476 CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



the chevaliers, and tournaments, as well as sieges, feats of arms, and battles. 

 His narrative is interlarded with amusing anecdotes and witty dialogue, and 

 his immense Chronicle, of which there are several different texts, extends 

 without a break from 1326 to 1400. He was a very laborious and honest 

 writer, remarkable for his impartiality ; and Michel de Montaigne speaks of 

 him as "the worthy Froissart, who has always been frank and artless, who, if 

 he makes a mistake, never hesitates to acknowledge and correct it as soon as 

 it is pointed out to him, and who gives the various rumours which were 

 current, and the different accounts ho has heard. It is the raw material for 

 history, and every one can profit by it according to his understanding." 



Like Froissart, Enguerraiid de Monstrelet and Georges Chastelain, who 

 were simultaneously engaged in continuing his Chronicles by adding thereto 

 the- history of their time, both belonged to Flanders and to the court of the 

 Duke of Burgundy, where historians were encouraged as well as poets and 

 artists. Monstrelet (Fig. 369), born in 1390, may, perhaps, have known 

 Froissart, who died subsequently to 1410, and he may even have received his 

 advice when he began to write Chronicles. He was not a poet, but a juris- 

 consult and archivist, and he held the posts of Provost of Cambray and 

 Bailiff of Walincourt. He drew up a Chronicle which began where that of 

 Froissart left off, and he interpolated into it a great number of original pieces 

 to make up for what might be wanting in the way of talent in his own 

 work. Georges Chastelain, while alive, had a much greater reputation than 

 Monstrelet ; but his Chronicle, which has only recently been printed, and an 

 important part of which has not as yet been found, was almost unknown, as 

 he had written it exclusively for Philippe le Bon, whose secretary and official 

 chronicler he became after having undertaken several diplomatic missions in 

 France and England. This long Chronicle extended from 1419 to 1474, and 

 is mainly remarkable for the clear and impartial judgment, the discernment, 

 and the elevated style of the writer. 



The number of historical works written in French multiplied so rapidly 

 in the course of the fourteenth century that the Royal Library of the Louvre, 

 the inventory of which was taken by the keepers of the library at the death 

 of Charles V., contained more than two hundred manuscript volumes in folio 

 and in quarto, historical works, most of them magnificently bound in wooden 

 boards covered with silk and with silver clasps. Amongst these works were 

 several French translations of Livy, Julius Caesar, Valerius Maximus, Lucan, 



\ 



