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From Chronicles of England, France and Spain and the Surrounding Countries, by Sir John Froissart, Translated from the French Editions with Variations and Additions from Many Celebrated MSS, by Thomas Johnes, Esq; Volume I; London: William Smith, 1848. pp. xvii-xxvii.


[xvii]

MEMOIR

OF

THE LIFE OF FROISSART


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JOHN FROISSART , priest, canon, and treasurer of the collegiate church of Chimay, historian and poet, was born in Valenciennes, a town in Hainault, about the year 1337. This date, which appears contradicted by one single passage in his Chronicle, is confirmed by a number of others, as well in his Chronicle as in his Manuscript Poems.

However attentive he may have been to inform us of the minutest particulars of his life, he does not say one word relative to his family. One can only form a conjecture from a passage in his Poems, that his father’s name was Thomas, and that he was a painter of arms. We find in his history a Froissart Meullier, a young knight from Hainault, who signalized himself by his valour at the siege of the castle of Fighieres in Spain, which the English and Gascons attacked in 1381. His country and name induce me to believe that our historian might be a relation of his, and, like him, sprung from a noble family. Froissart is titled knight, at the beginning of a manuscript in the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés; but as he has not this title in any other manuscript, though we have some of the most ancient and most authentic, it seems probable that the copyist has given it to him from his own authority.

His infancy announced what he would one day be; he early manifested that eager and inquisitive mind, which during the course of his life never allowed him to remain long attached to the same occupations, and in the same place. The different games suitable to that age, of which he gives us a picture equally curious and amusing, kept up in his mind a fund of natural dissipation, which during his early studies tried the patience and exercised the severity of his masters. He loved hunting, music, assemblies, feasts, dancing, dress, good living, wine, and women: all these taste, which almost all showed themselves from twelve years of age, being confirmed by habitude, were continued even to his old age, and perhaps never left him. The mind and heart of Froissart being not yet sufficiently occupied, his love for history filled up that void which his passion for pleasure left; and became to him an inexhaustible source of amusement.

He had but just left school, and was scarcely twenty years old, when at the entreaty of his dear lord and master sir Robert de Namur, knight, lord of Beaufort, he undertook to write the history of the wars of his own time, more particularly of those which ensued after the battle of Poitiers. Four years afterwards, having gone to England, he presented a part of this history to queen Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III. However young he might then be, he had already travelled into the most distant provinces of France. The object of his visit to England was to tear himself from the pains of an attachment which had tormented him for a long time. This passion took possession of his heart from his infancy; it lasted ten years, and sparks of it were again rekindled in a more advanced age, in spite of his bald head and white hairs.

When poets sing their loves, they are not always believed on their word; as Froissart only mentions his in poetry, one may treat all he says as pure fiction; but the portrait he draws is so natural, that one cannot prevent one’s self from acknowledging the character of a xviii young man in love, and the simple expressions of real passion. He feigns, that when twelve years old, Mercury appeared to him followed by the three goddesses whose difference Paris had formerly decided; that this god, calling to mind the protection he had given him from four years of age, ordered him to revise the dispute of these three divinities; that he had confirmed the judgment of Paris; and that Venus had promised him, as a recompense, a mistress more beautiful than the fair Helen, and of such high birth, that from thence to Constantinople there was not earl, duke, king, nor emperor, who would not have esteemed himself fortunate to obtain her. He was to serve this beauty for ten years, and his whole life was to be devoted to the adoration of that divinity who made him such fair promises.

Froissart had been early attached to romances; that of Cleomades was the first instrument Love made use of to captivate him. He found it in the hands of a young maiden who was reading it, and who invited him to read it with her: he readily consented, for such complaisances cost little. There was soon formed between them a literary connexion. Froissart lent her the romance of the Baillou d’Amours*, and took the opportunity of sending it to her, to slip into it a ballad, in which he first spoke of his love. This spark of love became a flame which nothing could extinguish; and Froissart having experienced all that agitation which a first passion inspires, was almost reduced to despair on hearing that his mistress was on the point of being married; his excessive grief overwhelmed him, and caused him a fit of illness which lasted for three months. At last he took the resolution to travel, to dissipate his chagrin and to recover his health. As he traveled with a large company, he was forced to be attentive to himself, in order to hide his trouble. After two days’ journey, during which he had never ceased making verses in honour of his mistress, he arrived at a town, which I believe to be Calais, where he embarked. During his passage the weather was so tempestuous, as to threaten an immediate wreck of the vessel: this however was not capable of suspending the application with which he was working to finish a rondeau to the honour of his love. The weather became calm, and the rondeau was completed, when he found himself on a coast, where, as he says, “they love war better than peace, and where strangers are very well received.” He speaks of England; the reception they gave him, the amusements they procured him in the societies of “lords, ladies, and damsels,” and the caresses they loaded him with: but nothing was able to calm the melancholy which overwhelmed him; so that, not being able longer to support the pangs of absence, he resolved to return nearer the lady of his heart.

A lady, queen Philippa of Hainault, who detained him in England, learnt from a virelay, which he presented to her, the cause of his trouble; she took compassion on him, by ordering him to go back to his own country, on condition however of his promise to return, and furnished him with money and horses to perform the journey. Love soon conducted him to the lady of his affections. Froissart let no opportunity slip of being in the same places where she might be, and of conversing with her. We have before seen that she was of such high birth, that “kings and emperors might have sought her;” these words taken literally are only suitable for a person of blood royal or to the issue of a sovereign prince; but how can we connect the idea of such high birth with the detail he gives us of secret conversations, the amusements, and assemblies, which he was at liberty to partake of by day or night? and, as if these traits were not sufficient to make her known at the time he wrote, he seems to have wished to have more clearly pointed her out by the name of Anne, in the enigmatical verses which make part of his manuscript poems. One may presume that this love, so passionate and so tender, had the usual fate of almost every passion.

Froissart speaks in one of his rondeaus of another lady, whom he had loved, and whose name, composed of five letters, was to be found in that of Polixena: this may be an Alix, which was formerly written Aelix. There is reason to believe he had a third flame called Margaret, and that it is her whom he indirectly celebrates in a poem under the title, and in honour, of the flower which bears her name. Perhaps he sought in these episodical xix amours some remedy for a passion, which, according to his own account, was unfortunate. At least we know that, in despair for the little success which had attended all his assiduities and attentions to his first mistress, he took the resolution of again absenting himself from her.

This absence was longer than the preceding one; he returned to England, and attached himself to the service of queen Philippa. This princess, sister to the countess of Namur, wife of Robert, to whom Froissart seems to have been a servant, saw always with pleasure her countrymen from Hainault; she loved letters, the college which she founded, and which at this day is known at Oxford under the name of Queen’s College, is an illustrious monument of the protection she granted to them; Froissart therefore united all the titles which could merit the affection of queen Philippa. The history which he presented to her, as I have before mentioned, whether at his first journey or the second (for it is not possible to decide which of the two), was very well received, and probably gained him the title of clerk (that is to say secretary or writer) of the chamber of this princess, which he was in possession of from 1361.

In the age of Froissart, all the world was persuaded that love was the motive of the most brilliant actions of courage and virtue. Knights made a parade of it in tournaments. Warriors exposed themselves to the most perilous combats, to maintain the honour and beauty of their ladies. It was then believed that love might be confined to a delicate intercourse of gallantry and tenderness: it is almost always under this form that we see it represented in the greater parts of those efforts of the mind which have been handed down to us from that period; the ladies blushed not in feeling so pure a passion, and the most modest made it the ordinary subject of their conversations. The queen of England frequently amused herself by making Froissart compose amorous ditties; but this occupation must be considered solely as a relaxation that no way impeded more serious works, since, during the five years he was attached to the service of this princess, he traveled at her expense to various parts of Europe, the objects of which seem to be a research after whatever might enrich his history. I draw this conclusion from a preface which is found at the head of the fourth volume in several manuscripts of the Chronicle of Froissart; and, as it is not to be found in the printed copies§, I thought the insertion of it would not be improper here.

“At the request, wish, and pleasure, of that most high and noble prince, my very dear lord and master Guy de Chatillon, count de Blois, lord of Avesne, of Chimay, of Beaumont, of Schonove, of Goude; I, John Froissart, priest, chaplain to my very dear lord above named, and at this time treasurer and canon of Chimay, and of Lille in Flanders, am again awakened, and entered into my work-shop, to labour and work at the grand and noble matters which, in former times, occupied my attention, which treat and examine the feats and events of the wars between France and England, and of all their allies and adherents, as it clearly appears from the treaties which have been made and completed until this very day of my again being awakened.

“Now, you that read, have read, or shall read this history, consider in your own minds, how I could have known and collected such facts as I treat of, and of so many different parties. In truth, I must inform you that I began at the early age of twenty year, and came into the world at the time these events were passing, in the knowledge of which I have always taken greater pleasure that in anything else. God has been so gracious to me, that I was well with all parties, and of the household of kings; more especially of king Edward, and of the noble queen his lady, madame Philippa of Hainault, queen of England, lady of Ireland and of Aquitaine, to whom in my youth I was secretary, and amused her with handsome ditties and madrigals of love; and through affection to the service of that noble and puissant lady to whom I belonged, all the other great lords, dukes, earls, barons, and knights, of whatever nation they might be, loved me, saw me with pleasure, and were of the greatest utility to me. Thus, under the protection of this good lady, and at her costs, as well as at the expenses of great lords, I have searched in my time the greater part xx of Christendom (in truth who seeks will find); and wherever I came, I made inquiry after those ancient knights and squires who had been present at these deeds of arms, and who were well enabled to speak of them. I sought also for heralds of good repute, to verify and confirm what I might have heard elsewhere of these matters. In this manner have I collected the materials for this noble history; and that gallant count de Blois before-mentioned, has taken great pains in it. And as long as through God’s grace I shall live, I shall continue it, for the more I work at it, the greater pleasure I receive; like the gallant knight or squire enamored with arms, by perseverance and attention he perfects and accomplishes himself, thus by labouring and working on this subject, I acquire greater ability and delight.”

Of all the particulars of Froissart’s life during his residence in England, we only know that he was present at the separation of the king and queen in 1361, with their son the prince of Wales and the princess his lady, who were going to take possession of the government of Aquitaine; and that he was between Eltham and Westminster in the year 1363, when king John passed on his return to England. There is in his poems a pastoral which seems to allude only to that event. With regard to his travels during the time he was attached to the service of the queen, he employed six months in Scotland, and penetrated as far as the Highlands. He travelled on horseback with his portmanteau behind him, and followed by a greyhound.

The king of Scotland, and many lords whose names he has preserved to us, treated him so handsomely, that he could have wished to have returned thither. William, earl of Douglas, lodged him during fifteen days in his castle of Dalkeith, five miles from Edinburgh. We are ignorant of the date of this journey; and of another, which he made into North Wales, that I believe must have been about the same time. He was in France, at Melun-sur-Seine, about the 20th of April, 1366; perhaps private reasons might have led him to take that road to Bordeaux, where he was on All Saints day of that year, when the princess of Wales was brought to bed of a son, who was afterwards Richard II. The prince of Wales setting out a few days afterwards for the war in Spain, Froissart accompanied him to Dax, where the prince resided some time. He had expected to have attended him during the continuance of this grand expedition; but the prince would not permit him to go further, and shortly after his arrival sent him back to the queen his mother.

Froissart could not have made any long stay in England, since in the following year he was at different Italian courts. It was this same year, that is to say, 1368, that Lionel, duke of Clarence, son of the king of England, espoused Joland, daughter of Galeas the Second, duke of Milan. The marriage was celebrated the 25th of April; and Lionel died the 17th of October following. Froissart, who probably was in his suite, was present at the magnificent reception which Amadeus count de Savoy, surnamed the count Verd, gave him on his return: he describes the feasts on this occasion, which lasted three days; and he does not forget to tell us that they danced a virelay of his composition.

From the court of Savoy he returned to Milan, where the same count Amadeus gave him a good cottehardie, with twenty florins of gold; from thence to Bologna and Ferrara, where he received forty ducats from the king of Cyprus; and then to Rome. Instead of the modest equipage we have seen him travel into Scotland with, he was now, like a man of importance, traveling on a handsome horse attended by a hackney.

It was about this period that Froissart experienced a loss which nothing could recompense: Philippa of Hainault, queen of England, who had heaped wealth on him, died in 1369. He composed a lay on this melancholy event, of which, however, he was not a witness; for he says, in another place, that in 1395 it was twenty-seven years since he had seen England. According to several authors¥, he wrote the life of queen Philippa; but this assertion is not founded on any proofs.

xxi

Independently of the employment of clerk of the chamber to the queen of England, which Froissart had had, he had also been of the household of Edward III., and even of that of John, king of France. As there are several other princes and lords of whose households he had been, or whom he calls his lords and masters, it is proper to observe, that by this mode of speech he means not only those princes and lords to whom he had been attached as a servant; but likewise all those who had made him presents or gratifications; or who, having received him in their courts or castles, had admitted him to their tables.

Froissart, having lost his patroness, queen Philippa, did not return to England, but went into his own country, where he obtained the living of Lestines. Of all that he performed during the time he exercised this ministry, he tells us nothing more than that the tavern-keepers of Lestines had five hundred francs of his money in the short space of time he was their rector. One reads in a manuscript journal of the bishop of Chartres, chancellor to the duke of Anjou, that, according to letters sealed on the 12th December, 1381, this prince caused to be seized fifty-six quires of the Chronicle of Froissart, rector of the parish church of Lestines, which the historian had sent to be illuminated, and then to be forwarded to the king of England, the enemy of France.

Froissart attached himself afterwards to Winceslaus de Luxembourg, duke of Brabant, perhaps in quality of secretary, according to the custom of princes and lords in those days, who employed clerks to manage their affairs, and in their correspondence, and who amused them by their knowledge, or their wit. Winceslaus had a taste for poetry: he had had made by Froissart a collection of his songs, his rondeaus, and virelays, who, adding some of his own pieces to those of the prince, formed a sort of romance, under the title of Meliador, or the Knight of the Sun; but the duke did not live sufficiently long to see the completion of the work, for he died in 1384.

Almost immediately after this event, Froissart found another patron: he was made clerk of the chapel to Guy, count de Blois; and he was not long in testifying his gratitude to his new patron, by a pastoral on the betrothing of Louis, count de Dunois, son of Guy, with Mary, daughter of the duke of Berry. Two years after, on the solemnisation of this marriage at Bourges, he celebrated it in a sort of epithalamium, sufficiently ingenious for those times, entitled “The Temple of Honour.” He passed the years 1385, 1386, and 1387, sometimes in the Blaisois, sometimes in Touraine; but the count de Blois having engaged him to continue the course of his history, which he had left unfinished, he determined in 1388 to take advantage of the peace which was just concluded, to visit the court of Gaston Phœbus, count de Foix and de Béarn, in order to gain full information in whatever related to foreign countries, and the more distant provinces of the kingdom, where he knew that a great number of warriors signalized themselves daily by the most gallant actions. His age and his health still allowed him to bear great fatigue; his memory was sufficiently strong to retain whatever he should hear; and his judgment clear enough to point out to him the use he should make of it.

He set out with letters of recommendation from the count de Blois to Gaston Phœbus, and took the road through Avignon. One of his pastorals informs us, that he resided in the environs of an abbey**, situated between Lunel and Montpelier, and that he gained the affections of a young person, who bewailed his departure: in the same poem he tells us, that he carried with him four greyhounds††, as a present to the count de Foix. Gaston was passionately fond of dogs, and had upwards of sixteen hundred always with him: there exists a treatise written by him on hunting, which is preserved in manuscript in several libraries, and which was printed in 1520.

Froissart went from Carcassonne to Pamiers, of which he gives an agreeable description; he remained there for three days waiting for the chance of meeting some person with whom he might travel into Béarn. He was fortunate enough to meet with a knight from the country of Foix, who was returning thither from Avignon, and they journeyed together. Sir Espaign du Lyon, the name of the knight, was a man of high distinction; he had had xxii considerable commands, and was employed all his life in negotiations as delicate as they were important. The two travellers agreed perfectly well together; the knight, who had served in all the wars in Gascony, was equally desirous to learn everything which related to those that Froissart was acquainted with; and Froissart, more in a situation to satisfy him than any one, was not less curious to be informed of those events in which the knight had borne a part: they mutually communicated all they knew, with a reciprocal complaisance. They rode side by side, and frequently only a foot’s pace: their whole journey was passed in conversations; by which they mutually instructed each other. Towns, castles, ruins, plains, heights, valleys, defiles; everything awakened the curiosity of Froissart, and recalled to the memory of the lord Espaign du Lyon the different actions which had there passed under his eyes, or which he had heard related by those who had been engaged in them.

The historian, too exact in the recital which he gives us of these conversations, relates even the exclamations by which he testified his gratitude to the knight, for all the interesting intelligence he was so good to give him. If they arrived at a town before sunset, they profited of the remnant of day to examine the outworks of the place, or to observe those parts of it which had suffered from assaults. On their return to the inn, they continued the same conversations, either between themselves or with other knights and esquires, who might be lodged there; and Froissart never went to bed until he had put in writing every particular he had heard.

After a journey of six days, they arrived at Ortez. This town, one of the most considerable in Béarn, was the ordinary residence of Gaston, count de Foix, and viscount de Béarn, surnamed Phœbus, on account of his beauty. Froissart could not have chosen a court more suitable to his views. The count de Foix, at the age of fifty-nine years, was the most vigorous, the handsomest, and best-made man of that period. Adroit at all exercises, valorous, an accomplished captain, noble and magnificent, he never suffered any warrior who waited on him to depart without carrying with him proofs of his liberality: his castle was the rendezvous of all those brave captains who had distinguished themselves in combats, or in tournaments. Their conversations solely ran on attacks of places, surprises, sieges, assaults, skirmishes, and battles. Their amusements were games of address and force; tilts, tournaments, and huntings more laborious and almost as dangerous as war itself. These details deserve to be read in Froissart: I can only imperfectly trace what he has so excellently painted.

The count de Foix having learnt from sir Espaign du Lyon the arrival of Froissart, who was well known at the court of Ortez by the first two volumes of his Chronicle, sent to seek for him at the house of one of his esquires, who had received and lodged him; and, seeing him at a distance, said to him smiling, and in good French, “That he was perfectly well acquainted with him, although he had never before seen him; but that he had heard much talk about him, and he retained him in his household.”

This expression, as I have before said, does not mean that Froissart was lodged in the castle, but only that his expenses were defrayed by the count during the winter he passed at his court. His most usual occupation, in that time, was to amuse Gaston, after his supper, by reading to him the romance of Meliador, which he had brought with him. Every evening he repaired to the castle at midnight, which was the hour the count sat down to table, and none dared to interrupt the reading. Gaston himself, who listened with the greatest attention, only spoke to ask questions concerning the book; and he never sent him away, before he had made him drink all the wine which had remained on the table, from his own bottle.

Sometimes this prince took pleasure to inform him of those particulars of the wars in which he had distinguished himself. Froissart did not gain less information from his frequent conversations with those knights and esquires whom he found assembled at Ortez; more especially from the knights of Arragon and of England, attached to the household of the duke of Lancaster, who at that time resided at Bordeaux. They related to him all they knew of the battles of the kings John of Castile, and Denys of Portugal, and their allies. Among others, the famous Bastot de Maulion, in giving him the history of his own life, told him also that of almost all the wars which had happened in the different provinces of France, and even in Spain, from the time of the battle of Poitiers, at which period he first bore arms.

xxiii

Although he applied himself, without relaxation, in collecting historical memoirs, Froissart gave, however, some moments to Poesy. We have a pastoral by him, which he seems to have composed in the county of Foix, in honour of Gaston Phœbus. He says, that being

En beau Pré sert et plaisant
Par dessus Gave la riviere
Entre Pau et Ortais seant,

he saw shepherds and shepherdesses, who were conversing of different lords, and the arms they bore. He adroitly makes use of this fiction, to name with praise all those from whom he had received any marks of liberality, and terminates his list with the count de Foix.

After a tolerable long residence at the court of Ortez, Froissart began to think of his departure. He was detained by Gaston, who gave him hopes that an opportunity would soon offer for him to travel in good company. The marriage of the countess of Boulogne, a relation of the count, having been concluded with the duke de Berry, the young bride was conducted from Ortez to Morlas, where the equipages of the duke, her husband, were waiting for her. He set out in her suite, after having received proofs of the generosity of Gaston, who warmly pressed him to return to him. He accompanied the princess to Avignon, and the remainder of the road which she took across the Lyonnois, la Bresse, le Forès, and the Bourbonnois, as far as Riom, in Auvergne.

The stay at Avignon was unfortunate to Froissart; they robbed him. This melancholy adventure was the subject of a long poem, in which he introduces several incidents of his life, and which I have made use of in this memoir. Once sees, by this piece, that the desire of visiting the tomb of the cardinal de Luxembourg, who died in odour of sanctity, was not the sole motive which had induced him to re-pass through Avignon in the suite of the young princess; but that he was charged with a private commission from the lord de Coucy. He might, as he says, have endeavoured to seek for redress for the loss of his money by soliciting a benefice; but this resource was not to his taste. He laid greater stress on the generosity of the lord de la Riviere, and the count de Sancerre, who accompanied the duchess de Berry, and on that of the viscount d’Asci. He paints himself, in this poem, as a man of much expense: besides the revenue of the living of Lestines, which was considerable, he had received, since he was twenty-five years old, two thousand francs, of which nothing remained. The composition of his works had cost him seven hundred francs; but he regretted not this expense; for, as he says, “I have composed many a history which will be spoken of by posterity.” The remainder was spent among the tavern-keepers at Lestines, and in his travels, which he always performed with a good equipage, well mounted, well dressed, and living well wherever he went.

Froissart had been present at all the feasts which were given on the marriage of the duke of Berry; celebrated the eve of Whitsunday at Riom, in Auvergne. He composed a pastoral for the morrow of the nuptials; then, returning to France with the lord de la Riviere, he went to Paris. His natural activity, and his ardour for information, with which he was incessantly occupied, did not permit him to remain there long. We have seen him in six months go from the Blaisois to Avignon; then to the county of Foix; from whence he returned again to Avignon, and cross Auvergne to go to Paris. One sees him in less than two years successively in the Cambresis, in Hainault, Holland, Picardy, a second time in Paris, at the extremity of Languedoc; then again at Paris and at Valenciennes; from thence to Bruges, Sluys, in Zealand, and at last in his own country.

He accompanied the lord de Coucy into the Cambresis to the castle of Crevecœur, which the king had just given to him. He relates to him all he had seen, and learns from him the different particulars of the negotiations between France and England. After having staid fifteen days in his own country, he passed a month in Holland with the count de Blois, entertaining him with the history of his travels. He then goes to Lelinghen, to learn the details of the negotiations for peace, which were carrying on at that place. He is present at the magnificent entry which Isabella de Bavière makes into Paris. The exactness with which he describes the ceremonies observed between the pope and Charles VI. at Avignon, seems to prove he was an eye-witness of their meeting; this is the more probable, because it is xxiv certain that Charles VI. went from Avignon to Toulouse, to receive the homage of the count de Foix; when Froissart was present, and heard their conversation.

Nothing of novelty passed, as one sees, but Froissart wished to be a spectator of; feasts, tournaments, conferences for peace, interviews of princes, their entries, nothing escaped his curiosity. It appears that, at the beginning of the year 1390, he returned to his own country, and that he was solely occupied in the continuation of his history, and in completing it, from the intelligence he had amassed from all parts with so much labour and fatigue. However, what he had learnt relative to the war in Spain did not satisfy him; he felt a scruple at only having heard one side; that is to say, the Gascons and Spaniards, who had been attached to the king of Castille. It was the duty of an exact and judicious historian to know also what the Portuguese had to say on this subject; and on the information he had, that numbers of that nation were to be found at Bruges, he went thither. Fortune served him beyond his hopes; and the enthusiasm with which he speaks of it, paints the ardour with which he was desirous of a perfect knowledge of facts. On his arrival, he learnt that a Portuguese knight, “a valiant and wise man, and of the council of the king of Portugal,” whose name was Juan Fernando Portelet, had lately come to Middleburgh, in Zealand.

Portelet, who was on his road to Prussia to join in the war against the infidels, had been present in all the wars of Portugal. Froissart immediately sets out, in company with a Portuguese, a friend of the knight; goes to Sluys, embarks, and arrives at Middleburgh, where his fellow-traveler presents him to Portelet. This knight, “gracious, amiable, and easy of access,” relates to him, during the six days they passed together, everything that had been done in Portugal and Spain, from the death of king Ferdinand until his departure from Portugal. Froissart, equally pleased with the recitals of Portelet, as with his politeness, took leave of him, and returned home; where, having arranged all the information he had acquired in his various travels, he composed a new book, which makes the third of his history.

The passage from whence these particulars are taken adds, that Froissart, on quitting Zealand, and before his return to his own county, went once more to Rome. Although, in this instance, the printed copies are conformable to the manuscripts, this journey, of which no other mention is made, seems to me quite improbable. Denys Sauvage assures us, in a marginal note, that, instead of Rome, one should read Bruges, Sluys, or Valenciennes: it is much more natural to read Damme, a port in the neighbourhood of Sluys, where one has seen that the historian embarked.

One cannot say how long Froissart remained in Hainault; one only knows that he was again in Paris 1392, at the time when the constable de Clisson was assassinated by Peter de Craon; and at Abbeville towards the end of that same year, or the beginning of the next, during the conferences which were held there by the plenipotentiaries from France and England, when they at last established a truce for four years. From the year 1378, Froissart had obtained from pope Clement VII. the reversion of a canonship at Lille. One sees, in the collection of his poetry, which was completed in 1393, and in a preface, which is to be met with in several manuscripts at the beginning of the fourth volume of his history, composed about this time, that he titled himself canon of Lille; but Clement VII. dying in 1394, he gave up his expectations of the reversion, and began to qualify himself canon and treasurer of the collegial church of Chimay, which he probably owed to the friendship of the count de Blois, who respected him much; the lordship of Chimay being part of the inheritance which the count had had fallen in to him in 1381, by the death of John de Chatillon, count de Blois, the last of his brothers.

It was twenty-seven years since Froissart had left England, when, taking advantage of the truce between the French and English, he returned thither in 1395, furnished with letters of recommendation to the king and his uncles. From Dover, where he disembarked, he went to Canterbury, made his offering at the shrine of Thomas à Becket, and from respect to the memory of the prince of Wales, to whom he was perfectly well known, he visited his magnificent mausoleum. He saw there the young king Richard, who had arrived to return thanks to God for the success of his last campaign in Ireland; but, in spite of the good intentions of the lord Percy, high steward of England, who had promised to procure him an audience of the king, he could not be presented, and was obliged to follow this prince to the xxv different places he visited, until he came to Leeds castle‡‡. This time was not lost on our historian; the English were still full of their expedition to Ireland; and he got them to tell him both their own exploits, and the marvellous things they had seen there. Being yet at Leeds castle, he presented to the duke of York his letters from the count d’Hainault and the count d’Ostrevant§§. “Master John,” said the duke to him, “keep near to our person, and to my people; we will show you all love and kindness; we are bounden so to do from affection to former times, and to our lady mother, to whom you were attached; we well remember those times.” He afterwards introduced him into the king’s chamber, who received him with very distinguished marks of good will. Richard took the letters he had been charged with, and having read them, said, “that since he had been of the household of his grandfather, and of the queen his grandmother, he must be still of the household of England.”

Froissart, however, had not yet been able to present to the king the romance of Meliador, which he had brought with him; and Percy advised him to wait a more favorable opportunity. Two important objects occupied the mind of Richard; one was his intended marriage with Isabella of France; the other, the opposition of the people of Aquitaine to the donation which he had made of this province to his uncle, the duke of York. The prelates and barons had been summoned to Eltham, to deliberate on these two affairs; and Froissart had followed the court. He wrote down regularly all the news of the day, which he heard in his conversations with the different English lords; and Richard de Servy¶¶, who was of the king’s cabinet council, entrusted him, in confidence, with every resolution they had determined upon, begging him only to keep them secret until they should be publicly divulged. At last, on the Sunday which followed the holding of this council, the duke of York, Richard de Surry, and Thomas de Percy, finding the king but little occupied, mentioned to him the romance which Froissart had brought with him. The prince asked to see it; and the historian says, “he saw it in his chamber: for I had it always with me, and placed it upon his bed. He then opened and looked into it, and was greatly pleased: indeed, he ought to have been pleased; for it was illuminated, and the writing much ornamented: it was, besides, bound in crimson velvet, with ten silver-gilt nails, with a golden rose, in the midst of two clasps gilt, richly worked with gold rose-trees. Then,” continues Froissart, “the king inquired what subject it treated of; and I told him, of love. He was delighted with this answer, and looked into different parts of the book, and read therein: for he read and spoke French perfectly well. He then ordered one of his knights, named sir Richard Credon, to carry it to his cabinet; and he seemed much obliged to me for it.”

Henry Castede, an English esquire, who had been present at this conversation, and who knew besides that Froissart was writing his history, coming up to him, inquired if he had been informed of the details of the conquest which the king had just made in Ireland. Froissart pretended to be ignorant of them, in order to engage the esquire in conversation, who took pleasure in recounting them to him. Everything the historian heard, among the rest the repast which the king of England gave in Ireland to the four kings after having conquered them, excited in him very great regret for not having come to England a year sooner as he was preparing to do, when the news of the death of Queen Anne of Luxembourg, Richard’s first wife, made him alter his intentions: he would not have failed to have gone to Ireland to have seen everything himself; for he was much interested in collecting the minutest circumstances of this expedition, in order to entertain “his lords” the duke of Bavaria and his son, who had on Friesland similar pretensions to those of the king of England on Ireland. After three months’ residence in England, Froissart took his leave of the king. This prince, whom he had followed in his different excursions near London, ordered him to be given, as a last mark of his affection, 100 nobles¥¥ in a goblet*** of silver, gilt, weighing two marcs.

The melancholy end of Richard, which happened in 1399, is related at the end of the fourth xxvi volume of Froissart’s history, who acquits himself most gratefully to this prince by the affecting manner with which he laments his misfortunes. At the same time he remarks that in this event he saw the accomplishment of a prediction which had been made on Richard, when he was born at Bordeaux; and also of a prophecy in the romance of Brutus†††, which pointed out the prince who would dethrone him.

The death of Guy, count de Blois happened soon after Froissart’s return home: he mentions it in his Chronicle, under the year 1397. He was then sixty years of age, and must have lived at least four years more; for he relates some events of the year 1400‡‡‡. If one was to believe Bodin and la Popliniere, he would have lived to 1420; but these two writers have probably been deceived by these words, which begin the last chapter of his history: “En l’an de grace mil quatre cent ung moins;” instead of reading, “ung,” as it is written in several manuscripts and in the black-letter editions, they must have read “vingt.” Another passage in Froissart may also have given rise to a belief that he lived to about the middle of the fifteenth century. In speaking of the banishment of the count de Harcourt, who persuaded the English to make a descent in Normandy, he says, that the melancholy effects of this invasion were visible for more than a hundred years after. These terms must not be taken literally; the author wrote rather as foreseeing those evils to come which he dreaded, than as being a witness of these fatal effects. It is not, however, possible to decide in what year he died; it only appears that it was in the month of October, since his “obit” is indicated in that month in the obituary of the collegial church of St. Monegunda, at Chimay, from which I have added an extract at the end of this memoir. According to an old tradition of the county, he was interred in the chapel of St. Anne, in this collegial church; and, indeed, it seems very probable that he should end his days in his own chapter.

The name of Froissart was common to several persons who lived at the same time with our historian; besides the Froissart Meullier, the young esquire from Hainault, whom I mentioned in the beginning of this memoir, one finds in the Chronicle of our author a Dom Froissart, who had signalized himself at the siege which the count de Hainault had formed in 1340 against the town of St. Amand. This monk defended for a considerable time a breach which had been made in the walls of the abbey, and did not abandon it before he had killed or wounded eighteen men. One reads at the end of some charters of the count de Foix, a signature of J. Froissart, or Jaquinot Froissart: he was a secretary to the count, and perhaps a relation of the historian. There is also mention made in the registers of the “Trésor des Chartes,” of a remission granted in 1375 to Philibert Froissart, esquire, who had been in the company of Gascons in the country of Guyenne, under the command of Charles d’Artois, count de Pezenas.

To avoid interrupting the thread of the narrative, I have deferred to the end of this memoir the examination of passage in the poetry of Froissart, which points out, but in obscure terms, one of the principal circumstances of his life. He recalls the faults of his youth, and particularly reproaches himself for having quitted a learned profession for which he had natural talents, and which had gained him much respect (he seems to point at history, or poetry), to follow another, which, though much more lucrative, was as little suitable to him as that of arms; and having failed in it, had made him fall from that degree of honour to which the first had elevated him. He says, he is determined to repair his fault, and returning to his former occupations, transmit to posterity the glorious names of those kings, princes, and lords, whose generosity he had partaken of.

In the whole course of the life of Froissart, I see no period in which this pretended change can be placed, nor that can point out this lucrative trade, and which he himself calls “marchandise.” The indecency of the expression will not suffer us to suppose it could be his cure of Lestines; although he has said in another part, that the rectory was of considerable value; could it be the profession of lawyer, or that of his father, who was, as we have before stated, a painter of arms? A singular meaning of the word “marchandise” in Commines, may perhaps give us a plausible explanation. Commines, born in the same country, and xxvii not very far from the time of Froissart, employs this work to signify a negotiation of affairs between princes. The business of a negotiator, or rather a man of intrigue, who seeks without any apparent character to penetrate the secret of courts, would perhaps be that which Froissart repents to have followed. The details in which we have entered respecting his various travels, the long residence which he has often made in critical times with several princes, and the talents which he had to insinuate himself into their good graces, seem to me to warrant this conjecture.


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Extract from a manuscript taken from the archives of the chapter of St. Monegunda, at Chimay, in which are found the obits and pious foundations made to this chapter, and other antiquities. Folio 39 and 40.

“The obit of sir John Froissard, born at Valenciennes, canon and treasury of the aforesaid church, which flourished in 1364, may have place here according to his quality, as having been domestic chaplain to the renowned Guy de Chatillon, count de Soissons and de Blois, lord of Avesnes, Chimay, and Beaumont, &c., who has also been a very celebrated historiographer of his time, and has written the wars and chronicles, and the most remarkable events from the year 1335 until the year 1400; according as he himself relates in divers parts of his history, and more especially in the 52nd chapter of his 4th book, and as it is shown in the eulogium written in his praise in the following words:

Cognita Romanæ vix esset gloria gentis,
    Pluribus hunc scriptis ni decorasset honos.
Tanti nempe refert totum scripsisse per orbem,
    Quælibet et doctos sec’la tulisse viros.
Commemorent alios alii, super æthera tollam
    Froissardum, historiæ per sua sec’la ducem;
Scripsit enim historiam mage sexaginta per annos.
    Totius mundi, quæ memoranda notat,
Scripsit et Anglorum Reginæ gesta Phillippæ,
    Qui, Guilielme, tuo tutia juncta toro.”

HONORARIUM.

Gallorum sublimis honos et fama tuorum,
    Hic, Froissarde, jaces, si modo forte jaces.
Historiæ vivus studuisti reddere vitam,
    Defuncto vitam reddet at illa tibi.

JOANNES FROISSARDUS,


Canonicus and Thesaurarius Ecclesiæ Collegiatæ Sanctæ Monegundis Simaci, vetustissimo ferme totius Belgii oppido.

Proxima dum propriis florebit Francia scriptis.
    Fania§§§ dum ramos, Blancaque¶¶¶ fundit aquas,
Urbis ut hujus honos, templi sic fama vigebis
    Teque ducem historiæ Gallia tota colet,
Belgica tota colet, Cymeaque vallis amabit
    Dum rapidus proprios Scaldis obibit agros.

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*  M. de St. Palaye, in a note, says he is not acquainted with the romance. Baillou signifies bailiff.

  Dittie de la fleur de la Margherite, pages 70 and the following, of his Manuscript Poems.

  The English reader must be informed, that Marguerite is not only the name of a woman, but also of the flower called daisy, and of a pearl.

§  M. de St. Palaye is not quite correct; for the beginning of this preface is in the printed edition of Verard, and in another printed edition which I believe was not known to Denys Sauvage nor to M. de St. Palaye. It will be more particularly mentioned hereafter. This preface in my printed editions is not so long as this, and is somewhat different. It is not mentioned in the editions of Denys Sauvage.

  Or, as it is more often written, cotardie, a sort of coat, a dress common to men and women; here it means a pourpoint. This was one of the liberalities which great lords were accustomed to make; they put money, as one sees by this example into the purse which, according to the usage of that time, was attached to the coat. — ST. PALAYE.

¥  Vossius de Historicis Latinis, liv. iii. cap. iv. Ballart, Académie des Sciences, tom. i. p. 124.

**  Probably St. Geniez, a monastery of nuns, one league and a half from the road which leads from Montpelier to Lunel. — ST. PALAYE.

††  Their names were Tristan, Hector, Brun, and Rollant. — ST. PALAYE.

‡‡  In Kent.

§§  Afterwards earl of Holland, and knight of the garter.

¶¶  Q. Was it Richard de Surry, lord Surry?

¥¥  This sum may amount to about 25 guineas of our present coin. — ST. PALAYE.

***  This was called by our ancestors a Henepée, id est, hanap, full of money: from whence comes the Hanaper-office in the English treasury. — ST. PALAYE.

†††  See particulars of Wace, author of the romance of Brutus, in Mr. Ellis’ Specimens of early English poets.

‡‡‡  It does not seem probable that he lived long after completing the last chapters of his history. They appear to be rather notes for future revisal, than finished portions of the work, and the conclusion is singularly abrupt. — ED.

§§§  The Faigne de Chimay, a small forest dependent on it.

¶¶¶  La Blanche Eau, a river which runs by Chimay.







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