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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. xxviii-xxxv.
AN ESSAY
ON
THE WORKS OF FROISSART
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. DE LA CURNE DE ST. PALAYE.
BY THOMAS JOHNES.
============
THE life of Froissart has been the subject of the preceding pages. I will now give you the history of his works, as well printed as manuscript, in verse and in prose; and I will, as faithfully as I am able, detail their contents. It may, perhaps, be thought I have pushed these details too far; but, I feel I owe a particular attention to an historian who alone is worth a number of others, by the importance of the subjects he treats of, and from the length of time his history continues. I have besides observed that the author has expanded, in the course of his work, many facts which serve to clear up many preceding facts; and that, for want of this information, it has often happened that I have been stopped in my reading, and have not profited so much by it as I otherwise should have done. It is this which has made me sensible of the want those who read Froissart would have of such an explanation. To smooth all difficulties, and to lay down such rules as may conduct them, I have attempted to do that, which I should have been glad to have found done, when I began to read this author: for, I do not simply propose to give an idea of our Historian, that may satisfy those whom curiosity alone may induce to peruse; my object is, that these Memoirs should serve as an introduction to those who may be induced to read him; and that they should render him, as much as may be possible, more easy, more interesting, and more instructive.
I. General Plan of his History. — The History which Froissart has left us extends from 1326 until 1400. It is not confined to the events which were passing in France during this long period; it comprehends, with almost as much detail, every considerable affair which happened in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in Flanders. It includes also an infinite number of particulars relative to the affairs of the popes of Rome and of Avignon; of Spain, Germany, Italy; sometimes even of Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Africa, and other places beyond sea; in short, of almost the whole known world. But this immense multitude of facts, so different from each other; whose chronological order is not very clearly made out, frequently presents to the reader but a confused mixture of events, passed at different times, and in different places, of which he cannot form any distinct idea, and whose memory cannot unite so many scattered objects, which have a necessary connexion between each other.
II. A more detailed Plan of Froissart’s History. — The History of Froissart is divided into four books, or volumes, as well in all the manuscripts, as in all the printed editions.
The first begins with the coronation of Edward III. king of England, in 1326, and with the accession of Philip de Valois to the crown of France in 1328: and closes with the year 1379 inclusively.
Froissart begins his second volume with the last three years of the preceding volume, and with more detail, having gained fuller information than when he first wrote it. He continues it until the peace of the men of Ghent with the duke of Burgundy, the treaty of which is in the last chapter but one of this volume, dated the 18th December, 1385.
xxixThe third volume goes back as far as the year 1382 inclusively, reciting several events, which had been mentioned in the second from the 93rd chapter until the end. The events of these last four years, which had been already related, are so much expanded in the third volume, that they occupy the first twenty-nine chapters. The rest is employed in the history of the following years until 1389, ending with the truce concluded for three years between France and England, and with the preparations that were making for the entry of the queen Isabella de Baviere into Paris, of which the author promises to speak hereafter.
The fourth volume begins with a recital of all the feasts and magnificences which were made for this entry, and ends with the dethroning and death of Richard II. king of England, in 1400, and with the election which was made that same year of Robert emperor of Germany. These events terminate the last two chapters of the whole work.
This manner of dividing the History of Froissart is the same in all the manuscripts and printed copies; but these divisions do not always begin or end at the same places in all the copies*.
III. Division of the four volumes of Froissart into Chapters, and of the first Volume into several Parts. — The four volumes of the History of Froissart are each subdivided into a great number of chapters, which are differently placed, according to different manuscripts and printed copies; but, besides these divisions, in a great many manuscripts there is one which is particular to the first volume. Some have four books, or parts, others six, and some eight. I will speak more fully when I come to mention the manuscripts of Froissart.
It is in one of these four, six, or eight divisions of the first volume, that one must seek for the termination of that part of his History which Froissart carried to England, and presented to queen Philippa of Hainault†. It necessarily precedes those books, or parts, in which the death of this queen in 1369 is related: it even precedes, if I am not mistaken, everything one reads prior to 1367, when he was appointed clerk of the closet to the queen of England; for, I believe, it was the History which he presented to her that made him known, and gained him the office he held in the household of that princess.
One cannot doubt but that it was posterior to the recital of the battle of Poitiers in 1356, since it was but at that epocha he began to write. One must not seek for it either before or after the years 1357, 1358, 1359, or 1360; I would rather fix on the year 1360: for in that year was the treaty of Bretigny concluded, which gave peace to the French and English. This period agrees tolerably well with the time our author appears to have gone into England: the circumstance of the peace naturally intercepted a History which had apparently no other object than to treat of deeds of arms.
The second and third volumes are terminated at similar periods; one at the peace between the duke of Burgundy with Ghent in 1385; and the other between the French and English n 1387.
Froissart discontinued writing in 1392, and during the following years, which were passed in a succession of truces between France and England; of which Froissart took advantage, by going to England, where he had not been for twenty-seven years.
IV. Did Froissart make these Divisions? — One may ask if Froissart himself divided his History in the manner we have related? I do not doubt but he was the author of the division into four volumes; for, besides that it is so in all the manuscripts, even of those of his own time, he sometimes cites facts in some of these volumes which had been related in a former, and makes use of these expressions, “as it is mentioned in another History;” or in these words, “as you have before heard related in the preceding book of this renowned xxx excellent History.” But as for the subdivisions of the first volume into four, six, or eight books, it is not to be found in the most ancient manuscripts; besides, it is not uniformly the same in those wherein it is seen: I therefore do not hesitate in attributing them to the copyists, who have made them of their own accord.
With regard to the chapters of each volume, and the titles of these chapters, they are only to be met with in the printed copies; and in the manuscripts of that time, and posterior to it, they are different, according to the different manuscripts or printed copies: and I see no probability that Froissart was the author of them. One single passage may creat a difficulty on this subject. It is in the first volume, where the historian refers you to a preceding chapter; but this passage is evidently an interpolation. Notwithstanding it is in the three black-letter editions, and in those of Denys Sauvage, it is not to be found in any of the manuscripts which I have seen, with the exception of a single one in the National Library, No. 8321, which is of the date of the latter end of the fifteenth century, and one of the least authentic copies we have‡.
V. The time which Froissart employed in the composition of his History. — The principal of these divisions, that which divides the history of Froissart into four volumes, serves to mark as many different epochs, at which he stopped in the course of his work; whether from want of materials, having carried his narration to the time of his writing; or whether he wished to take some repose himself, and allowed the same to his readers: but these are not the only places where Froissart has suspended the course of his history; many have been pointed out, and I will endeavour to fix a date to them, as well as to others, to the utmost of my abilities.
Before entering on this examination, I shall explain the manner in which I understand Froissart discontinued to write his history. From all I have said of his life, he is seen continually occupied with this object: upwards of forty years of his life, reckoning from the time he was twenty, were passed in this pursuit: but in such a great length of time, there is one part of it which more directly belongs to the composition of this work; I mean that, when, returning from his travels and laborious inquiries, he collected his materials, arranged them, and formed a connected history, such as we have it at this day. As he worked at it at different times, I shall attempt to assign to each of the parts the suitable time for it; to fix when it was begun and finished; how many years he employed upon it, and the intervals during which he ceased to write: I think all these details necessary. Froissart travelled over large tracts of country, and made in several places long residences; he was attached, at different times, to courts whose interests were in opposition; he lived with a great number of princes and lords of different parties. It would have been very difficult for him not to have been biassed by prejudices, or influenced by affection for some, and hatred to others; and that he should always have steered clear of the illusions of partiality; for his candour alone would have served to have rendered him more susceptible of them§. If all the circumstances are recollected of the life of our historian, which have been related in the preceding pages, and they are connected with those times in which he worked at the composition of different parts of his history, not only the nature of the information he might be in a situation to collect will be manifest, as well relative to places, as to the persons he had seen; but those persons to whom he may be supposed to have leaned, will be pointed out. These grounds being once xxxi established, will be of very great assistance in enabling us to appreciate more justly the different degrees of authority he deserves, according to the various matters he treats of, and the times in which he treats of them. Without it being necessary for me to explain myself more at length on this subject, every reader may apply this rule as he shall advance in the reading of Froissart: it will serve him as a guide each step he takes; it will guard him from error or seduction; whether the historian should have been ill-informed; whether he should wish to impose on his readers, supposing it true that he should be capable of so doing.
The first volume of Froissart comprehends, as I have said before, the history from 1326 to 1379. This period includes the time of his journey to England, when one may readily suppose he had discontinued the work; for he considered it then as being finished to that part, since he says he carried it to England, where he presented it to the queen. It ends, as I have already said, about the year 1360; and, as we have seen that it was completed in 1361, and that he had only begun on it about the year 1357, it is evident that Froissart scarcely employed more than three or four years in the composition of this part of his work; which nevertheless appears to me one of those with which he has taken the most pains.
A sort of connexion which I find between several chapters of the remainder of this first volume, of which the first announces others at a great distance, convinces me that this remainder has been composed off-hand, and without interruption; and that, consequently, the author only began to write it towards the year 1379, since he closes it with the account of the events of this same year. In truth, I believe that, during the time he passed in the service of queen Philippa from 1361 to 1369, he was more occupied in writing, by her orders, poems on gallantry and love verses, than in labouring at his history; and that, although in his different travels, several of which were after the death of this princess, he was anxious to gain every information of the history of his own time, he had not, in the midst of an agitated life, either sufficient leisure, or a mind enough disengaged, to write it. He employed three or four years in composing the last half of his first volume; for we shall see, that the following volume, which he did not immediately begin on, was written from 1385 to 1388.
Notwithstanding Froissart may have written the first volume at two different times, it seems that the preface, which is at the beginning, was not done until the whole was finished; for the author speaks in it of his travels into Scotland, whither he did not go until after he had presented the first half of this volume to the queen of England.
No material interruption is met with in the course of the second volume. The author employs the first twenty-seven chapters in recapitulating the events of the last three years of the preceding volume, which had been too succinctly related. He adds new facts or new circumstances to those he had before told, or rectifies the narration, as having been better informed afterwards; and it is from this that I draw my proof, that there was some interval between the composition of the first volume, and that which followed. After these first twenty-seven chapters he resumes the thread of his history, which he follows until the peace the men of Ghent obtained from the duke of Burgundy, and of which he reports the original treaty, dated the 18th of December, 1385.
It is towards the year 1385 or 1386, that Froissart began to write his second volume: it was finished in 1388. This same year he visited the count de Foix; and in the account he gives of his travels he says, that different persons reminded him of events which he had related in his history; and these events are told in the second volume, which, according to appearances, was immediately written.
There is an interval of upwards of two years between the composition of this volume and the ensuing one; for the author only began on the third in 1390. He then wrote it by order, and at the expense, of the count de Blois: this he expressly says in the beginning of the first chapter of this volume¶. There is nothing to prevent us from believing that the preceding volume had been composed by the orders of the same nobleman, since I have shown, in the Memoirs of his Life, that Froissart had appeared to have been attached to his service from the year 1385.
The third volume, which returns to those events that had happened since the year 1382, and which gives a fuller account of them, had been, as I have just said, begun on in 1390, xxxii and was already finished in 1392. The author makes it so to be understood in that part where he speaks of the conventions entered into by the duke of Brittany with the king of France. He says, that at the time he was finishing this book, the duke had faithfully observed them, and had not done anything worthy of being noticed. We shall hereafter witness the disobedience of this duke in 1392; who having received Peter de Craon at his palace, at the time a state criminal, he refused to obey the orders which Charles VI. sent him to give him up. This whole volume seems to me to have been composed without interruption, as least there is a material connexion between several chapters at a great distance from each other.
The interval there is between the third and fourth volumes, seems to have been caused more to give repose to the reader than to the historian; for Froissart, in ending the third, announces the events which are to be the materials of the fourth volume. I believe the historian, immediately on completing the third, wrote the first 50 chapters of the fourth volume, which close with the events of 1392. A great number of manuscripts, and black-letter editions, which only begin the fourth volume after these fifty chapters, form a very natural prejudice in favour of this opinion: besides, from the year 1392, when they end, two years passed in continual negotiations between the French and English; during which, several truces, but of short duration, were made; which, however, ended at last in a peace, or truce, for four years. One cannot doubt but that Froissart then interrupted his writing; since that was the time he performed his journey into England, where he resided three months. I believe this interval was considerable, because the remainder of the fourth volume, which seems to me to have been written without intermission, was composed, if I mistake not, but several years after this journey; that is to say, towards the end of the fourteenth, or the beginning of the fifteenth century. One finds in it those events which belong to the years 1399 and 1400. I find nothing that may lead us to form any judgment how long a time the author employed on this last part.
It is necessary to make one general observation on the subject of these intervals which I have just been speaking of, and of which I have attempted to determine the length. When our historian finished one of the parts of his history, he brought it down to the time when he was writing; and towards the end he related the events as they were passing: from whence it happens, as it seems to me, that there is much confusion, often omissions and mistakes, which he has been obliged to correct or alter in the following parts. It is probably these different supplements which have made him take in many places the title not only of “actor,” that is to say, author, but in addition to it, that of augmentator, of this history; and that he says in other parts of it, “to have undertaken, continued, and augmented.”
VI. The inquiries Froissart made to compose his History, and the pains he took on this subject. — It has been shown with how much pains and fatigues Froissart had visited the greater part of the courts in Europe. Admitted into the palaces of the greatest lords, he insinuated himself into their confidence to so great a degree, that they not only related to him many particulars of their own lives, and of those events in which they had had a share, or been eye-witnesses of; but they discovered to him sometimes the secret of the resolutions which had been entered into in the councils of the cabinet upon the most important affairs: he never failed to take advantage of his conversations with those with whom he could converse and interrogate with greater freedom. It seems that he had learnt many details of the court of France from the servants even of the king, and from those who were near to his person.
If in his travels at court, or in other places he visited, he met with any from whom he thought he could gain information, more especially captains, or heralds, who in those times were the most usual agents in negotiations, and in affairs of importance; he began a conversation with them, and insensibly led them to speak of those parts of history of which they ought to be best informed, whether in regard to the country where they were, or to other circumstances of their lives: and he never quitted them until he had made them tell all they knew; all of which he immediately set down in writing. Not content to collect all these precious authorities, and to compare very carefully, as he himself informs us, the xxxiii information of persons who had been attached to different parties, he sought for proofs still less liable to suspicion. He consulted the treaties which princes had entered into with each other, their challenges or declarations of war, the letters they wrote to each other, and other papers of this nature, He expressly says, that he had seen many which he does not introduce, particularly those of the chancery of the king of England; and some of them are transcribed entire in the course of his history. It appears that he did not choose everything he found as chance offered them, but that he examined them critically, and laid aside all those whose authenticity did not seem to him fully proved.
VII. What end Froissart proposed to himself in writing his history; and what rules he had laid down to himself in writing it. — One may easily judge, from the detail of the attentions which Froissart himself tells us he took, that he was acquainted with the rules of sound criticism, and the true method which ought to be followed in writing history. He likewise informs us, that he had not the intentions of making a dry chronicle, wherein facts are simply related with their dates and in the order they happened, but that he was anxious to write what may be called in truth history, in which the events were presented with all the circumstances which had attended them. The details which lay open the secret springs by which mankind act, are precisely those which unveil the character and the very heart of the personages which history places on the stage; and this was one of the essential parts of the design which Froissart had proposed to himself in writing history. Many passages in his work indicate that he had a natural inclination for it, and that he found infinite pleasure in working at it; but another object, which does him much more honour, had greatly strengthened this natural taste: he proposed to preserve, for ages to come, the memory of those men who had made themselves renowned by their courage, or by their virtues; to give to their actions a value, which nothing can efface or alter; and, by amusing usefully his readers, to give birth to, or augment in their hearts, the love of glory, by the most brilliant examples.
This desire, which always animated him in his various inquiries, supported him during forty years of labour, in which he neither spared attention nor time, and for which he feared not expending very considerable sums of money. In effect, nothing can be more proper than the spectacle which Froissart places continually before the eyes of his readers, to inspire them with a love for war; that industrious vigilance, always on its guard against surprises, is incessantly active to surprise others; that activity, which counts as nothing pains and fatigue; that contempt of death which elevates the mind above the fear of danger; in short, that noble ambition which excites to enterprises of the greatest peril. He passes in review all the heroes which, nearly during a whole century, were produced by two warlike nations; one of which was encouraged by successes as flattering as they were uninterrupted; and the other, irritated by its misfortunes, was making exertions to revenge, at whatever price it may be, its own honour and its king. In so great a number of actions, of which many were extremely glorious to each party, it is not possible but that some were to be found of a quite different sort. Froissart does not take the less pains to paint these last, in order to give as much horror for vice, as he wished to inspire love for virtue: but, if all these pictures had been the fruits of his own imagination, they would not have been felt as much as he wished them. In order that their impression on the heart and mind should be perfectly sure and strong, it was necessary that their basis should be founded on the purest truth, disengaged from all flattery, as well as from partiality, or interest.
It is this truth which our historian piques himself with having sought after with the greatest care. However, all I have just said is taken from his own words, spread over an infinity of passages, in his history; and it is this alone that I guarantee. It remains to be seen if he has as faithfully observed this law which he imposes on himself as he has promised it. But before I enter into an examination of this question, I shall make some general observations on his chronology: I shall then speak of the thirty-first years of his history, which are, properly speaking, but an introduction to the forty, and some years which follow them, until the end of the fifteenth century.
VIII. The Chronology of Froissart. — I observe in the chronology of Froissart two capital defects, which are the source of all the disorder found in it. The first is, that when he passes from the history of one country to another, he makes the history which he begins go back to a period anterior to what he has just spoken of, without having had the attention to inform his readers of it. The second, which is not less considerable, is, that he has not settled in his own mind the manner of counting the years; he makes them sometimes begin the 1st of January; at other times at Easter; others even at Palm Sunday. Froissart does not confine himself to date by years the events he relates: months, days, hours of the day, are often expressed in his different recitals. I remark, with regard to the days, that he only begins them when night is completely gone, and that day-break begins to appear. With regard to the hours of the day, he gives them a division, of which some examples, but in a small number, are seen in our ancient authors, and to which he very particularly attaches himself. He divides them according to the canonical hours of prime, tierce, none and vêpres; because, perhaps, he was in the ecclesiastical line himself. I observe, that he has not anywhere made use of the word sexte: what he means by prime, was the morning, the first hour of the day, or the hour which followed next after day-break. Tierce seems to me to mark the intermediate time between the morning and mid-day, which he expresses either by the word mid-day, or by that of none. Afterwards comes vêpre, or, la vêprée: it was, as the word points out, the end of the day; after which was reckoned mid-night. Sometimes he adds to these words of prime, tierce, none, vêpres, the epithet of basse, to mark that the time of these hours was near closing; and sometimes the word haute, which, in some instances, appears to have the same signification, and in others quite the contrary. He uses this mode of speech à l’aube crevant, to say, that the dawn of day has but just begun to show itself; au soleil resconsant, to express the setting sun; à la relevée, for the time which follows the hour of mid-day; and à la remontée, which seems to me synonymous to la vêprée, for the evening, the time at which the day approaches to its end.
IX. Of the first thirty years which Froissart has treated of at the beginning of his History, after John le Bel; that is to say, from 1326 to 1356. — The first thirty years of the history of Froissart are properly but a preliminary, which serves to give the reader some information relative to the wars which he was afterwards to give an account of. He describes the state of France and of England; and shows the cause of the quarrel between the two crowns, which was the origin of those bloody wars they carried on reciprocally against each other. Froissart cannot be reckoned a contemporary writer of these first thirty years. he was not born, or if he was, he was in his infancy, or of such an age that he could not make any great use of his reason. He therefore scarcely ever mentions these thirty years, as an author who has seen what he relates; and, without doubt, it must be to this period alone that one can refer what he says in the commencement of his history, that he wrote after another who had lived before: it is, as he tells us, “The true Chronicles of John le Bel, canon of Saint Lambert of Liege¥.” These chronicles have not been handed down to us; and I cannot discover anything more, either concerning the work or its author, but what Froissart tells us. He speaks of him as one who no longer existed; but he boasts his exactness, and the pains he took in comparing his chronicles, and the considerable expenses he was at on this subject. He represents him as the favourite and confidant of John of Hainault, in company with whom he might have witnessed several great events, which, says he, shall in the end be related; for the earl, who was nearly related to several kings, had played a principal part in many of these transactions.
Froissart, in these thirty years, which are anterior to the battle of Poitiers, in 1356, enters more into the detail of the history of the English than of the French, perhaps from having followed in this respect his original author, who had taken a much greater interest in the history of England, from its connexion with the count de Hainault. This certainly is the cause why those manuscripts, which only contain the first years of the Chronicle of Froissart, are called Chronicles of England; and also has given rise to the reproach which has been made to him of being the partisan of England, and ill-inclined towards France; an accusation xxxv which I shall examine at the end of this criticism. I do not think Froissart could have chosen a better guide for the history of the thirty years than the author he says he followed. To judge of the information which this historian might have drawn from the intimacy with which he lived with John of Hainault, one must recollect the situation in which this earl then was. The queen of England, Isabella of France, had fled from England with the young prince of Wales, her son, afterwards Edward III., to free herself from the persecutions of the Spencers, and the other favourites of her husband, Edward II.
Charles le Bel, king of France, brother to this queen, was forced to order her to quit his kingdom, after he had afforded her an asylum for some time. The court of the count de Hainault, of whom we are speaking, was the only resource for the mother and son: not only was this open to them, but they found there powerful succours to carry with them to England, and to draw down vengeance on their enemies. The young prince had there met a virtuous and amiable princess (she was one of the daughters of the count), who felt for him those first sentiments of a natural inclination which seem to foretell the most durable attachments: he conceived a strong affection for her, made her his bride, and afterwards she was placed with him on the throne of England. It is the same to whom Froissart presented his History.
Froissart wrote then after an author who was himself personally acquainted with all these facts, and from the persons the best informed; for it was their own history. The writer, who appears to have been brought up at the court of the count de Hainault, was living in the greatest familiarity with those, to whom all the circumstances of this court, which were then recent, would be in their recollection, and perfectly well known to them; and he wrote the history of it for queen Philippa, of Hainault, who had acted so principal a part in it: never was there an historian who had more undeniable witnesses of the facts he relates. Never was there one in whom greater confidence could be placed, than in Froissart in this part of his history. You will, however, recollect the faults which M. Lancelot has corrected in several articles which concern the history of England at this period. His criticism is founded on the original acts which he has had in his hands, and whose authority is unquestionable. I urge this example, because it seems to me more proper than any other, to make a truth, important to our history, more strongly felt, and which has been so much recommended by authors the most versed in this study: I mean, the absolute necessity of accompanying the study of history with the comparing it with the original acts of those times. Some of them enlighten parts which are wanting, while others add to the testimonies of history a degree of authenticity of which they are but in too much need; and it is from this comparison that the certitude of these truths results as much as their nature is susceptible with regard to us. I shall reserve for another opportunity to speak of those forty and some years following, which Froissart wrote as a contemporary historian, and as an eye-witness, I may say, of everything which was then passing in the world. But I shall first examine the different judgments which have been passed on this historian, and particularly the almost universal reproach which has been made to him, of being a violent partisan of the English, and a declared enemy to the French. I shall speak of his partiality in other respects, his credulity in certain articles, his exactness in others, and his mode of writing: I will then enumerate the detail of the editions which we have of his history; I will discuss the merits and faults of each of them; I shall more especially examine whether that of Sauvage has more corrupted and falsified the text, than it has enlightened it.
In short, I shall give a summary account of upwards of forty volumes, in folio, of manuscripts of this history, which I have collated with great attention.
* No two manuscripts of the first volume have been found exactly agreeing.
† There exists at Valenciennes a very curious MS., recently made public by M. Buchon in his excellent edition of Froissart, which there is reason to believe was the original of the book presented to queen Philippa. In its general tenor it seems to be only the groundwork of the more expanded narrative of subsequent MSS., but some more minute details respecting the country of Hainault of no general interest, and a variation in the account of Edward’s investiture with the office of Legate to the Empire, an affair which he afterwards wished to suppress, make it very probable that the Valenciennes MS. was the original expansion of that of John le Bel, which was afterwards remodelled at the English court. — ED.
‡ The chapters of Froissart are very difficult to settle. We have retained Mr. Johnes’s division into chapters, but not his notation, which he suited to his quarto or octavo volumes, without paying any attention to the original division into four volumes. We have restored the original division into books, or volumes, without which the reader is confused; since, as has been shown by M. de St. Palaye, each was written and made public by the author as a separate history. There cannot be a stronger proof of this, and of Froissart’s strong desire to relate the real truth without bias, than the fact, that the first book or volume, which was chiefly founded on the work of John le Bel, is that in which the greatest variations of copies is found; in fact, no two MSS. of that book wholly agree. Froissart corrected it from time to time, and seemed never tired of emendation; the greater part of the original being hearsay, he was not satisfied until he had himself examined the best witnesses; and hence the various divisions and variations in the first book, which have embarrassed every editor. — ED.
§ This is a very beautiful sentiment of St. Palaye’s, and no less beautiful than true. But the earnest desire Froissart showed to acquaint himself with both sides of every question, searching out truth with greater diligence than has ever before or since been shown by any historian, attaches great weight to information given on his own authority; and wherever he is convicted of misstatements, it is upon the faith of another, who he honestly quotes. — ED.
¶ Page 68, Vol. II. of the division of this edition.
¥ See note, p. xxx.
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