CW: This post deals with rape and some references to violence. It isn’t heavy, but this might be distressing to some readers so, please, use your best judgment.
In what world does a rape victim risk being burned alive for publicly naming her rapist? Twenty-four year old Marguerite de Carrouges found herself in such a predicament in 14th century France when she was caught up in the feud between her fifty-five year old husband and his rival. The real-life story, which was described in Eric Jager’s book, The Last Duel, and later dramatized in the 2021 film of the same name, began with two friends, Jeanne de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, who became adversaries when the lesser-born Le Gris gained favor with their liege lord, Count d’Alencon. The pair would spend nearly a decade in court over petty trivialities until 1384, when de Carrouges was four years into his marriage to Marguerite. It was thought that the hatchet was buried between the two men at a Christmas gathering where de Carrouges charged his bride to kiss Le Gris in a symbol of friendship.
The reconciliation was short-lived as only a year later, Le Gris, aided by an accomplice and armed with rope, forced his way into one of the de Carrouges family’s homes when Marguerite was alone. When she refused to sleep with him willingly, he tied her to her bed, gagged her, and raped her. Incensed at this heinous act against his wife, de Carrouges brought charges against Le Gris directly to the King of France, demanding Trial by Combat. –The risk? If de Carrouges lost, Marguerite, who was visibly pregnant by the time the case came to trial, would be burned alive for placing Le Gris in peril of his life with her accusation.
While I read Jager’s beautifully written accounts of the case and trial, I tried to play devil’s advocate and see things from Le Gris’ side and view merit in his defense, but even 638 years later, (over half a millennia!) his lies reek. They reek because they are stale, tired, and I’m sick of hearing them and, yet, they remain as prevalent in the 21st century as they did in the Middle Ages.
However, there is one question that bears playing out and understanding, “Why did Le Gris take the risk?”
The answer: he really thought he couldn’t lose.
In his defense of “mistaken identity” Le Gris pointed out that she would have scratched and marked her attacker in her fight for her virtue; however, in order to rape her, he and his accomplice tied her hands to her bed and shoved a hood in her mouth so that she couldn’t bite or call out for help. It was premeditated. Because he knew that she might fight, he had already put a false alibi in place (which he bragged to her about after he brutalized her), and he arrived with the help and means to prevent there being evidence of an altercation between the two of them. He also knew, as did Marguerite, that if she brought an accusation against him before their shared liege, Count d’Alencon, he would (and did) dismiss it as a fantasy. From the beginning, he seems to have believed he could take what he wanted and she would be easily cowed into silence by his threats.
Demanding trial by combat was likely the only way in which de Carrouges felt he could be assured of justice, since Le Gris was squired to the King of France. Le Gris, however, as a minor cleric, had the option of moving the trial to religious orders where he would have been safely assured of either acquittal or a slap on the wrist. (A tactic his lawyer encouraged him to take.) So why would he risk his life and immortal soul by fighting in the duel?
The question is one that Jager failed to touch on in his work, but I think I can hazard an intelligent guess: He did it because Marguerite was pregnant.
Le Gris avoided using her pregnancy as a defense in the trial because de Carrouges publicly claimed the child as his heir. Nonetheless, the baby was born within ten months of the rape and was either his or de Carrouges’. In fact since de Carrouges had returned from months of fighting in Scotland with a fever during the window of conception, there’s a stronger chance Le Gris was the father.
What must be understood about Marguerite’s pregnancy is that, in medieval times, it was believed that for a pregnancy to occur, both male and female partners needed to “ejaculate.” Ergo, if a woman didn’t enjoy it, a baby could not be conceived. Victims’ pregnancies were frequently used in the medieval period to invalidate rape charges, but the fact that de Carrouges claimed the baby as his own made it impossible and hazardous for Le Gris to cite pregnancy as proof that Marguerite had been complicit. To imply she had been a willing participant citing the pregnancy would require him to admit to knowing Marguerite carnally only to have his claim be thwarted by de Carrouges pointing out that she had absolutely been a willing partner in their marital bed. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that Le Gris, who had a reputation for his sexual conquests, convinced himself that the pregnancy was proof that Marguerite had secretly wanted him and, consequently, he had not actually raped her.
Despite the fact that Le Gris could have moved the trial to a religious court to spare bloodshed, he seems to have been fully prepared to send Marguerite, whom he likely believed to be the mother of his child, to her death to maintain his pride and social standing.
As the contemporary Foissart wrote of him, Le Gris was riding high on Fortune’s Wheel. He thought himself untouchable. If he had a sense of timing or awareness beyond his own sphere and counsel, he might have heeded his lawyer’s advice to avoid combat. Instead he utterly failed to consider the ferocity of a man who was fighting for something more than himself. As a man who rose to favor by lending his liege money, perhaps he couldn’t understand the zeal of his opponent, who was fighting, not only for the honor of his family, but to avenge and protect his wife.
What can we infer of Jean de Carrouges? Well, he was a bear in battle, that’s clear, and never gave up when he believed he had the right. (And he usually believed he had the right, even if he didn’t.) It was also clear that his rival was better liked among their peers, but, where Le Gris had popularity, de Carrouges had his sense of honor, and his martial skills. When Le Gris nearly brought him down in the duel, de Carrouges’ survival instincts were triggered and the seasoned war veteran rallied, leading to his victory.
But was his entire motivation revenge on his rival as Le Gris posited? When it came to Le Gris (and by extension d’Alencon) de Carrouges seems content to have opted for litigation over the sword. His introduction of Le Gris as a friend to his wife indicated that de Carrouges was content to let that past lie. Also, while Le Gris clearly counted on Marguerite’s fear of what her husband might do to her should she tell him, it seems that de Carrouges had engendered her trust when it might have been in her self-interest to keep her secrets.
De Carrouges had his own arrogance to contend with, however, and it nearly cost him not only his life, but his wife’s.
Marguerite was a sacrifice for the pride of both men.
To me, the story is the ultimate example of the female experience of rape-culture vs that of a male who hasn’t been assaulted himself. He acted bravely and honorably in his determination not to let her attacker get away with his crime; however, one can only assume that he failed to grasp the precarious position to which he had exposed her. As a pregnant woman and later a mother with a new baby, I doubt she appreciated having her life placed in the balance on the promise that God would guide her husband’s sword and strike down Le Gris, a belief that even medieval clerics challenged at the time.
In any event, Jean de Carrouges ultimately defeated Jacques Le Gris, who died insisting upon his innocence even at the peril of his soul. It would be the last time trial by combat would be used to determine justice. Marguerite and de Carrouges went on to have more children over the next ten years before he was killed while fighting against the Turks in 1396. Although this would have left Marguerite as a young widow with three small children, there is no record of her remarrying. It was rumored that she ended her days in a convent or cloistered at prayer, but those claims are unsubstantiated rumors, fueled by one last attempt from society to redeem a popular man while undermining a female survivor: the Mistaken Identity Theory.
It’s unclear when, but rumors (likely spread by Le Gris’ heirs) circulated during Marguerite’s lifetime that another man confessed to the crime of raping her prior to his own death. According to Jager, part of the rumor was that de Carrouges went on crusade for atonement and Marguerite took a vow of perpetual chastity in penance for having sent an innocent man to his death. St Denis cites the story as fact in his chronicles, which gives a pretty good indication of how widely spread the rumors were.
If you ever wanted proof that a woman is so invaluable to society that said society will spare no mental acrobatics to exonerate her attacker and blame her for naming him, look no further.
The problem with the Mistaken Identity Theory is not only that it’s ridiculous (Marguerite would certainly have been able to see that Le Gris was not the man who attacked her when faced with him in Parliament), it’s the mentality behind it and that same mentality persists today. It’s a mentality which pities the perpetrators (who are usually male) and reviles the victims for ruining the lives of their attackers. Little thought is given to the victim who must live her life with the effects of the trauma she (or he) experienced. This theory is also fueled by the myth that a vast proportion of sexual predators are wrongly accused and punished.
In recent years, studies have shown that, in fact, men are statistically more likely to be raped than to be wrongly accused of rape, much less have it go to trial. Even modernly, only ten percent of victims report their abuse in the first place and many victims are either coerced by their attackers to drop charges and even have police officers dismiss their charges on their own whims.
This myth of the wrongly (or egregiously accused) assailant is what causes the wagons to circle to protect the perpetrator from the consequences of their actions and, whether intentionally or indirectly, isolates the victim from support and even recourse. At best, this reaction to an accusation undermines the victim’s ability to fully comprehend what happened to him or her, at worst, this reaction leads to the victim being completely discredited.
The final element of Marguerite’s case, which was certainly the most disturbing point of her story, is that of Retaliatory Punishment. The very concept of a victim treated like a criminal under threat of execution until her champion proves her innocence is something that seems too much even to the darkest imagination. It’s like the plot of a romance novel that went just a tad overboard. That said, I have often heard it posited that the victim should receive the punishment intended for her alleged attacker if a court fails to convict the latter.
The question I ask now is, are we finally ready to let go of these bygone mores that, frankly, value men over women, perpetrators over victims, at all costs?
Finally, as someone who endured only a small fraction of what Marguerite faced, I can only admire her courage and say into the far reaches of the past: “I believe you.”
It should also be noted that this article addresses the book, “The Last Duel,” by Eric Jager. At the time of writing this, I have not yet seen the film.
Miss Kali Writes 