My new book, The Duel of the Hat: How a Great Story Became Bad History, is now available in an early-access edition!

It began with a particularly savage duel fought in France around 1597. A satirical poem, an insult, and a magnificent grey beaver hat led to four men fighting with swords and daggers. Two died, one was horribly wounded but rode away wearing the hat that had started it all.

The story was retold for centuries, and in the process got thoroughly mangled. People who had died somehow survived, details changed, and historians made things up.

So I went back to the original sources to find out what actually happened. The result is a book about the duel itself, the people involved, and how a great story became bad history.

The most important source is Le Vray et Ancien Usage des Duels, published in 1617 by Vital d’Audiguier, a soldier, swordsman, and writer who knew the participants personally. His account is the earliest known detailed description of the duel, and the foundation for everything that followed.

I’ve transcribed and translated his account in full for the book, and I’m making the translation freely available here.

You can also download a scan of the original book: Vital_d’Audiguier_Vrays_et_Ancien_Usage_1617_complete. The account of the Duel of the Hat is in Chapter XXXVII, pages 470–496.

What follows is my complete English translation, without the 39 footnotes that accompany it in The Duel of the Hat. Those notes explain everything from obscure seventeenth-century fencing terminology to the identities of the people involved, the geography, the weapons, and several problems with the evidence.

Vital d’Audiguier’s Account of the Duel of the Hat (1617)

From: The True and Ancient Custom of Duels, Chapter XXXVII.

Vital d’Audiguier, 1617.

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Another Duel of la Garde Valon and Bazanez, under the same King.

CHAP. XXXVII.

This one took place in Quercy, and yields nothing in insanity to those of the Court; all the more remarkable because the parties did not know one another, and quarrelled before ever having seen each other. The occasion of their dispute came from a pasquil which the late Baron de Merville was reciting one day in the company of Bazanez. Bazanez was brother to Linerac d’Auvergne, who was mentioned in the pasquil; and Merville was an intimate

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friend of la Garde, who sometimes busied himself with making verses. And on this account Bazanez believed that those which Merville was then reciting were of la Garde’s making. Besides, la Garde had acquired such a reputation for the great contempt in which he held his own life that, had he lived in the time of our old Romances, they would have made him an enchanted Knight. This caused Bazanez to tell Merville that he well knew the esteem in which he held the author of this pasquil, and that, if he would let him see him, he would satisfy the strongest passion he had ever had, which was to measure their swords.

“If he knew that,” said Merville, knowing very well that he meant la Garde, “he would very soon satisfy your passion.”

“To let him know it, Monsieur,” replied Bazanez, “and to invite him all the more to do me

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this pleasure, oblige me by giving him this hat, and let him know that I intend to recover it only with his life.”

Saying this, he presented him with a grey beaver hat which he was wearing with a great feather. It was a kind of pledge very similar to the pledges formerly given before combat. I do not know how the Baron de Merville received it; but in any case it came into the hands of la Garde, who, knowing the words Bazanez had spoken, immediately left Valon and went to seek him in Auvergne, at three or four houses where he thought he might find him. But Bazanez being then ill, la Garde returned without seeing him, and from then on always wore his hat.

A month passed, during which Bazanez recovered. As soon as he was on his feet, he mounted a horse and had

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two swords and two daggers made of the same size and the same strength in Aurillac, and, accompanied by a cousin of his named Fermontez, a young gentleman who had never left the countryside, took the road to Quercy to seek la Garde in his turn. He stopped a league from Valon at the house of a Gentleman who was his friend, where he arrived early; and that same evening sent a note by a little lackey to la Garde. The lackey went straight to Valon and asked for la Garde, who, while reading a book, in the summer season it then was, had fallen asleep in a room. Thus la Garde did not see him, but they had him speak to Madame de Valon, who, learning that her son was being asked for on behalf of Bazanez, replied that he was not there, and told the lackey to withdraw. Nevertheless this rogue persisted in re-

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maining before the door until supper time. At which time Mirabel, la Garde’s younger brother, returning from the hunt and finding him there waiting, asked whom he belonged to and what he wanted. And learning that he was asking for his brother on behalf of Bazanez, he likewise told him that he was not there.

“Monsieur,” replied the lackey, “I was told in the village that he was here; nevertheless, in his absence my Master commanded me to address myself to his brother.”

“You are speaking to him,” said Mirabel. “Have you no letter?”

“Yes, Monsieur,” replied the lackey, giving him the little note.

Mirabel, after reading it, said to him: “Lackey, tell your Master that, if he wishes to see my brother, he should send a Gentleman upon whose word he may fight.” And having thus sent him away, he entered the house.

I have not put the cartel [formal written challenge] here, be-

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cause I do not remember it well, and I wish to put nothing here of my own of which I am not quite certain, nor anything of another’s unless I have good reports and good authors to guarantee it. But returning to my narrative: supper time having called them all to table, Madame de Valon, who was a woman and consequently liked to talk, asked la Garde, in the course of conversation and concerning another quarrel recently taken up, whether a man who had caused another to be challenged, and who had refused to fight, was obliged afterwards to fight when that other man challenged him. La Garde, answering this question, said no; and by way of example cited himself with Bazanez. “Against him,” he said, “I do not think myself obliged to fight after his refusal, even if he had me challenged a hundred times.”

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“Truly,” said his mother then, deceived by this answer, “he has a fine way of sending lackeys here to you for this purpose, after you yourself went looking for him in so many places!”

La Garde answered nothing to this; but, having retired to his room, he complained greatly to his brother for having sent the lackey away without making him speak to him. His brother apologised, and after all told him that nothing was yet lost, that Bazanez was in such-and-such a place, and that if he did not wish to wait for news of him through a Gentleman whom, in his opinion, he would be sent the next day, there was a way to forewarn him and go to find him that very night. La Garde received this advice as the most fitting that could have been given to his passion. And because his mother, fearing that she had spoken too much, had caused the gates of the

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château to be shut and kept the keys herself, the two of them descended through a window by a ladder, went to wake a priest in the village, had him celebrate Mass at midnight, and afterwards took the road to the house of that Gentleman where Bazanez was. When they were near enough, la Garde stopped beneath a tree and sent news of himself to Bazanez by his brother.

It was already broad daylight when Mirabel arrived at this château, whose name my poor memory, occupied with other recollections, has not been able to retain. He found them not only up, but all three together. And, upon entering, after the customary embraces, he addressed Bazanez in these words: “Monsieur,” he said to him, “if my brother had spoken to your lackey yesterday, he would not have waited until to-

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day to see you. And as proof of this, he came early this morning close by here, to show you the desire he has to return your hat to you, on the conditions upon which you promised to recover it.” “Monsieur,” said Bazanez, “you are welcome. You find me just about to send you a Gentleman, according to what you said yesterday to my lackey. But since you have forewarned me, take me to where you have left your brother; I am ready to go and find him upon your word.”

“Monsieur,” replied Mirabel, “take a friend with you; I am ready to lead you there.” Fermontez and the master of the house were present. The latter, seeing an engagement arranged in his house and in his presence without including him, took offence and complained to Bazanez that he was making use only of his house and not of

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his sword.

“I left my own,” Fermontez was saying, “upon the promise he made me to employ me. He would wrong me if, now that I have come this far, he made use of another instead of me.”

“It is true, cousin,” said Bazanez, “I promised it, and I shall keep my word to you.”

While they disputed together with such passion over who should second Bazanez, Mirabel, with whom they would have to deal, said to them both: “Settle it between you, Messieurs; for my part it is all one to me.”

“Ha!” said Fermontez, embracing him, “I am a man of courtesy.”

“I hope,” replied Mirabel, “that God will grant me the grace not to need any.”

Bazanez presented him with the swords and daggers he had had made, and asked him to give la Garde the choice of them.

“My brother,” said Mirabel, “has a good sword. I do not know whether he will wish to give it up;

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nevertheless I shall go and make him your offer, and shall come back to you immediately.”

He therefore carried these weapons to la Garde and proposed Bazanez’s offer to him.

“That,” he said, “is entirely sensible.”

And having taken one of his swords in place of his own, he immediately had the other brought back to him. Certainly, if there was ever frankness in any combat, there was in this one; but this frankness and generosity ought to have been reserved for better occasions.

Mirabel returned to Bazanez, who, having asked his host to forgive him if he could not allow him to take part in the danger of this action, left him in his house and went to find la Garde with Fermontez and Mirabel, who led them. Here is what is remarkable: from as far away as la Garde and Bazanez caught sight of one another, they saluted each other, and as they ap-

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proached, hat in hand, embraced with the same courtesy and the same compliments that two good friends might have made, their faces always smiling. Afterwards they shut all their lackeys inside a barn, and themselves carried the keys to the place of combat. And there la Garde, having told his brother to keep Fermontez occupied, went some fifty paces away and put his hand to his sword, after all four had taken off their doublets.

At the very first encounter la Garde, who had his weapons well in hand, delivered a thrust at Bazanez in the forehead; but the bone was harder than the iron, and blunted the point of the sword, which merely slid along it and made a great incision. At the second blow he struck him in the body and said to him, “There is for the hat.”

At the third he struck him again in

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the body, and said, “There is for the feather.”

And finally he delivered yet a fourth blow into the body, saying that “this was for the cord.”

La Garde did nothing but talk, and seeing his enemy’s blood coming out in so many places, told him that he was treating him as well as a courtier, and that his hat sat very well upon his head. But Bazanez, seeing himself so badly handled, was thinking of quite other things.

“Play your game,” he said, “for you shall die of it.”

Saying this, he abandoned his sword, took the dagger in his right hand, and, driven more by desperation than by judgement, threw himself upon him. Unfortunately for la Garde, Bazanez’s desperate attack succeeded. Bazanez passed by his weapons without impaling himself upon them, carried him to the ground, put the dagger between his neck and shoulder, and drove it diagonally like a sash through his body so that it passed out on the other

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side. He struck again, and gave him fourteen blows with the same dagger from the throat down to the waist. With every blow he gave him, he said, “Beg for your life”; and la Garde answered nothing other than “No, no.” Meanwhile la Garde tore away half of his chin with his teeth, and crushed in the back of his head with the pommel of his sword; but at last, overwhelmed by so many mortal blows, he lost his life sooner than his courage.

Meanwhile Mirabel was engaged with Fermontez, whose sword he had already felt three or four times between his shirt and his body without being hurt by it, and to whom he had given a thrust in the arm. Fermontez asked him whether he was wounded, and saying this seized him and began to cry out while holding him tightly embraced, “Cousin, cousin, save yourself, I am

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dead.” Mirabel disentangled himself from his arms, and at the same moment Fermontez fell dead upon the ground. Then Mirabel, turning his eyes to the other side, saw Bazanez who, warned by the voice of his cousin, was leaving poor la Garde in the condition we have described. He ran straight at him, and, seeing his brother dead and bloody from so many wounds, said:

“Bazanez, since you have killed my brother and I your cousin, let us two finish the affair.”

“My friend,” answered Bazanez (already mounted on horseback and having taken back his sword and the hat he had sent to la Garde) “your brother was too bold to leave me in a condition to fight a second combat after having killed him. And farewell, brave la Garde,” he said, withdrawing at a gallop. Mirabel remained master of the field, and of the bodies which he had carried away, together with three swords,

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and four daggers; but so grieved at the death of his brother that for a long time he did not dare return home.

I have dwelt a little upon the specific details of this quarrel, because having known the parties fairly familiarly, and formed a very close friendship with la Garde; concerning whom I wish to set down here two actions next in my account following this combat, which will make the man known and will not be tedious. He had a soldier called Jonas who, for some crime he had committed (for he was the refuge of criminals) had been taken at Figeac and put into a prison called la Baleine [The Whale]. La Garde, having gone to see him in prison one day when the gaoler was not there, begged those he found in his absence to allow him to drink with the prisoner, at least with one door between them; he

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sent one for wine, another for fruit, drove away those who remained, broke down the door, and, having got him outside, took him through the town, having with him only one other soldier and a servant. When he came before the house of the criminal magistrate, who had already been informed of this attempt and, wishing to come out with several men, was being held back by his wife at a window overlooking the street, la Garde raised his head and, seeing this beautiful woman restraining him, and him playing the hindered man in her arms, cried to her: “Let him come, Mademoiselle, and I promise you that I shall relieve you of a burden that does not deserve to be carried by you.”

Thus he brought his prisoner out of Figeac, and, having come to see me some time afterwards in Rouergue, told me that he had drawn Jonas from the belly of the whale.

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Two or three months before dying, he went to Villefranche-de-Rouergue, where he had three more soldiers imprisoned, who were hanged. He understood well that one could not play the same game there as at Figeac, and so he stopped at the gate and asked to speak to a merchant named Dardene. The Captain of the town, called Marrel, was informed by some soldiers that la Garde was at the town gate. He went there with ten or twelve soldiers, resolved to arrest him as a prisoner; and, having surrounded him on all sides with his men, asked whether he did not wish to enter the town.

“No, Monsieur,” replied la Garde, “I have no business with the town.”

“But the town certainly has business with you,” replied Marrel. And as he said this, the bridle of la Garde’s horse, his sword, and his pistol were all seized at the same instant.

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He came back to himself as though from a sleep, for he had been thinking of nothing less; and throwing both hands upon his sword, one upon the hilt and the other upon the scabbard, drew it so violently that he tore it from the hands of those who had already seized it, drove his horse, which was very vigorous, through them, and attacked them so furiously with blows of the sword that he scattered them here and there, most of them running back into the town. La Garde withdrew at a canter, smoking from three or four arquebus shots which had burned his doublet, and slightly wounded in the thumb, which he had done to himself while trying to recover his sword. He went to lodge that evening at sainƈt Vensa with Captain Rives, and the next day at Najac at my place. I then held this place, which is strong and important to the whole countryside, which was alarmed by it; and la Garde

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himself, knowing well that everyone mistrusted him, wished to leave his sword behind before entering so as not to give me any cause for suspicion. But I made him take it back, and asked him to believe that, so long as I had mine, I would never think another man ought to be stronger there than I. “Ha! since you take it that way, if one is not enough,” he said, “I shall take two.”

We remained together some eight or ten days, hunting, visiting my neighbours, and passing the time as one does in the countryside, during which he behaved with as much discretion as it is possible to imagine, although he had an entirely contrary reputation. On the day he left, which was a Friday, I accompanied him for a good league, and nearly drowned while crossing a little river called la Sereine, where my

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horse had become bogged in the sand. He then told me that it was a dangerous day, that he believed he would never die except on a Friday, nor for any cause other than a woman. It happened to him as he believed, for the pasquil over which he had this quarrel was made for a woman, and he was killed on a Friday.

He lived with such respect among his friends that, so as not to involve me in the offence he had received from those of Villefranche, he never wished to take revenge upon them while he was with me; so much so that all the inhabitants of that town (who feared him like thunder) as soon as they met a horseman on the road who asked them where they were from, said that they were from Najac. But after we had separated, he took three or four prisoners from Villefran-

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che, believing that by returning these inhabitants he could recover his soldiers; and he threatened to treat them in the same manner as his men were treated. Nevertheless, no sooner had he returned them than his men were hanged; and furthermore an order for his arrest was decreed against him himself as a disturber of the public order.

This drove him to extremes into which he would never have thrown himself of his own accord. But to show what affections he was capable of, he first went by night, alone with a lackey, to take down the bodies of these poor men which had been carried to the gallows outside the town, kissed all three of them while weeping, and, as a final act of humanity, buried them himself.

Afterwards, having sworn to avenge their deaths upon the first man from Villefranche whom he should meet, and above all having it in for Marrel, he wrote to him in these terms:

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“Your house in ashes, your wife raped, your children hanged. Your mortal enemy, la Garde.”

Indeed, he came very close to taking his children, who would have borne the misfortune of bearing their father’s iniquity. But fate fell upon one of his relatives, whose nose and ear he cut off, whence he was called the nose-cutter.

Such was la Garde Valon, to whose memory I have wished to render this little narrative, both for the friendship that existed between us and to show those who did not know him what sort of man he was.

Bazanez, having survived him by some years, was afterwards cowardly killed by five or six men who took him at a disadvantage, having nevertheless laid the first two who attacked him dead upon the ground, and left, living and dying, an honourable reputation for a generous

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and bold courage.

Around this time three other Duels were fought in these parts on the same subject and for almost similar occasions.

One in Auvergne between Peyrot de Rastinhac and Saubeuf. The latter, fighting with a short sword which he was accustomed ordinarily to carry, and being stopped by the thrusts which Peyrot delivered at him with a fixed foot every time he tried to go at him, pierced by thirteen sword-thrusts through the body, kept saying to him: “Hey! come to me, Peyrot, I beg you.”

“To you?” Peyrot said. “You are nothing more than a dead carcass sustained by spite.” At this they were separated, and neither of them died of it.

The other took place in Rouergue between the Barons de Cisterne and de Feyry, people from Auvergne, and cousins, against

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Monmotou and Benac Rouerguas. The quarrel was taken up at Estaing, and was decided nearby; in such a fashion that of the four men, three remained dead upon the ground, and the fourth was carried off wounded by four great sword blows. Feyry and Benac killed each other with a double hit. Cisterne gave four blows into Monmotou’s body and received as many into his own, from which he fell dead upon the spot.

The third took place in Quercy between Mongaillard and le Terme, and it too was very hard fought; for le Terme, who remained alive, went away bleeding from twenty-four wounds. He himself told me that, having pierced one another straight through with several thrusts, and Mongaillard feeling himself mortally wounded, he threw himself upon him like a desperate man and

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bore him to the ground, falling upon him himself; gave him several dagger blows, and, feeling himself failing without being able to kill him, called to his lackey, saying, “Lackey, kill, kill!”

The lackey, being afraid of killing his master, who was lying upon his enemy and covering him entirely with his body, and Mongaillard becoming aware of this, renewed his cry, saying to him: “Hey! kill, kill us both!”

That is the state in which this poor Gentleman died, and the desperation to which those who die in these combats expose themselves. He had driven le Terme to desperation and had forced him, as it were, to fight, and God punished him.

But le Terme was no wiser for that; for, having afterwards killed another gentleman called Verdun in a duel, and having come here to obtain his pardon, which they caused him to obtain quite easily, he entangled himself

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in so many other quarrels that in the end he was killed by a soldier of the Guards before the hôtel de Longueville.

Note that he had driven this soldier to desperation just as Mongaillard had earlier driven him himself to desperation (for he had caused him to be dismissed from the regiment for the affronts he had made him suffer) and God punished him by the hands of this soldier, just as He had punished Mongaillard by his own.

Want to know more?

Vital’s account is an extraordinary piece of writing. But it’s not always straightforward to interpret, and it leaves a great many questions unanswered.

Who exactly were these people? When did the duel happen, and where? Why did they lock their servants in a barn before fighting? How did Bazanez manage to survive so many sword wounds? And why did later historians manage to get something as fundamental as who died so spectacularly wrong?

That’s where the footnotes come in.

The translation above appears in The Duel of the Hat with 39 footnotes, examining the evidence behind the story.

For example:

• The swords: Bazanez supposedly commissioned two matching sets of swords and daggers for the fight. But could a swordsmith actually have made them in the time available?
• The location: Vital doesn’t identify the château where Bazanez was staying. I’ve investigated the geography and the surviving evidence, and have a strong candidate for the actual duel site.
• The locked barn: The combatants locked their servants away before starting the fight. Why? The legal consequences of duelling offer a plausible explanation.
• The dead man who wouldn’t stay dead: There’s an ambiguity in Vital’s account that may explain how later historians came to believe that la Garde survived the duel, despite Vital clearly stating that he died.
• The fencing: Vital uses some quite specific fencing terminology. Understanding exactly what he means requires more than a dictionary, especially when describing the techniques used in a fight to the death.

The book also includes a reconstruction of the duel, a detailed investigation into the identities and subsequent lives of the participants, the probable date and location, the weapons, and the ways in which the story changed over the next four centuries.

There’s also a substantial collection of primary and secondary source material, including my transcriptions and translations of Vital d’Audiguier and Henry d’Audigier, and translations of several other important accounts.

You can buy the book here.

The early-access edition is available now. You’ll receive the finished ebook when it’s published, along with a discount towards the print edition equivalent to what you paid for the ebook.

If you enjoy historical swordsmanship, historical detective work, or simply a really good story about people behaving very badly with swords, I think you’ll enjoy this book.

And if you’re inclined to check my work, you can find the original scans of all four principal historical accounts on my Duel of the Hat sources page.