Antoine de La Sale's La Sale: The Cannonball and the Prince's Head

Antoine de La Sale's didactic treatise La Sale (1451), a 'mirror for princes' aimed at noble boys, includes an eye-witness account of a dramatic event that occurred in Naples in 1438. This essay examines the ways in which the tale breaks with its frame, a translated and Christianized version of Valerius Maximus's Facta et dicta memorabilia, to question subtly the lessons it teaches concerning sacrilege and noble rank. The compilation appears to promote and question the authority and reliability of the tutor. In addition, once it is set against the concluding scene of La Sale's Jehan de Saintré (1456), the tale appears to furnish some evidence of the development of the genre of the nouvelle from both the narration of recent events, and the genre of the moralizing exemplum.