1393. At a feast held by King Charles VI and Queen Isabeau of Bavaria in honour of the wedding of one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, the king together with five courtiers, dressed up as Wild Men to perform a masquerade or, others say, a charivari as part of the court entertainment. Their hairy costumes, which rendered them indistinguishable, covered them from head to foot; they were highly flammable. Precautions had been taken to avoid any contact with fire. However, the king’s brother, Louis 1, Duke of Orléans curious to discover which of these unrecognizable dancers actually was the king, approached the dancers, setting the men ablaze. One dancer was saved by the quick action of the Duchess de Berry, who threw her voluminous skirt over the man, smothering the flames. Unbeknownst to her, she had saved the king. Another courtier, Sieur de Nantouillet, was able to save himself by jumping into an open tub filled with water. The other four ‘wild men’ perished, two suffering for many days.

This horrific event, now known as Le Bal des Ardents, took place at Hôtel Saint-Pol, a Parisian residence belonging to Charles VI. Jean Froissart (c.1337-c.1450), an author and court historian from the Low Countries, gives a vivid account of that calamitous day in Book IV of his Chronicles, supplementing the facts with some more of less fictional extras. In six extant manuscripts, the dramatic text is embellished with an illuminated miniature. None of the illuminations show the actual dance scene. With just one exception (BnF fr, 2648) all the illuminations illustrate the shocking scene of the dancers amidst the flames. And yet, even though the actual dancing moment is not shown, illustrations of the Bal des Ardents are common in books on ballet and dance history. Gruesome as the occasion was, the performance presented at that ill-fated wedding in 1393, is an early example of dance as a form of theatrical entertainment.

Just as Jean Froissart employed artistic license, visual artists assumed interpretive freedom. The seven known illuminations, though similar, differ in various details. Froissart’s neither mentions a dog nor musicians in his text, and yet these do appear in a number of illuminations. More significantly, Froissart stresses that the dancers were joined together, which clarifies why all the men were set aflame simultaneously. This important fact is ignored in some illuminations. In this blog, I will discuss how three artists, all working in Flanders, have approached Froissart’s narrative.

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The anonymous artist, known as the Master of the Harley Froissart, leaves no doubt as to the heinous event taking place in the ballroom. The four wild men, covered in tight-fitting costumes, are ablaze. The agony is plainly depicted by the frantic physical contortions and facial grimaces. These men, contrary to Froissart’s text, are not joined together; possibly to allow the artist greater freedom to render the anguish of each individual dancer. On the right, just under the musician’s balcony, one man jumps into a tub, thus saving himself. And Charles VI? He has found safety near his younger aunt, the Duchess de Berry, seen on the left in a blue gown. You can see the head of the king peeping out from just above her thighs, and his bare foot distinctly placed between the gown of the duchess and her companion. Some of the courtiers are truly startled and yet many of the surrounding figures seem oblivious of what is happening. The musicians, not described by Froissart, are still playing their shawms, and the lady in a light brown gown, unaware of the catastrophe, continues in animated conversation. And what are those two ladies, in front of the dais, on the left actually doing? The lady in blue looks a little apprehensive, but the lady in brown appears to have no idea of the gravity of the situation. The dog does; he growls fiercely revealing his bare teeth.

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In the manuscript, often called the Royal (18E2), commissioned by King Edward IV of England, the anonymous artist known as the Master of the Getty Froissart has painted an intimate scene with a few dancers, four ladies, a scattering of guests and no musicians, set in unadorned chamber with only a high backed wooden bench, a chandelier and a large tub of water predominately placed in the foreground. Contrary to the Froissart text, the artist has reduced the number of dancers to five. Their hirsute skin-tight costumes are ablaze. The dancers are not frantic, nor twisted or warped, but bewildered. Two dancers try to extinguish the flames by stepping into the tub; Froissart writes about only one man, the courtier Sieur de Nantouillet. One of the dancers still wears his mask; all the other masks are lay randomly on the floor. The women on the left are busy talking, but the standing lady, presumably the queen, clutches her hands in distress. The man on the right is overwhelmed, immobilized, receiving absolutely no assistance from the two masked men to his right. One of those men is holding a torch; possibly he is the king’s inquisitive brother. Then, there is the king himself. Traditionally kings are portrayed with royal dignity. Portraits of kings are mostly frontal with the king sitting or standing in a regal setting. This illumination breaks drastically with tradition; Charles VI is seen from the back with his head tucked unseemly under the skirt of the Duchess of Berry. The artist presents the king in an unbecoming position; displaying his back, exposing his buttocks, reducing his stature and removing all his majestic decorum.

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Whether your eye is drawn to the light in the background, where the nobles are gathered or drawn to that doomed bundle of men engulfed in flames, this illumination, produced in Bruges for the prominent Flemish nobleman, Louis de la Gruthuyse, embraces the terror of the moment. The four courtiers, ‘the wild men’, now, following Froissort’s description, are joined together by a chain. The artist spares his audience none of the devastating horror; the men’s bodies are distorted, their bare feet thumping and their faces are unsettling. Around them, the spectators are keenly aware of the misfortune taking place. Nantouillet, however, who, according to Jean Froissart immerses himself in a tub of water, is nowhere to be seen. Instead, two men, in desperation, collect water from the tub. The musicians, horrified, have stopped playing. On the left a man opens the side curtain so that a ‘wild man’ can escape and, to the right, another man watches in utter amazement. The noble ladies, on the other hand, retain their composure approaching the subdued queen (wearing the heart-shaped headdress) tenderly.

The king, Charles V1, as we know from Jean’s Froissart’s Chronicle, is saved by the Duchess of Berry, who, as shown above, covered him with her gown. Where, in the other illuminations, the king is shown in a rather unflattering position, this king, though dazed and gawking at the enchained men, stands in a more dignified position. The artist has chosen to depict Charles, who suffered from repeated bouts of mental illness, not as a forlorn king requiring protection, but a more regal king standing upright in a more or less frontal pose, as tradition desires.

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Le Bal des Ardents, despite or perhaps because of its gruesome history has gained an infamous place in art and dance history and as such has become an inspiration to artists. It has been suggested that Edgar Allan Poe’s short story Hop-Frog was inspired by the terrible event that took place at that catastrophic ball in 1393. The Belgium painter, James Ensor, in turn, inspired by Poe, painted the closing scene of Poe’s story where the court jester Hop-Frog invites the king and the ministers to attend a masquerade ball. They appear, at Hop-Frog’s suggestion, dressed as apes and chained together. At the height of the festivities Hop-Frog hoists the chained group of men high into the air, setting them aflame in plain view of all those present. This vicious act, contrived and executed by a the dwarf Hop-Frog, a mistreated cripple, is mercilessly rendered by Ensor, an artist known his sharp satire and his antipathy to any form of unjust authority.