37 pages • 1 hour read
Eric JagerThe Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis: “Battle and Siege”
When the French decide to counterattack England through Scotland with the help of the Scottish king, Carrouges decides to join the expedition. Jager speculates Carrouges was hoping to profit from loot taken from England, possibly earn a knighthood, and “abandon for a while the scene of his recent embarrassments at Count Pierre’s court in Argentan” (42). However, it was a risky venture for Carrouges since after five years of marriage Marguerite had still not given birth to an heir. Still, Carrouges departed for Scotland, and while he was gone Marguerite stayed at her father’s estate, Fontaine-le-Sorel.
From the start, the campaign in Scotland led by Admiral Jean de Vienne went poorly, in no small part because King Robert of Scotland was reluctant to work with the French. Still, Carrouges was part of the army that looted the lands of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland in northern England. “As fear and alarm galloped everywhere, Jean de Carrouges and his comrades threw themselves into the maelstrom of war, slaughtering enemy soldiers and civilians alike, seizing livestock, and carrying off any valuables” (47). The English counterattacked and pillaged and burned the Scottish capital of Edinburgh and other Scottish lands. While still pillaging northern England, the Scots and French forces were defeated.
The campaign ended with failure and the French nobles impoverishing themselves. Carrouges in particular came back to Normandy “his coffers emptied and his health in ruins” (50). Still, over the course of the campaign, he was finally granted a knighthood. In the winter of 1385-1386, Carrouges decided to take Marguerite to the estate of his mother Nicole.
By discussing Carrouges’s activities in this time, Jager draws attention to two themes. The first is how important warfare was to a noble’s activity. Even though it meant investing his own money and risking his life and his family’s future, Carrouges joined an expedition to Scotland, apparently to compensate for his failures at Count Pierre’s court. The second matter is violence in both warfare and day-to-day life. Both northern England and Scotland during the campaign experienced war and looting that impacted soldiers and civilians alike. Sometimes the leaders of armies will not even come to the defense of their own country’s commoners, such as when the Scottish allowed the English to pillage their own land without a fight (47). Not only that, but everyday life could be dangerous. Jager notes that, when Marguerite and Carrouges travelled to Nicole de Carrouges’s château, they were likely “on guard against routiers, the free companies of mercenary bands that lived off the land between the intermittent battles of the Hundred Years’ War” (52). Even outside war, violence in this time and place was an everyday concern.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis: “The Crime of Crimes”
The campaign in Scotland left Carrouges with health and money problems. Still, Carrouges decided to set out in the dead of winter for his mother Nicole’s château at Capomesnil. It was not a pleasant visit for Marguerite since her mother-in-law resented Nicole for representing a “wrong alliance” (54) for the Carrouges family. Regardless, when Carrouges decided to set out for Paris to call in a debt with the king’s treasurer and favors from his wealthy friends, he left Marguerite with Nicole.
On the way to Paris, Carrouges stopped at Count Pierre’s court at Argentan. Here, Jager speculates that something happened that reignited Carrouges’s feud with Le Gris. It may have been an outburst by Carrouges since he “was given to flashes of anger and sudden jealous rages” (58). However, it could have also been that Le Gris still nursed his anger over Carrouges’s past behavior. In any case, with the help of his friend Adam Louvel, who lived near Nicole de Carrouges’s château, Le Gris plotted to get revenge through Carrouges’s wife Marguerite.
One night, after Nicole had left with virtually all of the household servants to serve as a witness at a court case, Louvel knocked on the door begging to be let in. Louvel claimed to be representing Le Gris, who had fallen in love with her. Le Gris then appeared. When Marguerite refused his advances, he assaulted and raped her. After the assault, Le Gris threatened her, saying if she accused him, she would not be believed. Also, Le Gris gave her money, to which Marguerite angrily cried she did not want money but “justice” (68). When Louvel suggested he slap her to threaten her further, Le Gris struck him, saying, “Don’t you dare touch the lady” (69). After this, Le Gris and Louvel left the château without another word.
Next, Jager discusses rape in the context of the Middle Ages. He argues against the idea of a “lawless Middle Ages where rape was rampant and scarcely considered a crime” (69). In the Middle Ages, while Jager admits marital rape was tolerated and rape victims were sometimes made to wed their attackers, under French law rape “was considered a felony and a capital offense” (69) with the rape of a noblewoman considered “’the crime of crimes’” (70). Even so, whether a rape was persecuted depended on the class and social standing of the victim, and a charge of rape could not be brought forward without a husband, male relative, or legal guardian. Overall, Jager finds that while rape was treated seriously under law, it was a legal and social system that disadvantaged women, even upper-class women, with the consequence that rape “often went unpunished, unprosecuted, and even unreported” (71).
Marguerite did not tell Nicole de Carrouges what happened when she returned. Instead, she waited until she could tell her husband in private. “As she finished, she pleaded with him to seek vengeance for the sake of his own honor” (73). The next day, Carrouges called a council consisting of members of his family and his friends. They advised Carrouges to seek justice from his lord, Count Pierre, as would have been customary since one of Count Pierre’s responsibilities would be to settle legal disputes among his vassals. However, “the odds” were “against receiving a fair hearing in Count Pierre’s court” (75) given Count Pierre’s favoritism toward Le Gris and hatred of Carrouges. Finally, Marguerite discovered that she was pregnant, possibly with Le Gris’s child.
Traditionally, accounts of Carrouges and Le Gris focus on them instead of on Marguerite. With this chapter, Jager tries to highlight Marguerite’s experience and emotions more. In Jager’s telling of the rape and its aftermath, Marguerite shows agency in defying Le Gris, demanding justice, and how she approached her husband. In particular, Marguerite is skillful in invoking Carrouges’s sense of honor while Le Gris himself might have played on Marguerite’s anxieties as the daughter of a dishonorable traitor in his threats to her (71). In sum, what was at stake was not only the physical violation of Marguerite, but the violation of her and her husband’s honor.
