Analyzing Jager's The Last Duel

The Last Duel provides a vivid story about the Jacques Le Gris and Jean de Carrouge’s feud that led up to their battle in Saint-Martin-des-Champs in which Carrouges ends up victorious. Eric Jager argues throughout the story that Le Gris is at fault for causing the duel since he raped Carrouge’s wife. Providing a story is good when the evidence of history backs it up yet in this case, Jager ends up making up the most vital parts of his argument. Jager’s argument is unconvincing since its very foundation that helps make the rest of the story make sense is flawed. A feud between Le Gris and Carrouges, the rape of Marguerite, and a man that confesses to the cry al show the way in which Jager’s argument falls apart.
The main people involved in this

One of the biggest mysteries this story is the firmness in which Marguerite held for the story that Jager provides a vivid story. The rape of Capomesnil involved the lady Carrouges alone in the castle of his mother in law in which Le Gris’s accomplice ad himself would be let themselves in and Le Gris Rapes her in her bed. As the text provides, a sample of the detail that says, “Seizing Marguerite by the arms, Le Gris dragged her over to the bed and roughly threw her onto it. Pinning her there facedown, one huge hand gripping the back of her neck, he finished untying his boots, loosened his belt, and pulled down his legging.” Jager’s book depends on the vividness of the rape since without it, the rest of the events such as the reveal to Carrouges, telling their family, getting it to court and eventual duel depends on her account. One flaw in this very idea is the likelihood of a noblewoman truly being alone in a castle. He claims that all the servants went with Lady Carrouges but that just sounds unreasonable. Although he provides this evidence to show stubbornness of the accomplice of the squire, Adan Louvel was tortured during the case and did not confess to anything. In a time when torture was a viable source of information, this says a lot since in most cases a person would admit to anything yet the fact that he asserts his

Jager focuses on the case between Le Gris and Carrouges and ends with the death of Le Gris and the eventual death of Jean Carrouges in one of the last Crusades that Europe would be involved in and Marguerite being lost to history. At the appendix of this book, he tries to assert the case that Le Gris was guilty and tries to debunk the other possibilities, even mentions the fact that a condemned felon admitted to the crime. The problem of doing this is that rather than put this in the actual ending where the Carrouges supposedly live out their life’s until their death after the duel, this does not fit in to his narrative. He does add this into his book, but by putting it in the appendix, this decreases the chances of anyone actually reading the “aftermath of the