ready to applaud. Every era has its cherished virtues, and when the
order changes, the wise do well to change with it as speedily as they
can. Once there was a jolly old playwright named Cratinus, who died of
a broken heart on seeing some Lacedæmonian soldiers fracture a cask
of wine, and let it run to waste. He is mentioned kindly by ancient
writers, but Peacock is the last man to fling him a word of sympathy.
Once there was a time when Chaucer received from England’s king the
grant of a pitcher of wine daily in the port of London. What poet or
public servant now has, or hopes to have, such mark of royal favor?
Once Charles I. gave to Ben Jonson, as poet laureate, one hundred
pounds a year, and a tierce of Spanish Canary. No such generous drink
comes now from Queen Victoria to lend sparkle and vivacity to Mr.
Austin’s verse. Once Dr. Johnson, “the real primate, the soul’s
teacher of all England,” says Carlyle, declared roundly and without
shocking anybody, “Brandy, sir, is the drink for heroes.” It is not
thus that primates and teachers of any land now hearten their wavering
disciples. Once the generous publishers of “Marmion” sent Scott a
hogshead of fine claret to mark their appreciation of his verse. It
is not in this graceful fashion that authors now receive their tokens
of good will. The jovial past is dead, quite dead, we keep repeating
sternly; yet its merry ghost smiles at us broadly, in no way abashed
by our frowns and disapprobation. A friendly ghost it is, haunting
the secret chambers of our hearts with laughter instead of groans,
and echoes of old songs in place of clanking chains,--a companionable
ghost, with brave tales to tell, and jests to ease our pain, a word of
wisdom when we have wit to listen, a word of comfort when we have time
to heed.
“Troll the bowl, the nut-brown bowl,
And here, kind mate, to thee!
Let’s sing a dirge for Saint Hugh’s soul.
And drown it merrily.”
OLD WINE AND NEW.
Readers of “Old Mortality” will perhaps remember that when Graham of
Claverhouse escorts Henry Morton as a prisoner to Edinburgh, he asks
that estimable and unfortunate young non-conformist if he has ever read
Froissart. Morton, who was probably the last man in Scotland to derive
any gratification from the Chronicles, answers that he has not. “I have
half a mind to contrive you should have six months’ imprisonment,” says
the undaunted Claverhouse, “in order to procure you that pleasure.
His chapters inspire me with more enthusiasm than even poetry itself.
And the noble canon, with what true chivalrous feeling he confines
his beautiful expressions of sorrow to the death of the gallant and
high-bred knight, of whom it was a pity to see the fall, such was his
loyalty to his king, pure faith to his religion, hardihood towards
his enemy, and fidelity to his lady-love! Ah, benedicite! how he will
mourn over the fall of such a pearl of knighthood, be it on the side
he happens to favor or on the other! But truly, for sweeping from the
face of the earth some few hundreds of villain churls, who are born but
to plough it, the high-born and inquisitive historian has marvelous
little sympathy.”
I should like, out of my affection for the Chronicles, to feel that
Sir Walter overstated the case when he put these cheerful words into
the mouth of Dundee; but it is vain to deny that Froissart, living in
a darkened age, was as indifferent to the fate of the rank and file
as if he had been a great nineteenth-century general. To be sure,
the rank and file were then counted by the hundreds rather than by
the thousands, and it took years of continuous warfare to kill as
many soldiers as perished in one of our modern battles. Moreover, the
illuminating truth that Jack is as good as his master--by help of
which we all live now in such striking brotherhood and amity--had not
then dawned upon a proud and prejudiced world. Fighting was the grand
business of life, and that Jack did not fight as well as his master
was a fact equally apparent to those who made history and to those
who wrote it. If the English archers, the French men-at-arms, and the
Breton lances could be trusted to stand the shock of battle, the “lusty
varlets,” who formed the bulk of every army, were sure to run away;
and the “commonalty” were always ready to open their gates and deliver
up their towns to every fresh new-comer. When Philip of Navarre was
entreated to visit Paris, then in a state of tumult and rebellion, and
was assured that the merchants and the mob held him in equal affection,
he resolutely declined their importunities, concluding that to put his
faith in princes was, on the whole, less dangerous than to confide it
in the people. “In commonalities,” observed this astute veteran, “there
is neither dependence nor union, save in the destruction of all things
good.” “What can a base-born man know of honor?” asks Froissart coldly.
“His sole wish is to enrich himself. He is like the otter, which,
entering a pond, devours all the fish therein.”
Now, if history, as Professor Seeley teaches us, should begin with a
maxim and end with a moral, here are maxims and morals in abundance,
albeit they may have lost their flavor for an altruistic age. For no
one of the sister Muses has lent herself so unreservedly to the demands
of an exacting generation as Clio, who, shorn of her splendor, sits
spectacled before a dusty table strewn with Acts of Parliament and
Acts of Congress, and forgets the glories of the past in the absorbing
study of constitutions. She traces painfully the successive steps by
which the sovereign power has passed from the king to the nobles,
from the nobles to the nation, and from the nation to the mob, and
asks herself interesting but fruitless questions as to what is coming
next. She has been divorced from literature,--“mere literature,” as
Professor Seeley contemptuously phrases it,--and wedded to science,
that grim but amorous lord whose harem is tolerably full already, but
who lusts perpetually for another bride. If, like Briseis, she looks
backward wistfully, she is at once reminded that it is no part of her
present duty to furnish recreation to grateful and happy readers,
but that her business lies in drawing conclusions from facts already
established, and providing a saddened world with wise speculations
on political science, based upon historic certainties. Her safest
lessons, Professor Seeley tells her warningly, are conveyed in “Blue
Books and other statistics,” with which, indeed, no living man can
hope to recreate himself; and her essential outgrowths are “political
philosophy, the comparative study of legal institutions, political
economy, and international law,” a witches’ brew with which few living
men would care to meddle. It is even part of his severe discipline to
strip her of the fair words and glittering sentences with which her
suitors have sought for centuries to enhance her charms, and “for the
beauty of drapery to substitute the beauty of the nude figure.” Poor
shivering Muse, with whom Shakespeare once dallied, and of whom great
Homer sang! Never again shall she be permitted to inspire the genius
that enthralls the world. Never again shall “mere literature” carry
her name and fame into the remotest corners of the globe. She who once
told us in sonorous sentences “how great projects were executed, great
advantages gained, and great calamities averted,” is now sent into
studious retirement, denied the adornments of style, forbidden the
companionship of heroes, and requested to occupy herself industriously
with Blue Books and the growth of constitutions. I know nothing more
significant than Professor Seeley’s warning to modern historians not
to resemble Tacitus,--of which there seems but little danger,--unless,
indeed, it be the complacency with which a patriotic and very popular
American critic congratulates himself and us on the felicity of having
plenty of young poets of our own, who do not in the least resemble
Wordsworth, or Shelley, or Keats.
Yet when we take from history all that gives it color, vivacity, and
charm, we lose perchance more than our mere enjoyment,--though that be
a heavy forfeiture,--more than the pleasant hours spent in the storied
past. Even so stern a master as Mr. Lecky is fain to admit that these
obsolete narratives, which once called themselves histories, “gave
insight into human character, breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and
stimulated noble actions, and kindled high patriotic feeling by their
strong appeals to the imagination.” This was no unfruitful labor, and
until we remember that man does not live by parliamentary rule nor by
accuracy of information, but by the power of his own emotions and the
strength of his own self-control, we can be readily mistaken as to the
true value of his lessons. “A nation with whom sentiment is nothing,”
observes Mr. Froude, “is on its way to become no nation at all;” and it
has been well said that Nelson’s signal to his fleet at Trafalgar, that
last pregnant and simple message sent in the face of death, has had as
much practical effect upon the hearts and the actions of Englishmen
in every quarter of the globe, in every circumstance of danger and
adventure, as seven eighths of the Acts of Parliament that decorate the
statute-book. Yet Dr. Bright, in a volume of more than fourteen hundred
pages, can find no room for an incident which has become a living force
in history. He takes pains to omit, in his lukewarm account of the
battle, the one thing that was best worth the telling.
It has become a matter of such pride with a certain school of modern
historians to be gray and neutral, accurate in petty details,
indifferent to great men, cautious in praise or blame, and as lifeless
as mathematicians, that a gleam of color or a flash of fire is apt to
be regarded with suspicion. Yet color is not necessarily misleading;
and that keen, warm grasp of a subject which gives us atmosphere
as well as facts, interest as well as information, comes nearer to
the veiled truth than a catalogue of correct dates and chillingly
narrated incidents. It is easy for Mr. Gardiner to denounce Clarendon’s
“well-known carelessness about details whenever he has a good story to
tell;” but what has the later historian ever said to us that will dwell
in our hearts, and keep alive our infatuations and our antipathies, as
do some of these condemned tales? Nay, even Mr. Gardiner’s superhuman
coldness in narrating such an event as the tragic death of Montrose
has not saved him from at least one inaccuracy. “Montrose, in his
scarlet cassock, was hanged at the Grassmarket,” he says, with frigid
terseness. But Montrose, as it chances, was hanged at the city cross
in the High Street, midway between the Tolbooth and the Tron Church.
Even the careless and highly colored Clarendon knew this, though Sir
Walter Scott, it must be admitted, did not; but, after all, the exact
point in Edinburgh where Montrose was hanged is of no vital importance
to anybody. What is important is that we should feel the conflicting
passions of that stormy time, that we should regard them with equal
sanity and sympathy, and that the death of Montrose should have for
us more significance than it appears to have for Mr. Gardiner. Better
Froissart’s courtly lamentations over the death of every gallant knight
than this studied indifference to the sombre stories which history has
inscribed for us on her scroll.
For the old French chronicler would have agreed cordially with Landor:
“We might as well, in a drama, place the actors behind the scenes, and
listen to the dialogue there, as, in a history, push back valiant men.”
Froissart is enamored of valor wherever he finds it; and he shares
Carlyle’s reverence not only for events, but for the controlling forces
which have moulded them. “The history of mankind,” says Carlyle, about
whose opinions there is seldom any room for doubt, “is the history of
its great men;” and Froissart, whose knowledge is of that narrow and
intimate kind which comes from personal association, finds everything
worth narrating that can serve to illustrate the brilliant pageant of
life. Nor are his methods altogether unlike Carlyle’s. He is a sturdy
hero-worshiper, who yet never spares his heroes, believing that when
all is set down truthfully and without excuses, those strong and vivid
qualities which make a man a leader among men will of themselves claim
our homage and admiration. What Cromwell is to Carlyle, what William of
Orange is to Macaulay, what Henry VIII. is to Froude, Gaston Phœbus,
Count de Foix, is to Froissart. But not for one moment does he assume
the tactics of either Macaulay or of Froude, coloring with careful
art that which is dubious, and softening or concealing that which
is irredeemably bad. Just as Carlyle paints for us Cromwell,--warts
and all,--telling us in plain words his least amiable and estimable
traits, and intimating that he loves him none the less for these most
human qualities, so Froissart tells us unreservedly all that has come
to his knowledge concerning the Count de Foix. Thus it appears that
this paragon of knighthood virtually banished his wife, kept his
cousin, the Viscount de Châteaubon, a close captive until he paid
forty thousand francs ransom, imprisoned his only son on a baseless
suspicion of treason, and actually slew the poor boy by his violence,
though without intention, and to his own infinite sorrow and remorse.
Worse than all this, he beguiled with friendly messages his cousin, Sir
Peter Arnaut de Béarn, the commander and governor of Lourdes, to come
to his castle of Orthès, and then, under his own roof-tree, stabbed
his guest five times, and left him to die miserably of his wounds in a
dungeon, because Sir Peter refused to betray the trust confided to him,
and deliver up to France the strong fortress of Lourdes, which he held
valiantly for the king of England.
Now, Froissart speaks his mind very plainly concerning this base deed,
softening no detail, and offering no word of extenuation or acquittal;
but none the less the Count de Foix is to him the embodiment of
knightly courtesy and valor, and he describes with ardor every personal
characteristic, every trait, and every charm that wins both love and
reverence. “Although I have seen many kings and princes, knights and
others,” he writes, “I have never beheld any so handsome, whether in
limbs and shape or in countenance, which was fair and ruddy, with gray,
amorous eyes that gave delight whenever he chose to express affection.
He was so perfectly formed that no one could praise him too much. He
loved earnestly the things he ought to love, and hated those which it
was becoming him to hate. He was a prudent knight, full of enterprise
and wisdom. He had never any men of abandoned character about him,
reigned wisely, and was constant in his devotions. To speak briefly and
to the point, the Count de Foix was perfect in person and in mind; and
no contemporary prince could be compared with him for sense, honor, or
liberality.”
In good truth, this despotic nobleman illustrated admirably the
familiar text, “When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things
which he possesseth are in peace.” If he ruled his vassals severely and
taxed them heavily, he protected them from all outside interference
or injury. None might despoil their homes, nor pass the boundaries of
Béarn and Foix, without paying honestly for all that was required. At
a time when invading armies and the far more terrible “free companies”
pillaged the country, until the fair fields of France lay like a barren
land, the Count de Foix suffered neither English nor French, Gascon nor
Breton, to set foot within his territories, until assurance had been
given that his people should suffer no harm. He lived splendidly, and
gave away large sums of money wherever he had reason to believe that
his interests or his prestige would be strengthened by such generosity;
but no parasite, male or female, shared in his magnificent bounty.
Clear-headed, cold-hearted, vigilant, astute, liberal, and inexorable,
he guarded his own, and sovereigns did him honor. His was no humane nor
tranquil record; yet judging him by the standards of his own time and
place, by the great good as well as by the lesser evil that he wrought,
we are fain to echo Froissart’s rapturous words, “It is a pity such a
one should ever grow old and die.”
The earlier part of the Chronicles is compiled from the “Vrayes
Chroniques” of Jean le Bel, Canon of St. Lambert’s at Liège. Froissart
tells us so plainly, and admits that he made free use of the older
narrative as far as it could serve him; afterwards relying for
information on the personal recollections of knights, squires, and
men-at-arms who had witnessed or had taken part in the invasions, wars,
battles, skirmishes, treaties, tournaments, and feasts which made up
the stirring tale of fourteenth-century life. To gain this knowledge,
he traveled far and wide, attaching himself to one court and one patron
after another, and indefatigably seeking those soldiers of distinction
who had served in many lands, and could tell him the valorous deeds of
which he so ardently loved to hear. In long, leisurely journeys, in
lonely castles and populous cities, in summer days and winter nights,
he gathered and fitted together--loosely enough--the motley fabric of
his tale.
This open-air method of collecting material can hardly be expected to
commend itself to modern historians; and it is surely not necessary
for Mr. Green or any other careful scholar to tell us seriously that
Froissart is inaccurate. Of course he is inaccurate. How could history
passed, ballad fashion, from man to man be anything but inaccurate? And
how could it fail to possess that atmosphere and color which students
are bidden to avoid,--lest perchance they resemble Tacitus,--but which
lovers of “mere literature” hail rapturously, and which give to the
printed page the breath of the living past? Froissart makes a sad
jumble of his names, which, indeed, in that easy-going age, were spelt
according to the taste and discretion of the writer; he embellishes
his narrative with charming descriptions of incidents which perhaps
never went through the formality of occurring; and he is good enough to
forbear annoying us with dates. “About this time King Philip of France
quitted Paris in company with the King of Bohemia;” or, “The feast of
St. John the Baptist now approaching, the lords of England and Germany
made preparations for their intended expedition.” This is as near as
we ever get to the precise period in which anything happened or did
not happen, as the case may be; but to the unexacting reader names
and dates are not matters of lively interest, and even the accuracy
of a picturesque incident is of no paramount importance. If it were
generally believed to have taken place, it illustrates the customs
and sentiments of the age as well as if it were authentic; and the one
great advantage of the old over the new historian is that he feels the
passions and prejudices of his own time, and reflects them without
either condemnation or apology. The nineteenth-century mind working on
fourteenth-century material is chilly in its analysis, and Draconian in
its judgment. It can and does enlighten us on many significant points,
but it is powerless to breathe into its pages that warm and vivid life
which lies so far beyond our utmost powers of sympathy or comprehension.
Now, there are many excellent and very intelligent people to whom the
fourteenth century or any other departed century is without intrinsic
interest. Mr. John Morley has emphatically recorded his sentiments on
the subject. “I do not in the least want to know what happened in the
past,” he says, “except as it enables me to see my way more clearly
through what is happening now.” Here is the utilitarian view concisely
and comprehensively stated; and it would be difficult to say how
Froissart, any more than Tacitus or Xenophon, can help us efficaciously
to understand the Monroe doctrine or the troubles in the Transvaal.
Perhaps these authors yield their finest pleasures to another and
less meritorious class of readers, who are well content to forget the
vexations and humiliations of the present in the serener study of the
mighty past. The best thing about our neighbor’s trouble, says the old
adage, is that it does not keep us awake at night; and the best thing
about the endless troubles of other generations is that they do not in
any way impair our peace of mind. It may be that they did not greatly
vex the sturdier race who, five hundred years ago, gave themselves
scant leisure for reflection. Certain it is that events which should
have been considered calamitous are narrated by Froissart in such a
cheerful fashion that it is difficult for us to preserve our mental
balance, and not share in his unreasonable elation. “Now is the time
come when we must speak of lances, swords, and coats of mail,” he
writes with joyous zest. And again he blithely describes the battle of
Auray: “The French marched in such close order that one could not have
thrown a tennis-ball among them but it must have stuck upon the point
of a stiffly carried lance. The English took great pleasure in looking
at them.” Of course the English did, and they took great pleasure in
fighting with them half an hour later, and great pleasure in routing
them before the day was past; for in this bloody contest fell Charles
of Blois, the bravest soldier of his time, and the fate of Brittany was
sealed. Invitations to battle were then politely given and cordially
accepted, like invitations to a ball. The Earl of Salisbury, before
Brest, sends word to Sir Bertrand du Guesclin: “We beg and entreat of
you to advance, when you shall be fought with, without fail.” And the
French, in return, “could never form a wish for feats of arms but there
were some English ready to gratify it.”
This cheerful, accommodating spirit, this alacrity in playing the
dangerous game of war, is difficult for us peace-loving creatures to
understand; but we should remember the “desperate and gleeful fighting”
of Nelson’s day, and how that great sailor wasted his sympathy on the
crew of the warship Culloden, which went ashore at the battle of the
Nile, “while their more fortunate companions were in the full tide of
happiness.” Du Guesclin or Sir John Chandos might have written that
sentence, had either been much in the habit of writing anything,[1]
and Froissart would have subscribed cordially to the sentiment. “Many
persons will not readily believe what I am about to tell,” he says
with becoming gravity, “though it is strictly true. The English are
fonder of war than of peace.” “He had the courage of an Englishman,”
is the praise continually bestowed on some enterprising French knight;
and when the English and Scotch met each other in battle, the French
historian declares, “there was no check to their valor as long as
their weapons endured.” Nothing can be more vivacious than Froissart’s
description of the manner in which England awaited the threatened
invasion of the French under their young king, Charles VI.--“The
prelates, abbots, and rich citizens were panic-struck, but the artisans
and poorer sort held it very cheap. Such knights and squires as were
not rich, but eager for renown, were delighted, and said to each other:
‘Lord! what fine times are coming, since the king of France intends
to visit us! He is a valiant sovereign, and of great enterprise. There
has not been such a one in France these three hundred years. He will
make his people good men-at-arms, and blessed may he be for thinking to
invade us, for certainly we shall all be slain or grow rich. One thing
or the other must happen to us.’”
[1] Du Guesclin never knew how to write.
Alas, for their disappointment, when adverse winds and endless
altercations kept the invaders safe at home! There was a great deal of
solid enjoyment lost on both sides, though wealthy citizens counted
their gains in peace. War was not only a recognized business, but a
recognized pleasure as well, and noble knights relieved their heavy
fighting with the gentler diversions of the tournament and the chase.
When Edward III. entered France for the last time, he carried with him
thirty falconers laden with hawks, sixty couples of strong hounds, and
as many greyhounds, “so that every day he had good sport, either by
land or water. Many lords had their hawks and hounds as well as the
king.”