Talk:Les Mignons

Duel des Mignons

Did a rewrite on the Duel of the Mignons. The earlier version of the text said it was a "mock battle" where they "decided to reenact the battle of the Horatii and the Curiatii." It was decidedly no mock battle! The comparison here seems to be the account by Brantôme, but I don't have a primary source (only the secondary source) for that. Main source for my changes is the French Wikipedia article, which goes into much greater detail (probably more than needed here); I did add one citation (a French source writing in English) that links to original French accounts. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 18:38, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Geoffrey, you didn't delete the original. The paragraph now exists twice in a row.

Sovietblobfish (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Article problems

Not a fan of this article as it currently stands, it's largely composed of gossipy extracts from Estoile's diary. Primary sources especially polemical ones like Estoile should not be comprising the main body of an article like this. Yet they are incorporated with no critical analysis by academics. Where we could have this article going contemporary so and so says "xyx" historians have generally not accepted Estoiles claims/historians find merit in Estoiles claims; we instead have Estoile tells us the mignons dressed like 'whores', moving on to the next point.

Remove Estoile and there's almost no article left before we get to the duel of the mignons set piece, which is of a much higher quality.

Not to mention it leaks out of the contemporary sources into the encyclopedic body (such that there is one outside of the duel of the mignons section)

In the very first sentence "they were frivolous and fashionable" calling them frivolous out of hand seems POV to me. Some reputable historians will be needed for that one, not just Estoile's opinion. The article also has the LGBT tag for some reason, despite the only reference to queer sexuality being "public malignity attributed heterodox sexuality" I think we need a bit better than that to justify such a tag.

Beyond elevating this article out of a gossip column, we also need the wider context of what a mignon was, Henri III wasn't the first king to have favourites whom he lavished riches on, this is even mentioned in the notes section, but that discussion is too important to be relegated there. How meaningful is it for a historian to consider Henri's favourites as a distinct phenomenon?

I'm busy with other articles for the moment, but this is not a good one outside of the duel section, and if no one else helps it out in the meanwhile, I will come to it eventually but that could be months away. Sovietblobfish (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

My ambition for this article, would for it to be somewhat more like the French wikipedia version of this article (though even that one I don't like too much)

Section 1) A brief history of Valois royal favourites (Claude d'Annebault, Anne de Montmorency, Claude de Guise, Jacques d'Albon, etc. [one could also include Catherine de Medici's favourites for the reign of Charles IX, Albert de Gondi. Louis de Gonzague, René de Birague)

Section 2) An introduction to Henri III's favourites, who were these men, where did they come from, what made them different from what came before (if anything)

Section 3) A discussion of their deeds and deaths

Section 4) A discussion of their contemporary reputation, here's where we put the polemicists

Section 5) A discussion of how historians have either endorsed those contemporary polemicists or challenged them, and how their approach to the polemicists has evolved over time. Sovietblobfish (talk) 21:08, 3 January 2023 (UTC)