Charles VI: Madness and Civil War

The reign of Charles VI (1380-1422) demonstrated how personal incapacity could destroy institutional achievements. Beginning promisingly under the regency of his uncles, Charles assumed personal rule in 1388 with capable advisers called Marmousets. However, his descent into madness from 1392 created a power vacuum that competing royal relatives exploited, plunging France into civil war more destructive than foreign invasion.

Charles's madness manifested dramatically. During a military expedition in 1392, he suddenly attacked his own retinue, killing several before being restrained. Subsequent episodes included believing he was made of glass and might shatter, refusing to bathe or change clothes for months, and failing to recognize his own wife and children. Periods of lucidity alternated with insanity, creating governmental paralysis as decisions made during sanity were reversed during madness.

The struggle for control during the king's incapacity pitted two royal houses against each other. Louis, Duke of Orleans (the king's brother), championed royal centralization and aggressive foreign policy. John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, advocated aristocratic privileges and accommodation with England. Their rivalry, initially political, became murderously personal. John's assassination of Louis in 1407 triggered civil war between Armagnacs (Orleans's partisans) and Burgundians that devastated France more thoroughly than English invasions.

The civil war's characteristics revealed the depths of political dissolution. Both factions sought English support, bidding against each other with territorial concessions. Massacres in Paris, where partisans slaughtered opponents including women and children, showed warfare's degeneration into brutality. Royal authority effectively ceased as faction leaders issued contradictory orders in the mad king's name. The monarchy survived only because no alternative existed; even faction leaders claimed to act for the king rather than against him.