On a freezing January night in 1393, music and laughter filled the Hôtel Saint-Pol, a sprawling palace on the right bank of Paris. The French court had gathered for a masquerade ball in honour of a lady-in-waiting’s remarriage — a diversion meant to lift the spirits of King Charles VI, a 24-year-old monarch already shadowed by bouts of mental instability.
By dawn, four courtiers would be dead, the king barely alive, and the French monarchy’s reputation scorched beyond repair. The event would be remembered for centuries as the Bal des Ardents, or the Ball of the Burning Men.
The Bal des Ardents depicted in a 15th-century painting from Froissart's “Chronicles”. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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The Ball of The Burning Men
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