The march of the expedition was slow and under extreme weather conditions, considering they were in the middle of the summer: “The day the king left Mans was excessively hot, as was to be expected, for it was the middle of August, when the sun is in its greatest force” (Froissart 1813 c).
The King was not completely recovered, and according to Froissart, he was suffering of recurrent episodes of fever while he was planning the expedition. He refused the advice of his council to defer the expedition, and he was feeling frustrated because he couldn't advance to Brittany. During this time, his physicians and uncles noted that he started to have unusual behaviors. Froissart didn't give a further description about what kind of behavior he was displaying, but he used the term “derange” to describe it (Froissart J 1813 c). On the other side the Monk of Saint Denis wrote that since the first days of august the king started to show “signs of dementia”, speaking senseless phrases and through unworthy gestures in a king (Monk of Saint Denis 1839 b).
During the Brittany expedition, a strange and never explained episode occurred. …show more content…
Due to this situation the uncles and advisors decided to bring to Creil to one of the most famous physicians in France named William de Harseley. After evaluating the King, de Harseley said that the disease came “from the alarm in the forest, and by inheriting too much of his mother's weak nerves”. King´s mother, Jeanne de Bourbon, had an unstable temper and there are reports of a probable psychotic episode, “a terrible fit of madness in 1373 when she was 35 years old”, after her seventh child birth. There are also reports that Jeanne´s brother, father and grandfather also suffered from episodes of mental instability (Froissart 1813