolish). Charles never mentally recovers from the ordeal.
The peasants are all in an uproar. They're starving and barely making ends meet in this quasi-truce with England, and here the foreign queen is holding an extravagant party (for her twice-married lady in waiting, they might add), and three men are dead!! This extravagance and multitudinous frivolities MUST be stopped.
All the nobles who attend are made to walk through Paris in their own shame parade for being so dumb. Rumors abound among the nobility that Isabeau is actually having an affair with Orleans, who deliberately tried to kill the king so that he could rule. These rumors are so widespread that Orleans is ASSASSINATED by Philip of Burgundy.
This causes a rift among the nobility that breaks into outright civil war between the devoted Orleanists who believe in his innocence (or that he SHOULD have been king) and the Burgundians who are loyal to Philip. The peasants get upset because literally how dare these nobles be so out of touch with reality AGAIN. Like they are starving and poor and here these nobles are having a years-long civil war instead of providing for their people.
Ultimately, the Bal des Ardents set into motion a persistent mentality among the French peasantry that the nobles were not to be trusted to put their best interests at heart. The nobles were a frivolous bunch. And, I posit, that this mentality continues for generations as court intrigues persist, ultimately culminating in the final straw: the French Revolution. Do I have proof? No. Is it really funny if guys dressed as Bigfoot catching on fire in the 1300s dominoed into the award-winning movie musical Les Miserables starring Hugh Jackman? Yes. And because of that, I believe it's true.
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