Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Le Dernier Duel Paris, 29 Décembre 1386 by Eric Jager

10 reviews

morgue666's review against another edition

dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Pregnancy, and War

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Mental illness

hayreading's review against another edition

challenging informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

Not my usual read (required class reading) but once I was invested, I enjoyed the book. The beginning was very slow, and though helpful the amount of historical context drags down the pacing significantly. That being said, the author clearly did his research and wrote the people well, because my blood boils at the thought of Marguerite still being doubted.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty

linddykal's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

eliasaurus's review against another edition

informative tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Violence

berylbird's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative tense fast-paced

4.0

More fascinating than I expected, I was caught up in the history and the plot.  Jean de Carrouges defends his wife, the Lady Marguerite's honor in what is known as the last duel.  In actuality, the last duel was fought in 1547.  Marguerite charges that Jean de Carrouges's one-time friend, Jacques Le Gris, raped her while her husband was away.  At the time Marguerite was staying with her mother-in-law.  Nicole, the mother-in-law had left for a few hours with all the household servants save one, who could not be found at the time of the crime.  The history of how the two men had fallen out and become enemies, then reconciled at a friend's party with Carrouges insisting his wife, Marguerite kiss Le Gris in the spirit of reconciliation, then later becoming embittered again, makes for intriguing reading.  The pages fly by.

The report of the duel itself is most captivating.   People had to keep silent under threat of death for calling out, quite unlike spectator sports today.  Of course, a man's life is at stake, for the duel is a fight to the death.  During this time (the 1380s), it was believed that whoever survived the duel was shown by God to be the truthteller and the man that died was shown to be the criminal.  Afterwards, the fallen man's body is dragged through the streets.  Author Eric Jager shows the strengths and weaknesses of each man.  Carrouges, a smaller man, has more military experience.  Le Gris, a larger and stronger man, had enough wealth to choose a more expensive warhorse.  Both men wore the same weapons.  "The combatants already wore swords and daggers on their belts, and each had slung his second, longer sword from a saddle-ring, along with his ax.  The unwieldy lance, left for last, was seized from the saddle and rammed upright into its fewter."  Charles VI bade Marguerite climb onto a scaffold to watch the duel and where she can be seen by all the spectators.  If Carrouges does not survive the duel, she is to be burned at the stake.

This is a compelling history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Violence

mctore21's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Violence

chambecc's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Violence

catherine_t's review against another edition

adventurous informative tense fast-paced

5.0

In 1386, at the height of the Hundred Years' War, a French knight, Jean de Carrouges, accused a squire, Jacques Le Gris, of brutally raping his wife, Marguerite. When his lord, Count Pierre, ruled in favour of Le Gris (a court favourite), Carrouges went to the king and the Parlement in Paris, where he demanded a trial by combat: a judicial duel. 

This is history that reads like a novel. Jager gives the reader a ripping story, building from Carrouges' and Le Gris' earlier days to the climactic moment when the two men face each other on the field of battle. I had a hard time putting it down.

The sad thing is, though Marguerite is central to the story, because she left no written record herself, she is something of a cipher. Even her testimony at the trial isn't recorded. Jager has pieced together what evidence there is and gives us at least a little something to hold onto as we read. 

This is a slim volume, but it's a story--a history--well told.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Violence

Moderate: Rape

sba2x's review against another edition

adventurous challenging informative slow-paced

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Pregnancy, and War

Minor: Child death, Infertility, Misogyny, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

khlystmaniac's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, and Murder