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The bloodthirsty Bernard d'Armagnac's tortures

The castle | Christophe.Finot / CC-BY-SA
Castle Hundred Years War Homicide Torture Bernard VII d'Armagnac Brousse castle

Bernard is angry!

Whoa, what a naughty one, this bloody Bernard VII d'Armagnac. Mean, cruel and bloodthirsty! He didn’t hesitate to murder his own family… Oh, yeah: he took a strong dislike to Géraud de Pardiac, a relative. Why? Because he had lands he wanted, and one of his son married his old fiancée, Marguerite de Comminges. Well, fiancée… that’s a good one! She simply sent Bernard packing!

So, Bernard started to accuse Géraud of everything and instituted legal proceedings against him. Except that Géraud managed to establish his innocence. So there! Furious, Bernard besieged it and took him prisoner.

Poor Géraud was tortured, at the bottom of a well… His two sons had the same fate: the first one, led where his father died, saw the corpse and fell stone dead!

The second one was Jean: just see below to learn about his terrible death…

Anyway, Bernard earned nothing: Marguerite de Comminges didn’t care about him, and married another one…

Pooh, we were in the middle of the turmoil of the Hundred Years War…

Bernard wasn’t called d’Armagnac for no reason: he was the leader of the Armagnac party (who supported king of France) against Burgundians, supporting the English. Hey, he was a pretty important chap!

But Bernard died tortured and murdered by the Parisians (Paris was Burgundian), in 1418…

Burning eyes

In 1404, Bernard, who wanted the death of all his relatives, the Pardiac, locked Géraud's son, Jean, viscount of Armagnac, in the Tour du Prisonnier (“Prisoner’s tower”): the poor one had his eyes burnt… by his own wife, forced by Bernard! He died alone, forgotten in the jail of Brousse…

Chronicler Froissart wrote: “They burnt his eyes with a burning basin full of embers they put in front of his eyes. He suffered for a long time and died overwhelmed with pain and woes.”

About the the author

Vinaigrette
I'm fond of strolls and History, with juicy and spicy details!