The scandal of Philip the Fair's adulterous daughters-in-law. The Tour de Nesle business.

The last year of the reign of the king of France, Philip the Fair (enthroned in 1285) is rocked by a huge scandal, which will, through its consequences, be at the origin of the Hundred Years' War.

Philip the Fair had four children who reached adulthood: a daughter, Isabella, who would marry the King of England (married to Edward II of England and nicknamed the "She-wolf of France"), and three sons.

The eldest, Louis, a difficult character, rightly nicknamed "The Artichoke", will marry Margaret, daughter of Robert of Burgundy and Agnes, herself the daughter of Louis the Saint. Proud and always rebellious, Margareta madly loves life with everything it means.

Rhe second son Philip, an intelligent man, will marry Jeanne d'Artois, daughter of Orthon IV of Burgundy and Mahaut d'Artois.

Finally, the third, Charles, a faded personality, marries Blanche, sister of Jeanne, his sister-in-law.

The three marriages are very different from each other: Louise neglects his wife. Fiery Margareta will know how to console herself.

Prince Philip, on the contrary, stands out for his generosity and excessive care towards his wife, Jeanne.

And Charles, whose plane personality was doubled by the stinginess, has an awkward marriage with Blanche.

But the most interesting thing is that between the three wives (two being sisters) a close friendship is formed, they bring an air of charm and good cheer to the austere court of the king. Their elegance and coquetry soon cause scandalous rumours: they are said to welcome all kinds of young men into their rooms . However, no evidence of these adventures appears.

After three or four years of marriage, however, Margaret and Blanche take as lovers two young men, the brothers Gauthier and Philippe d'Aunay, "young and handsome knights", as the chronicles will say. the affair comes to light in April 1314, at Maubuisson Abbey, near Paris, where the king liked to retire with the whole court.

It all begins with the visit that the King and Queen of England, Edward II and Isabella, between May and July 1313 to the King of France. on this occasion, princes Louis and Charles offer a puppet show in honor of the guests, after which Izabella presents her brothers and sisters-in-law with money bags made of expensive materials and embroidered with art.

in December of the same year, Edward II and Isabella gave a great banquet in London to celebrate their return home. On this occasion, Izabela noticed some bags absolutely identical to the ones she had given her sisters-in-law to the belts of two Norman knights, the d'Aunay brothers. The queen of England deduces that they have a relationship with the princesses of France, something she communicates to her father, Philip the Fair, in secret, on a visit to France in April of the following year.

The king puts the two knights under close surveillance and soon the royal inquiry confirms the suspicions.

Justice is merciless towards adulterous lovers. Marguerite and Blanche are arrested, tried, and sentenced to be shorn, clothed in sackcloth, and taken in a wagon covered with black cloth to Andelys, in the dungeon of château Gaillard.

Margaret, penitent, occupies an open cell in the wind at the top of the keep. victim of the ill treatment to which she was subjected and then strangled by order of her husband, dies in the summer of 1315.

Blanche gets somewhat better treatment, in a cell "at the bottom of the earth." managing to survive the coronation of her husband, Charles IV, in February 1322, she is moved to Gavray in Normandy, where she is allowed to become a monk.

Jeanne is also arrested and placed under surveillance in Dourdan Castle. treated more carefully, she maintains her innocence before the king, supported by her mother, the Mahaut d'Artois, and is finally forgiven by her husband Philip and reinstated in a court celebration.

Gauthier and Philippe d'Aunay, accused of messing with the king's daughters-in-law, are arrested and interrogated, which meant several gruesome torture sessions. They confess their guilt and after a quick trial are executed in the public square.

The execution was gruesome even for those times: they were wheeled alive, skinned alive, castrated, molten lead poured over them and then b*headed.

Their hanged bodies were left to hang in plain view, rotting for several weeks. Their s*xual organs, the "weapon of murder", were thrown to the dogs.

Didiet Audinot, in his "Histoires effrayantes, from 2006, states that "no body suffered more" than those of the two handsome knights.

Thus ends the so-called "Nesle Tower" scandal, although it has nothing to do with the Nesle palace, as Alexandre Dumas writes in his book of the same name.

After the death of the last son of Philip the Fair, Charles, for lack of male heirs (a lack in which the above scandal played an important role), the throne reverts to the house of Valois, to the displeasure of the King of England and the King of Navarre. Thus begins the Hundred Year War.