The Duel of the Mignons

The Duel of the Mignons

In April 1578, the rival court parties of Henry III and Duke of Guise decided to reenact the battle of the Horatii and the Curiatii. On 27 April, Jacques de Caylus, Louis de Maugiron and Jean d'Arcès (representing the party of the King) engaged in battle with Charles de Balzac, Ribérac, and Georges de Schomberg (representing the party of the Guises). Maugiron and Schomberg were killed, Ribérac died of wounds the following noon, d'Arcès was wounded in the head and convalesced in a hospital for six weeks, while Caylus sustained as many 19 wounds and passed away after 33 hours of agony. Only Balzac got off with a mere scratch on his arm.

This meaningless loss of life impressed itself on the public imagination. Jean Passerat wrote an elegy, "Plaintes de Cléophon", on the occasion. In the political treatise "Le Theatre de France" (1580) the duel was invoked as "the day of the pigs" who "killed each other in the precinct of Saint Paul, serving him in the Muscovite manner". [Quoted by Nicolas Le Roux in "La faveur du roi: mignons et courtisans au temps des derniers Valois". Champ Vallon, 2001. ISBN 2876733110. Page 388.] Michel Montaigne decried the event as "une image de lacheté", and Pierre Brantôme connected it with the deplorable spread of the Italian and Gascon manners at Henry's court. The incident accelerated the estrangement between the two Henrys.

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