CAPACITY FOR SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS 107 



same as that which is adopted to-day in the discussion of 

 the same questions which are so ably treated in this long- 

 forgotten book 1 and show that Christine de Pisan was in 

 every way a worthy champion of her sex. 



No woman of her time was more competent to discuss 

 the capacity of her sex for science as well as for other 

 intellectual pursuits than was this learned daughter of 

 Italy. She was not only a woman of profound and varied 

 knowledge, but was also, as stated in the preceding chap- 

 ter, the first woman to earn her living by her pen. Be- 

 sides writing The City of Ladies and more verses mostly 

 ballads and virelays than are contained in the Divina 

 Commedia, she was also the author of many other works 

 on the most diverse subjects. She is best known to his- 

 torians as the author of Livre des Fais et Bonnes Meurs 

 du sage Roy Charles V, which is a graphic account of the 

 court and policy of this monarch, and of the Livre des 

 Faits d'Armes et de Chevalerie. The latter work is not, 

 as might be imagined from its title, a collection of tales of 

 chivalry, but, incredible as it may seem, a profound and 

 systematic treatise on military tactics and international 

 law. It deals with "many topics of the highest policy, 

 from the manners of a good general and the minutiaB of 

 siege operations to the wager of battle, safe-conducts and 

 letters of marque," and was deemed so important by 

 Henry VII that at his expressed desire it was translated 

 into English and published by Caxton under the title of 

 The Boke of Fayettes of Armes and Chyvalrye. Even so 



1 An edition of this work, based on an old manuscript in La 

 Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, in French, is announced to appear 

 in France at an early date. An interesting account of this precious 

 volume has recently been published by Mile. Mathilde Laigle, Ph. D., 

 under the title of Le Livre de Trois Vertus de Christine de Pisan et 

 son Milieu Historique et Litteraire. It is to be hoped that some 

 enterprising English publisher will soon favor us with a reprint of 

 the quaint old, but none the less valuable, volume, The BoJce of the 

 Cyte of Ladyes. 



