A medieval king ruled France for 42 years, yet spent much of that reign terrified his body was made of glass, sewing iron rods into his clothing so a stray bump wouldn't shatter him. How did Charles the Beloved become Charles the Mad?
This deep dive traces Charles VI from a promising young ruler who saved France from his greedy uncles to a monarch whose intermittent psychosis tore the kingdom apart. We unpack the forest breakdown that started it all, the power vacuums and family betrayals that followed, and how one man's fractured mind helped reshape the Hundred Years' War and the map of Europe.
How four uncles drained France's treasury during Charles's regency, sparking the Harelle tax revolts
The 1392 breakdown near Le Mans, when a dropped lance triggered the king to kill his own knights
The Ball of the Burning Men, where Charles nearly burned alive in a flammable costume
Competing modern theories for his illness: schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, porphyria, and typhus-induced encephalopathy
The Treaty of Troyes, the murder of Louis of Orleans, and how Henry V's sudden death let Joan of Arc and the disinherited Dauphin reclaim France
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