CANNON AT CEESSY. 
159 
suspicion since Gibbon said :—“ the authority of John Villani must be 
weighed against the silence of Froissart."* *^ Was Froissart silent? 
Froissart tells us that his “ Chronicles " (from 1326 to 1356) are 
founded upon the “ Chronicles of Messire Jehan le Bel," Canon of 
St. Lambert's, Liege, supplemented by all the oral evidence he could 
collect from eye witnesses of the events he records. About 1838-9 a 
French antiquary. Dr. Rigollot, discovered many and serious dis¬ 
crepancies between the MSS. from which Froissart's Chronicles 
have been printed and a very fine MS. in the Library of Amiens, 
which had never been published. The Amiens' MS adheres much 
more closely to le Bel than the others, and it is much fuller. 
On this discovery being made, the question at once arose:—Is the 
Amiens MS. a late MS., in which interpolations were made; or is it 
an early MS., passages of which were suppressed in later MSS ? 
Long and patient study led Dr. Rigollot to the conclusion, first, 
that the Amiens MS. (which he transcribed with his own hand) is the 
earliest and best we possess; and secondly, that although written long 
after Froissart's second visit to England in 1361, it was written before 
the period (about 1390) when English influences gained the ascendant 
in his mind.f Shortly afterwards another savant , M. de Cayrol, in¬ 
vestigated the matter, and he came to the same conclusion :—“ (le MS. 
d'Amiens) est celui qui offre le texte le plus authcntique du premier 
livre des Chroniques de Froissart." J Many years afterwards a Belgian 
man of letters, M. Polain, studied the question, and he too came to 
precisely the same conclusion :—“ (le MS. d'Amiens est) " a mon 
avis l'un des plus precieux que l'on ait de Froissart. C'st incontest- 
balement la plus ancienne reduction connue de cet ecrivain." § 
As to the discrepancies, they all three agree in the opinion (which 
few who give any attention to the matter will dispute) that after 
yielding to English influences, Froissart re-edited his Chronicles, sup¬ 
pressing everything that might offend the English Court and, in some 
cases, even altering the narrative.|| M. Kervyn de Lettenhove en¬ 
dorses generally the opinions of his three precursors, and strengthens 
and illustrates their arguments with great ability and immense 
learning in his edition of Froissart's works, Brussels, 1870. The Val¬ 
enciennes MS., which he dates at 1376, “ n'est guerre que l'ebauche 
de la premiere reduction;"** the Amiens MS., which he dates at 
1377-9, is “ le texte qui forme reellement la premiere reduction."ft 
We are perfectly justified, then, in accepting the conclusion that the 
historical value of the Amiens MS. is much greater than that of the 
-fa —-- 
* Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire ” ; VIII., 75. 
t “ Mem. sur le MS. de Froissart de la Bibliothfeque de la ville d’Amiens, 
the “ Mem. de la Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie,” 1840; III, 133 ff 
' t “ Lettre addresse a M. Kigollot sur le MS. des Chroniques de Froissart ; ” 
The battle of Cressy is described in the 1st Book of the Chronicles. 
o § Preface to Polain’s edition of Jehan le Bel, XXII. 
If Ibid. II, 85, note. 
**J‘ CEuvresjle Froissart,” vol. I, part 2/p. 34. 
ft Ibid. p. 35. 
” published in 
ibid., p. 185 ff. 
