it is but just to restore that which legally belongs to him. According
to the register of the Cordeliers of Cambray, and the Memoriaux of Jean
le Robert, he had written the history of the war of the Ghent-men
against the duke of Burgundy. Now the events of this war, which began in
the month of April 1452, and was not terminated before the end of July
in the following year, are related with much minuteness in the third
volume.[9] After the authorities above quoted, we cannot doubt that
Monstrelet was the author, if not of the whole account, at least of the
greater part of it: I say ‘part of it,’ for he could not have narrated
the end of this war, since peace between the Ghent-men and their prince
was not concluded until the 31st July, and Monstrelet was buried on the
20th. It is not even probable that he would have had time to collect the
events that happened at the beginning of the month, unless we suppose
that he died suddenly; whence I think it may be conjectured, that
Monstrelet ceased to write towards the end of June, when the castle of
Helsebecque was taken by the duke of Burgundy, and that the history of
the war was written by another hand, who may have arranged the materials
which Monstrelet had collected, but had not reduced to order.
‘There seems here to arise a sort of contradiction between Matthieu de
Coucy, who fixes, as I have said, the conclusion of Monstrelet’s writing
at the year 1444, and the register of the Cordeliers, which agrees with
the Memoriaux of Jean le Robert; but this contradiction will vanish, if
we reflect that the history of the revolt of Ghent, in 1453, is an
insulated matter, having no connexion with the history of the reign of
Charles VII. and that it cannot be considered as forming part of the two
first volumes, from which it is detached by a space of eight years.
Matthieu de Coucy, therefore, who may not, perhaps, have known of this
historical fragment, was entitled to say, that the chronicles written by
Monstrelet ended at the year 1444.
‘The continuator of these chronicles having reported the conclusion of
the war between the Ghent-men and their prince, then copies
indiscriminately from the Grandes Chroniques, or from Jean Chartier,
with more or less exactness, as may readily be discovered on collating
them, as I have done. He only adds some facts relative to the history of
Burgundy, and carries the history to the death of Charles VII. This
part, which is more interesting than the former, because the writer has
added to the chronicles facts in which they were deficient, is more
defective in the arrangement. Several events that relate to the general
history of the realm are told twice over, and in succession,—first in an
abridged state, and then more minutely,—and sometimes with differences
so great that it seems impossible that both should have been written by
the same person.[10]
‘This defect, however, we cannot without injustice attribute to the
continuator of Monstrelet,—for it is clearly perceptible that he only
treats of the general history of France in as far as it is connected
with that of Burgundy, and we cannot suppose that he would repeat twice
events foreign to the principal object of his work. It is much more
natural to believe that the abridged accounts are his, and that the
first copiers, thinking they were too short, have added the whole detail
of these articles from the Grandes Chroniques or from Jean Chartier,
whence he had been satisfied with merely making extracts.
‘From the death of Charles VII. in 1461, to that of Philip duke of
Burgundy, we meet with no more of these repetitions. The historian (for
he then deserves the name) leaves off copying the Chronicles, and
advances without a guide: consequently, he is very frequently
bewildered. I shall not attempt to notice his faults, which are the same
with those of Monstrelet, and I could but repeat what I have said
before. There is, however, one which is peculiar to him, and which
pervades the whole work: it is an outrageous partiality for the house of
Burgundy.
‘We may excuse him for having written, under the title of a General
History of France, the particular history of Burgundy, and for having
only treated of that of France incidentally, in as far as it interested
the burgundian princes. We may, indeed, more readily pardon him for
having painted Charles VII. as a voluptuous monarch, and Louis XI.
sometimes as a tyrant, at others as a deep and ferocious politician,
holding in contempt the most sacred engagements. But the fidelity of
history required that he should not have been silent as to the vices of
the duke of Burgundy and his son, who plunged France into an abyss of
calamities, and that his predilection for these two princes should not
burst forth in every page.
‘The person who continued this first part of the chronicles of
Monstrelet has been hitherto unknown, but I believe a lucky accident has
enabled me to discover him. Dom Berthod, a learned benedictine monk of
the congregation of St Vanne, having employed himself for these many
years in searching the libraries and ancient rolls in Flanders for facts
relative to our history, has made a report with extracts from numerous
manuscripts, of which we had only vague ideas. He has had the goodness
to communicate some of them to me, and among others the chronicle of
Jacques du Clercq,[11] which begins at 1448, and ends, like the
continuator of Monstrelet, at the death of the duke of Burgundy in 1467.
In order to give a general idea of the contents of the work, D. Berthod
has copied, with the utmost exactness, the table of chapters composed by
Jacques du Clercq himself, as he tells us in his prologue. I have
compared this table and the extracts with the continuation of
Monstrelet, and have observed such a similarity, particularly from the
year 1453 to 1467, that I think it impossible for any two writers to be
so exactly the same unless one had copied after the other.
‘As we do not possess the whole of this chronicle, I can but offer this
as a very probable conjecture, which will be corroborated, when it is
considered that Jacques du Clercq and the continuator of Monstrelet
lived in the same country. The first resided in Arras; and by the minute
details the second enters into concerning Flanders, we may judge that he
was an inhabitant of that country. Some villages burnt, or events still
less interesting, and unknown beyond the places where they happened, are
introduced into his history. In like manner, we should discover without
difficulty (if it were otherwise unknown), that the editor of the
Grandes Chroniques was a monk of the abbey of St Denis, when he gravely
relates, as an important event, that on such a day the scullion of the
abbey was found dead in his bed,—and that a peasant of Clignancourt beat
his wife until she died.
‘To these divers relations between the two writers, we must add the
period when they wrote. We see by the preface of Jacques du Clercq, that
he composed his history shortly after the death of Philip duke of
Burgundy in 1467; and the continuator of Monstrelet, when speaking of
the arrest of the bastard de Rubempré in Holland, whither he had been
sent by Louis XI. says, that the bastard was a prisoner at the time he
was writing, ‘at the end of February 1468, before Easter;’ that is to
say, that he was at work on his history in the month of February 1469,
according to our mode of beginning the year.
‘Whether this continuation be an abridgment of the chronicle of Jacques
du Clercq or an original chronicle, it seems very clear that Monstrelet
has been tried by the merits of this third volume, and that his
reputation of being a party-writer has been grounded on the false
opinion that he was the author of it.
‘I cannot close this essay without expressing my surprise that no one,
before the publication of the article respecting Monstrelet in the
register of the Cordeliers, had suspected that part, at least, of this
third volume, which has been attributed to him, could not have come from
his hand. Any attentive reader must have been struck with the passage
where the continuator relates the death of Charles duke of Orleans,
when, after recapitulating in a few words the misfortunes which the
murder of his father had caused to France, he refers the reader for more
ample details to the history ‘of Monstrelet:’ as ‘may be seen,’ says he,
‘in the Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet.’
‘I shall not notice the other continuations, which carry the history to
the reign of Francis I.; for this article has been discussed by M. de
Foncemagne, in an essay read before the Academy in 1742;[12] nor the
different editions of Monstrelet. M. le Duchat, in his ‘Remarques sur
divers Sujets de Littérature,’ and the editor of ‘La nouvelle
Bibliothéque des Historiens de France,’ have left nothing more to be
said on the subject.’
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVATIONS
ON THE CHRONICLE OF ENGUERRAND DE MONSTRELET, BY M. DE
FONCEMAGNE, MENTIONED IN THE PRECEDING PAGE, TRANSLATED
FROM THE XVITH VOLUME OF THE ‘MEMOIRES DE L’ACADÉMIE DE
BELLES LETTRES,’ &c.
The Chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, governor of Cambray,
commences at the year 1400, where that of Froissart ends, and terminates
at 1467; but different editors have successively added several
continuations, which bring it down to the year 1516.
The critics have before remarked, that the first of these additions was
nothing more than a chronicle of Louis XI. known under the name of the
‘Chronique Scandaleuse,’ and attributed to John de Troyes, registrar of
the hôtel de ville of Paris. Those who have made this remark should have
added, that the beginning of the two works is different, and that they
only become uniform at the description of the great floods of the Seine
and Marne, which happened in 1460, for the author takes up the history
at that year. This event will be found at the ninth page of the
Chronique Scandaleuse (in the second volume of the Brussels-edition of
Comines), and at the third leaf of the last volume of Monstrelet (second
order of ciphers) edition of 1603.
The second continuation includes the whole of the reign of Charles VIII.
It is written by Pierre Desrey, who styles himself in the title, ‘simple
orateur de Troyes en Champagne.’ The greater part of this addition, more
especially what respects the invasion of Italy, is again to be met with
at the end of the translation of Gaguin’s chronicle made by this same
Desrey,—at the conclusion of ‘La Chronique de Bretagne,’ by Alain
Bouchard,—and in the history of Charles VIII. by M. Godefroi, page 190,
where it is called ‘a relation of the expedition of Charles VIII.’
M. de Foncemagne says nothing more of the other continuations, which he
had not occasion to examine with the same care; but he thinks they may
have been taken from those which Desrey has added to his translation of
Gaguin, as far as the year 1538. This notice may be useful to those who
shall study the history of Louis XI. and of Charles VIII. inasmuch as it
will spare them the trouble and disgust of reading several times the
same things, which they could have no reason to suspect had been copied
from each other.
We should be under great obligations to the authors of rules for
reading, if in pointing out what on each subject ought to be read, they
would, at the same time, inform us what ought not to be read. This
information is particularly necessary in regard to old chronicles, or
what are called in France _Recueils de Pieces_. The greater part of the
chroniclers have copied each other, at least for the years that have
preceded their own writings: in like manner, an infinite number of
detached pieces have been published by different editors. Thus books
multiply, volumes thicken, and the only result to men of letters is an
increase of obstacles in their progress.
The learned Benedictine, who is labouring at the collection of french
historians, has wisely avoided this inconvenience in regard to the
chronicles.[13] A society of learned men announced in 1734 an
alphabetical library, or a general index of ancient pieces scattered in
those compilations known under the names of Spicilegia, Analecta,
Anecdota, by which would be seen at a glance in how many places the same
piece could be found. This project, on its appearance, gave rise to a
literary warfare, the only fruit of which was to cool the zeal of the
illustrious authors who had conceived it, and to prevent the execution
of a work which would have been of infinite utility to the republic of
letters.[14]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
PROLOGUE.
As Sallust says, at the commencement of his Bellum Catalinarium, wherein
he relates many extraordinary deeds of arms done by the Romans and their
adversaries, that every man ought to avoid idleness, and exercise
himself in good works, to the end that he may not resemble beasts, who
are only useful to themselves unless otherwise instructed,—and as there
cannot be any more suitable or worthy occupation than handing down to
posterity the grand and magnanimous feats of arms, and the inestimable
subtleties of war which by valiant men have been performed, as well
those descended from noble families as others of low degree, in the most
Christian kingdom of France, and in many other countries of Christendom
under different laws, for the instruction and information of those who
in a just cause may be desirous of honourably exercising their prowess
in arms; and also to celebrate the glory and renown of those who by
strength of courage and bodily vigour have gallantly distinguished
themselves, as well in sudden rencounters as in pitched battles, armies
against armies, or in single combats, like as valiant men ought to do,
who, reading or hearing these accounts, should attentively consider
them, in order to bring to remembrance the above deeds of arms and other
matters worthy of record, and especially particular acts of prowess that
have happened within the period of this history, as well as the
discords, wars and quarrels that have arisen between princes and great
lords of the kingdom of France, also between those of the adjoining
countries, that have been continued for a long time, specifying the
causes whence these wars have had their origin.
I Enguerrand de Monstrelet, descended from a noble family, and residing,
at the time of composing this present book, in the noble city of
Cambray, a town belonging to the empire of Germany, employed myself in
writing a history in prose, although the matter required a genius
superior to mine, from the great weight of many of the events relative
to the royal majesty of princes, and grand deeds of arms that will enter
into its composition. It requires also great subtlety of knowledge to
describe the causes of many of the events, seeing that several of them
have been very diversely related. I have frequently marvelled within
myself how this could have happened, and whether the diversity of these
accounts of the same event could have any other foundation than in
party-prejudice; and perhaps it may have been the case, that those who
have been engaged in battles or skirmishes have paid so much attention
to conduct themselves with honour that they have been unable to notice
particularly what was passing in other parts of the field of battle.
Nevertheless, as I was from my youth fond of hearing such histories, I
took pains, according to the extent of my understanding until of mature
age, to make every diligent inquiry as to the truth of different events,
and questioned such persons as from their rank and birth would disdain
to relate a falsehood, and others known for their love of truth in the
different and opposing parties, on every point in these chronicles from
the first book to the last; and particularly, I made inquiries from
kings at arms, heralds, poursuivants, and lords resident on their
estates, respecting the wars of France, who, from their offices or
situations, ought to be well informed of facts, and relaters of the
truth concerning them.
On their informations often repeated, and throwing aside every thing I
thought doubtful or false, or not proved by the continuation of their
accounts, and having maturely considered their relations, at the end of
a year I had them fairly written down, and not sooner. I then determined
to pursue my work to a conclusion, without leaning or showing favour to
any party, but simply to give to every one his due share of honour,
according to the best of my abilities; for to do otherwise would be to
detract from the honour and prowess which valiant and prudent men have
acquired at the risk of their lives, whose glory and renown should be
exalted in recompense for their noble deeds.
And inasmuch as this is a difficult undertaking, and cannot be pleasing
to all parties,—some of whom may maintain, that what I have related of
particular events is not the truth,—I therefore entreat and request all
noble persons who may read this book to excuse me, if they find in it
some things that may not be perfectly agreeable to them; for I declare I
have written nothing but what has been asserted to me as fact, and told
to me as such, and, should it not prove so, on those who have been my
informants must the blame be laid. If, on the contrary, they find any
virtuous actions worthy of preservation, and that may with delight be
proposed as proper examples to be followed, let the honour and praise be
bestowed on those who performed them, and not on me, who am simply the
narrator.
This present Chronicle will commence on Easter-day, in the year of Grace
1400, at which time was concluded the last volume of the Chronicles of
sir John Froissart, native of Valenciennes in Hainault, whose renown on
account of his excellent work will be of long duration. The first book
of this work concludes with the death of Charles VI. the most Christian
and most worthy king of France, surnamed ‘the well beloved,’ who
deceased at his hôtel of St Pol at Paris, near the Celestins, the 22d
day of October 1422. But that the causes of these divisions and discords
which arose in that most renowned and excellent kingdom of France may be
known, discords which caused such desolation and misery to that realm as
is pitiful to relate, I shall touch a little at the commencement of my
history on the state, government, manners and conduct of the aforesaid
king Charles during his youth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
FIRST VOLUME
OF THE
CHRONICLES
OF
_ENGUERRAND DE MONSTRELET_.
CHAP. I.
HOW CHARLES THE WELL-BELOVED REIGNED IN FRANCE, AFTER HE HAD
BEEN CROWNED AT RHEIMS, IN THE YEAR THIRTEEN HUNDRED AND
EIGHTY.
In conformity to what I said in my prologue, that I would speak of the
state and government of king Charles VI. of France, surnamed the
well-beloved, in order to explain the causes of the divisions and
quarrels of the princes of the blood royal during his reign and
afterward, I shall devote this first chapter to that purpose.
True it is, that the above-mentioned king Charles the well-beloved, son
to king Charles V. began to reign and was crowned at Rheims the Sunday
before All-saints-day, in the year of Grace one thousand three hundred
and eighty, as is fully described in the Chronicles of sir John
Froissart. He was then but fourteen years old, and thenceforward for
some time governed his kingdom right well. By following prudent advice
at the commencement of his reign, he undertook several expeditions, in
which, considering his youth, he conducted himself soberly and
valiantly, as well in Flanders, where he gained the battle of Rosebeque
and reduced the Flemings to his obedience, as afterward in the valley of
Cassel and on that frontier against the duke of Gueldres. He then made
preparations at Sluys for an invasion of England. All which enterprises
made him redoubted in every part of the world that heard of him.
But Fortune, who frequently turns her wheel against those of high rank
as well as against those of low degree, began to play him her
tricks[15]; for, in the year one thousand three hundred and ninety-two,
the king had resolved in his council to march a powerful army to the
town of Mans, and thence invade Brittany, to subjugate and bring under
his obedience the duke of Brittany, for having received and supported
the lord Peter de Craon, who had beaten and insulted in Paris, to his
great displeasure, sir Oliver de Clisson, his constable.
On this march, a most melancholy adventure befel him, which brought on
his kingdom the utmost distress, and which I shall relate, although it
took place prior to the date of this history.
During the time the king was on his march from Mans toward Brittany,
attended by his princes and chivalry, he was suddenly seized with a
disorder which deprived him of his reason. He wrested a spear from the
hands of one of his attendants, and struck with it the varlet of the
bastard of Langres, and slew him: he then killed the bastard of Langres,
and struck the duke of Orleans, his brother, who, although well armed,
was wounded in the shoulder. He next wounded the lord de Saint Py, and
would have put him to death had not God prevented it; for in making his
thrust, he fell to the ground,—when, by the diligence of the lord de
Coucy and others his faithful servants, the spear was with difficulty
taken from him. Thence he was conducted to the said town of Mans, and
visited by his physicians, who thought his case hopeless: nevertheless,
by the grace of God, he recovered better health, and his senses, but not
so soundly as he possessed them before this accident. From that time he
had frequent relapses,—and it was necessary, during his life,
perpetually to look after him and keep him under strict observance.
From this unfortunate disorder may be dated all the miseries and
desolations that befel his realm; for then begun all those jealousies
between the princes of his blood, each contending for the government of
the kingdom, seeing clearly that he was willing to act in any manner
that those near his person desired, and in the absence of their rivals
craftily advising him to their own private advantage, without attending
to act in concert for the general good of the state. Some, however,
acquitted themselves loyally, for which after their deaths, they were
greatly praised.
This king had several sons and daughters, whose names now follow, that
lived to man’s estate; first, Louis, duke of Acquitaine, who espoused
the eldest daughter of the duke of Burgundy, but died without issue
before the king his father,—John, duke of Touraine, who married the only
daughter of duke William of Bavaria, count of Hainault, who also died
before his father, and without issue,—Charles, married to the daughter
of king Louis II. of Naples, who had issue that will be noticed
hereafter: he succeeded to the crown of France on the death of his
father.
He had five daughters: Isabella, the eldest, was first married to king
Richard II. of England, and afterward to Charles duke of Orleans, by
whom she had a daughter: Jane, married to John duke of Brittany, had
many children: Michelle espoused Philip duke of Burgundy, but had no
issue: Mary was a nun at Poissy: Catherine, married to Henry V. of
England, had a son, Henry, who succeeded, on the death of his father, to
the throne of England. King Charles had all these children by his queen,
Isabella[16], daughter to Stephen duke of Bavaria.
CHAP. II.
AN ESQUIRE OF ARRAGON, NAMED MICHEL D’ORRIS, SENDS
CHALLENGES TO ENGLAND.—THE ANSWER HE RECEIVES FROM A
KNIGHT OF THAT COUNTRY.
At the beginning of this year one thousand four hundred, an esquire of
Arragon, named Michel d’Orris, sent challenges to England of the
following tenor:
‘In the name of God and of the blessed virgin Mary, I Michel d’Orris, to
exalt my name, knowing full well the renown of the prowess of the
english chivalry, have, from the date of this present letter, attached
to my leg a piece of the greve, to be worn by me until I be delivered
from it by an english knight performing the following deeds of arms.