CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



Due d'Anjou, did not confine himself to the composition of sumptuous volumes 

 of history, bien rsrrijif* ct /n'yforit'-s, with rich bindings, for he had in his 

 household several translators amongst others, Jean de Vignay and Laurent 

 du Premier- Fait to whom he gave orders what Latin or Italian works he 

 wished to have translated into French ; but he had no chronicler holding an 

 official title, and he allowed the monks of St. Denis to continue their task of 

 writing in Latin the history of his reign a history which has not, unfor- 

 tunately, been preserved. It is nevertheless from this reign that dates the 

 personal history of each King of France, written in French by the chroniclers 

 of the King's household. Christina de Pisan, who was at once a poetess, a 

 philosopher, and an historian (Figs. 371 and 372), was the daughter of Thomas 

 de Pisan, astrologer to Charles V., and she was therefore enabled, owing to 

 her personal position at court, to collect all the particulars for the " Livre des 

 Faits et Bonnes Moeurs du Roi Charles V.," which she did not terminate 

 until 1404. At this period the poet Eustache Deschamps was royal chronicler, 

 and he was engaged in writing a History of the reign of Charles VI., which, 

 interrupted probably by the wars of that time, never appeared, though some 

 traces of it may, perhaps, be found in the curious History published under the 

 name of " Jouvenel des Ursins." The author of this latter work was not an 

 official chronicler, for he held the dignity of Archbishop of Rheims, and he 

 was concerned in many of the stirring events which he describes. After him 

 we have, as mentioned above, a true French chronicler in Jean Chartier, 

 though his description of the reign of Charles VII. and of the doings of Joan 

 d'Arc has not the fire which it might have possessed. 



During each reign the official chronicler of France prepared the materials 

 for a history of the sovereign, but this history was not necessarily written, 

 much less published. Thus Louis XI. appears to have systematically hindered 

 his chronicler from completing the events of his reign, and that which 

 appeared towards the end of the fifteenth century with the inappropriate 

 title of " Chronique Scandaleuse du Roy Louis XL," and under the name of 

 Jean de Troyes, was merely the outline of the work compiled by Pierre 

 Desrey, of Troyes, chronicler of France under Louis XL, and the only reason 

 for entitling this Chronicle scandalous was that it was published without the 

 royal assent. After Pierre Desrey, Andre de la Vigne wrote, partly in prose 

 and partly in verse, the "Vergier d'Honneur," with reference to the bold 

 expedition of Charles VIII. for the conquest of Naples. The wars of the 



