[115]. ‘The noble duke of Bourbon,’ says the monk of St Denis, ‘was nominated to this embassy, but he generously excused himself from it: he would not even remain any longer at court, but demanded leave to retire to his own estates; for he loved better to renounce the share which he had in the government than consent to compound with the state for the murder of his nephew, which made him exclaim loudly, and many times, as I have been assured, that he could never look with a favourable eye upon the author of a treason so cowardly and so infamous.’ See Bayle, ubi supra.
[116]. This shows how general wooden buildings were still in the 15th century.
[117]. The titles of Guienne and Acquitaine were always used indiscriminately.
[118]. Louis, cardinal de Bar, afterwards cardinal of the Twelve Apostles, youngest son of Robert, and brother of Edward, dukes of Bar, and heir to the duchy after the deaths of all his brothers.
[119]. John Petit, professor of theology in the university of Paris, ‘ame venale,’ says Bayle, ‘et vendue à l’iniquitè.’ He was reputed a great orator, and had been employed twice before to plead on occasions of the first importance. The first was in favour of the university against some accusations of the cardinal-legate in 1406; the second, at Rome before pope Gregory, on the 20th of July 1407, on the subject of the king’s proposal for a termination of the schism. The very curious performance with which we are here presented was publicly condemned by the bishop of Paris and the university as soon as they were out of fear from the immediate presence of the duke of Burgundy, and burnt by the common hangman. See, in Bayle, further particulars of the work and its author.
[120]. See the 19th chap. 2 Samuel.
[121]. This is a very striking allusion to a particular custom at tournaments, and sometimes in actual fight, of which Sainte Palaye gives a most interesting account in the ‘Memoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie.’
The exclamation, ‘Aux filz des Preux!’ was evidently used to encourage young knights to emulate the glories of their ancestors, and to do nothing unworthy the noble title given them; and in many instances it was attended with the most animating consequences.
The greatest misfortune attending on a translation of french chronicles is the total absence in our language of an expression answerable to the french word ‘preux,’ which conveys in itself whole volumes of meaning. Spencer ventured to adapt the word in its superlative degree to the english tongue. He says somewhere ‘the prowest knight alive.’ In fact, the word ‘preux’ may be considered as summing up the whole catalogue of knightly virtues in one expression.
The exclamation was sometimes varied,—‘Honneur aux filz des preux!’ which seems to be the original expression.