14 



FROISSART 



FROMENTIN 



the frontiers of Hungary. It is celebrated for its 

 splendid castle, which acquired a kind of political 

 importance from having from 1844 till 1883 been 

 the rendezvous of the elder Bourbon party and 

 the residence of the Comte de Chambord (q.v.). 



Froissart. JEAN, was born at Valenciennes 

 about 1337. His father was a painter of armorial 

 bearings. He was educated for the church, but 

 spent his youth in gaiety and dissipation, being, 

 by his own confession, a dear lover of dances arid 

 carolling, of minstrelsy and tales of glee. ' My 

 ears,' he says, ' quickened at the sound of un- 

 corking the wine-fiask, for I took great pleasure in 

 drinking, and in fair array, and in delicate and 

 fresh cates.' When he was twenty years of age, he 

 began, at the command of his ' dear Lord and 

 Master, the Sieur Robert of Namur, Lord of Beau- 

 fort, ' to write the history of the wars waged during 

 his days in France, England, Scotland, and Spain. 

 The first part of his Chronicle, which deals with the 

 events of the years 1326-56, was principally com- 

 piled from the writings of one Jean le Bel, Canon 

 of Liege. Having completed this section of his 

 work in 1360, Froissart set out on his long travels 

 in quest of adventure and good company, and that 

 brilliant spectacle of martial and courtly pageantry 

 in which all through his life he found unsating 

 delight. The first country which he visited was 

 England, where he received a gracious welcome 

 from Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III. 

 Philippa appointed him her secretary or clerk of 

 her chamber, a post which he held for some years, 

 but which he resigned on account of a hapless 

 passion for a lady of Flanders. In 1364 he travelled 

 through part of Scotland, riding, he informs us, 

 on a grey palfrey with his valise behind him, 

 and having a white greyhound as his only com- 

 panion. His reputation as a poet and historian, 

 his gay and courteous converse, secured him an 

 honourable reception in Scotland as elsewhere. 

 He was the guest of King David Bruce, and was 

 entertained for fifteen days at Dalkeith Castle by 

 William, Earl of Douglas, the exploits of whose 

 house he has frequently celebrated in his Chronicle. 

 In 1366 he journeyed to Aquitaine in the retinue of 

 the Black Prince, who would not, however, allow 

 him to accompany the Spanish expedition, but sent 

 him back to his patroness, Queen Philippa. Two 

 years later we find him in Italy, where he was 

 present, along with Chaucer and Petrarch, at the 

 marriage of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of 

 Edward III., with Jolande of Milan, the daughter 

 of Galeazzo Visconti. For a time he settled at 

 Lestines, in the diocese of Liege, where he obtained 

 a curacy, and where he confesses 500 francs very 

 quickly passed from him to the vintners. ' ft 

 may be conjectured,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'that 

 they were more obliged to his attention than any 

 of his other parishioners.' Before 1384 he had 

 attached himself to Wenceslas, Duke of Brabant, 

 whose verses he collected along with certain pieces 

 of his own, under the title of Meliador, or the 

 Knight of the Golden Sun. On the death of 

 Wenceslas, Froissart repaired to the court of Guy, 

 Count of Blois, who persuaded him to devote 

 himself to his Chronicle. The second volume of 

 the work was finished about 1388, and about the 

 same date its author set out from Blois on a visit 

 to Gaston Phebus, Count de Foix. This journey, 

 of which he has left a very entertaining record, he 

 performed in the company of the good knight 

 Espaing de Lyon, who told him of the deeds of 

 emprise that had lately been done at the various 

 towns and castles by which they passed in the 

 course of their wayfaring. After making a long 

 sojourn at Orthez with the Count de Foix, of whose 

 court he has left us a description which is equally 

 vivid and charming, Froissart, about the year 



1390, settled for a while in Flanders, and resumed 

 work on his Chronicle. In 1395 he again yielded 

 to the old roving impulse. He revisited England, 

 was cordially welcomed by King Richard II., and 

 remained abroad for about three months. He then 

 returned to Chimay, where he had obtained a 

 canonry, and where he ended his days in 1410. 



Froissart's famous book deals with the period 

 between 1326 and 1400. Mainly occupied with the 

 affairs of France, England, Scotland, and Flanders, 

 he likewise supplies much valuable information 

 in regard to Germany, Italy, and Spain, and even 

 touches occasionally on the course of events in 

 Hungary and the Balkan peninsula. Except in the 

 first part of the work, he made little use of the writ- 

 ings of others. An historian-errant, he gathered his 

 materials in courts and on highways, from the lips 

 of the lords and knights, the squires and the heralds 

 whom he encountered. The charm of his book is 

 perennial. He is of all medieval chroniclers the 

 most vivid and entertaining. ' His history,' says 

 Sir Walter Scott (who called the work his liber 

 carissimus}, 'has less the air of a narrative than of 

 a dramatic representation. ' He was a born story- 

 teller ; his pages glow with colour ; his narrative 

 glides easily and gracefully along ; and he is, on 

 the whole, accurate and impartial in his state- 

 ments. ' In certain of his battle-pieces,' says Ville- 

 main, 'Froissart's style is truly Homeric,' and the 

 tribute is justly merited. The main defects in his 

 work are the frequent repetitions and the negli- 

 gent arrangement of the facts. He has been re- 

 proached for not having espoused the cause of the 

 French against the English, as if it were to be 

 expected that a Flemish priest, in his youth the 

 favourite and secretary of Edward III.'s queen, 

 should share the burning patriotism, the intense 

 hatred of England that animated such writers as 

 Alain Chartier and Eustache Deschamps. More 

 plausibly might he be arraigned for indifference 

 to the sufferings of the townsmen and peasants. 

 He is enamoured of the pageants of chivalry, 

 engrossed in the deeds of nobles and knights. FeV 

 historians have been less critical or so uniformly 

 delightful. 



The chronicle was edited by Buchon ( 15 vols. 1824-26 ) 

 and Luce (8 vols. 1869-88) ; translated by John Bourchier, 

 second Lord Berners, 1467-1533 (published 1523-25; ed. 

 by Utterson, 1812, and modernised by G. J. Macaulay ; 

 new trans, by Colonel Johnes, 1803-5). Buchon edited 

 Froissart's ballades, rondeaux, virelais, &c., which intro- 

 duced a Provengal element into northern French litera- 

 ture, in 1829 : Miliador was discovered in 1894. See 

 monographs by Kervyn de Lettenhove (Paris, 1858), 

 Weber (German, 1871), and Mme. Darmesteter (Paris, 

 1894 ; trans. 1895). 



Frome, or FROME SELWOOD, a market-town of 

 Somersetshire, on the Frome, a branch of the Avon, 

 12 miles S. of Bath (19 by rail). The surrounding 

 country is very picturesque, and the town, until 

 modernised early in the 19th century by the forma- 

 tion of two wide thoroughfares, was a quaint old 

 place, with narrow, crooked, steep streets. Its 

 parish church is a fine Decorated building splendidly 

 restored by the late Rev. W T . Bennett (q.v.), with a 

 spire 120 feet high, stations of the cross, and the 

 grave of Bishop Ken. Frome's specialties are 

 broadcloths and other fine woollens, and it also 

 produces cards for dressing cloth, ale, silk, &c. 

 Pop. (1881) 9376; (1891) 9613. Till 1885 Frome 

 returned one member to parliament. The once 

 celebrated forest of Selwood was in the vicinity. 



Fromcil till. EUGENE, painter and author, was 

 born at La Rochelle in 1820. He studied under 

 Cabat the landscape-painter ; and from 1842 to 

 1846 travelled in the East, which is the scene of 

 almost all his works. His pictures are admirably 

 true in their local colouring, and reproduce with 



