242pp. Illus. in text. The gripping story of the "duel to end all duels". At the heart of the tale is Jean de Carrougues, a Norman knight who returned from combat in Scotland to find his wife, Marguerite, accusing Jacques le Gris, her husband's old friend and fellow courtier, of brutally raping her. The knight took his cause before teenage King Charles VI, but the court was deadlocked and decreed the duel - leaving the fate of the husband, his now pregnant wife and her unborn child, in the balance. In 1386 a huge crowd gatherered at a Paris monastery to watch the two men fight to the death. Based on extensive research in Normandy and Paris, a superb study. Index.

True Crime Criminology French History Sociology