482 CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



French in Italy during the reign of Louis XII. were recorded by Jean 

 d'Auton, 'who, in his character of chronicler of France, compiled a very 

 complete Chronicle, the style of which, however, was pedantic and involved. 

 This deplorable style was brought into fashion by the historians of the court 

 of Burgundy, and especially by Canon Jean Molinet, the historiographer of 

 Margaret of Austria, who governed the Low Countries (Fig. 305). Fran9ois I., 

 Henri II., and their successors, down to Henri IV., also had their chroniclers 

 and historiographers, who received their salaries without ever publishing the 

 result of their labours. One of these historiographers, Pierre Paschal, had 

 made a great stir about a History of France, which, year after year, ho was 

 upon the point of publishing, yet when be died in 1565 there were not more 

 than twenty pages of it found among his papers. 



History, as it extended its domain, gradually increased in variety of tone 

 and style. Upon the one hand the lives of warriors and statesmen were 

 related by the heralds, the esquires, and the secretaries, who lived in their 

 houses and had witnessed the events which they described ; while upon the 

 other hand these warriors, statesmen, and courtiers themselves wrote or 

 dictated to their secretaries and servants the memoirs of their time. These 

 private Chronicles and Memoirs, so- varied and so interesting, some of which 

 are anonymous, show that their various authors were animated by the desire 

 of outdoing one another by a description of the stirring events in which they 

 had participated. The ancient Chronicle of the Constable Bertrand Duguesclin 

 was doubtless compiled by one of his companions in arms, and the " Chronique 

 de la Pucelle " must have been written by a clerk attached to the religious 

 service of Joan of Arc, and who had followed her from her entiy into Orleans, 

 when besieged by the English, to the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. 

 Guillaume Gruel, who wrote the History of Arthur III., Comte de Richemont, 

 Duke of Brittany, was chronicler to the latter prince ; Jean d'Oronville, who 

 wrote the life and heroic deeds of Louis II., Due de Bourbon, great-grandson 

 of St. Louis, was secretary to a prince of the house of Bourbon under 

 Charles VII. ; but we do not know who was the author of the History of 

 Jean le Maingre, surnamed Boucicaut, Marshal of France ; and it has only 

 recently been discovered that Jean Lefevre de St. Remy, King-at-arms of the 

 Golden Fleece, composed the Chronicle of the good Chevalier Jean de Lalaing, 

 which had always been attributed to Georges Chastelain. We have never 

 known the name of the " Loyal Servitor " who was secretary to the Chevalier 



