CHRONICLES, ///.S/WvY/.'.S. 



4S 



Paolo Emilio, or Paul us ^Emilias, as he was then called and commissioned 

 him to rewrite in rhetorical style the History of France, which Robert Gaguin 

 had obscured with the jargon of scholasticism. His work, "De Rebus Gestis 

 Francorum," was highly appreciated by the Humanists, but it had not the 

 success of Gaguin's Chronicle, which was reprinted ten times, and translated 

 into French by the indefatigable Pierre Desrey. The booksellers had ordered 

 from the above, and from several other writers, different historical compilations 



Fig. 373. Portrait of Philippe de Commines, after a Red Chalk Drawing preserved io the 



Town Library, AIM-. 



entitled the " Mer des Histoires," the " Rosier Historial," &c. The chroniclers 

 and historiographers of France, who turned out so many bulky volumes that 

 one might imagine they had written with both hands, nearly all composed 

 their universal History of France ; and one of the first efforts in this direction 

 was that made by Nicole Gilles, notary and secretary of the King, who had 

 no little success, for the " Annals and Chronicles " of this old historian, who 

 died in 1503, went through numerous editions until the end of the sixteenth 



