Robert d’Artois essaye d’envoûter le roi

This engraving depicts Robert III of Artois attempting to cast a deadly spell on Philip VI of Valois in 1333. Robert of Artois, a great lord involved in the succession struggles at the beginning of Philip VI’s reign, came into conflict with the king before falling from favor. The image belongs less to strict historical fact than to the dark legend and political imagination surrounding accusations of bewitchment and sorcery in medieval France. Created by Jean-Michel Moreau for Figures de l’histoire de France, it also reflects the way the late 18th and early 19th centuries staged the dramatic, scandalous, and mysterious episodes of the French monarchical past.