Exactly what drove Jean Dufour, a Savoy councillor with twenty-seven years
of service behind him (according to his own testimony), to perpetrate a fraud so
grotesque and so massive upon Duke Charles II as to threaten to ruin the state’s
finances will never fully be known. It is perhaps simplest to quote Dufour’s own
explanation for his forgery of Charles I’s will given to the Estates of the Vaud in
July 1508:
Sirs, it is true that the late duke Charles [I] detested the late lord [Philippe] of Bresse,
his uncle, on three or four accounts of which, in order that the said lord of Bresse should
not succeed to the duchy if it were to happen that the said lord duke should die, but
[rather] his daughters, my lord duke sent one of his councillors and ambassadors to
emperor Frederick [III], who is still alive, to petition him that, should he have no nat-
ural and legitimate male children, his daughters should inherit the duchy, for he had
one such. That the emperor did not wish to do.169 This he did twice; the second time
he swore [to him] that he would provide another means, and set down in writing let-
ters which he then caused me to receive and sign... And when the case arose [the
death of the duke], I informed two still-living high-ranking persons about these letters
and three others since, so that, were I to die, one would know what to do... And for
how many years since the case arose have I had warnings from God and misfortunes
in my own household... , which I have endured up to the point where the affair was
revealed by someone other than myself.170Why Dufour chose to keep his forgery to himself until eighteen years after Duke
Charles I’s death seems to have stemmed from the brusque and high-handed treat-
ment he received from 1504 onwards at the hands of Duke Charles II, and in
particular from his hatred of two of Charles’s recently appointed councillors, Janus
de Duyn, lord of Valdisère, and Antoine de Belletruche, lord of Gerbaix, who
169 For it contravened the Salic law of succession.
170 Tallone, Parlamento Sabaudo, XIII, 2, 183: Messieurs, il est vray que feu monseigneur le duc
Charles [I] haissoit feu monseigneur de Bresse son oncle pour troys ou quatre chouses dont affin que
mondit seigneur de Bresse ne succeda a la duché s’il advenoit que mondit seigneur le duc trespassat,
mais ses filles, et manda mondit seigneur le duc vers l’empereur Frederich ung sien conseiller et ambas-
sadeur, vivant encoure, luy supplier que en cas qu’il n’eust enfans males naturelz et legitimes, que ses
filles heritassent en la duché, car ia en avoit une; ce que l’empereur no voullu onques faires; et y fust
par deux foys, et a la seconde foys luy jura qu’il pourveroit d’aultre sorte, et fit coucher des lettres qui
puis après me fyt recepvoir et signe[r]... et quant le cas fust advenu, les ay notiffié a deux bons grans
personnaiges vivans, et despuys a troys aultres, affin, sy je moroye, qu’on seient ce qu’on en devroit
faire... Et combien que tous les ans despuys que ledit cas fust advenu j’aye heu des advisemens de Dieu
et inconveniens en ma maison... , si ay-je enduré jusque a ce que la chouse a estée descouverte par
aultre que par moy.