It was April 19th: The lovers of the Tour de Nesle were put to death.

On April 19, 1314, in Pontoise, the brothers Gautier and Philippe d'Aunay were executed with extreme brutality for having had relationships with Marguerite and Blanche of Burgundy, daughters-in-law of King Philip IV the Fair. Accused of treason, they suffered an exemplary punishment after being tortured and forced to confess. Their deaths marked the tragic culmination of a scandal that had erupted a few days earlier at court and that would profoundly shake the Capetian monarchy.

A scandal at the highest levels of government

The affair began when suspicions of adultery arose concerning the young princesses, wives of the king's sons. It was Isabella of France, Queen of England and daughter of Philip the Fair, who alerted her father after recognizing certain gifts given to her sisters-in-law in the possession of two knights. An investigation was immediately launched: the d'Aunay brothers were arrested, interrogated under torture, and eventually confessed to their relationships with Marguerite and Blanche. The news caused a veritable earthquake at court, where the reputation and morality of the royal family were severely called into question.

A relentless crackdown

Royal justice was extremely severe. The two knights, deemed guilty of having insulted the king's honor, were publicly executed as an example. The princesses, for their part, had their heads shaved, were dressed in shameful clothing, and imprisoned for life in the fortress of Château-Gaillard. Marguerite, wife of the future Louis X, died there shortly afterward, probably a victim of the harsh conditions of imprisonment, or even of assassination. Blanche survived longer and ended up secluded in a convent, while Jeanne of Burgundy, also implicated, was ultimately acquitted.

A crisis with lasting consequences

Beyond the human tragedy, the Tour de Nesle affair profoundly weakened the Capetian dynasty. It cast doubt on the legitimacy of the heirs and contributed to a lasting distrust of the transmission of power through women. When Philip the Fair's sons died without a direct male heir a few years later, the succession became uncertain and paved the way for the rise of the Valois. This scandal, a mixture of politics, morality, and violence, thus appears as one of the harbingers of the tensions that would mark the end of the Middle Ages and ultimately lead to the Hundred Years' War.