‘His work is called Chronicles; but we must not, however, consider this title in the sense commonly attached to it, which merely conveys the idea of simple annals. The chronicles of Monstrelet are real history, wherein, notwithstanding its imperfections and omissions, are found all the characteristics of historical writing. He traces events to their source, developes the causes, and traces them with the minutest details; and what renders these chronicles infinitely precious is, his never-failing attention to report all edicts, declarations, summonses, letters, negotiations, treaties, &c. as justificatory proofs of the truth of the facts he relates.
‘After the example of Froissart, he does not confine himself to events that passed in France: he embraces, with almost equal detail, the most remarkable circumstances which happened during his time in Flanders, England, Scotland and Ireland. He relates, but more succinctly, whatsoever he had been informed of as having passed in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland: in short, in the different european states. Some events, particularly the war of the Saracens against the king of Cyprus, are treated at greater length than could have been expected in a general history.
‘Although it appears that the principal object of Monstrelet in writing this history was to preserve the memory of those wars which in his time, desolated France and the adjoining countries, to bring into public notice such personages as distinguished themselves by actions of valour in battles, assaults, skirmishes, duels and tournaments,—and to show to posterity that his age had produced as many heroes as any of the preceding ones. He does not fail to give an account of such great political or ecclesiastical events as took place during the period of which he seemed only inclined to write the military history. He relates many important details respecting the councils of Pisa, Constance, and of Basil, of which the authors who have written the history of these councils ought to have availed themselves, to compare them with the other materials of which they made use.
‘There is no historian who does not seek to gain the confidence of his readers, by first explaining in a preface all that he has done to acquire the fullest information respecting the events he is about to relate. All protest that they have not omitted any possible means to ascertain the truth of facts, and that they have spared neither time nor trouble to collect the minutest details concerning them. Without doubt, great deductions must be made from such protestations: those of Monstrelet, however, are accompanied with circumstances which convince us that a dependance may be placed on them. Would he have dared to tell his contemporaries, who could instantly have detected a falsehood had he imposed on them, that he had been careful to consult on military affairs those who, from their employments, must have been eye-witnesses of the actions that he describes? that on other matters he had consulted such as, from their situations, must have been among the principal actors, and the great lords of both parties, whom he had often to address, to engage in conversation on these events, at divers times, to confront them, as it were, with themselves? On objects of less importance, such as feasts, justs, tournaments, he had made his inquiries from heralds, poursuivants, and kings at arms, who, from their office, must have been appointed judges of the lists, or assistants, at such entertainments and pastimes. For greater security, it was always more than a year after any event had happened, before he began to arrange his materials and insert them in his chronicle. He waited until time should have destroyed what may have been exaggerated in the accounts of such events, or should have confirmed their truth.
‘An infinite number of traits throughout his work proves the fidelity of his narration. He marks the difference between facts of which he is perfectly sure and those of which he is doubtful: if he cannot produce his proof, he says so, and does not advance more. When he thinks that he has omitted some details which he ought to have known, he frankly owns that he has forgotten them. For instance, when speaking of the conversation between the duke of Burgundy and the Pucelle d’Orléans, at which he was present, he recollects that some circumstances have escaped his memory, and avows that he does not remember them.
‘When after having related any event, he gains further knowledge concerning it, he immediately informs his readers of it, and either adds to or retrenches from his former narration, conformably to the last information he had received. Froissart acted in a similar manner; and Montaigne praises him for it. ‘The good Froissart,’ says he, ‘proceeds in his undertaking with such frank simplicity that having committed a mistake he is no way afraid of owning it, and of correcting it at the moment he is sensible of it.’[[5]] We ought certainly to feel ourselves obliged to these two writers for their attention in returning back to correct any mistakes; but we should have been more thankful to them if they had been pleased to add their corrections to the articles which had been mistated, instead of scattering their amendments at hazard, as it were, and leaving the readers to connect and compare them with the original article as well as they can.
‘This is not the only defect common to both these historians. The greater part of the chronological mistakes, which have been so ably corrected by M. de Sainte Palaye in Froissart, are to be found in Monstrelet; and what deserves particularly to be noticed, to avoid falling into errors, is, that each of them, when passing from the history of one country to another, introduces events of an earlier date, without ever mentioning it, and intermix them in the same chapter, as if they had taken place in the same period,—but Monstrelet has the advantage of Froissart in the correctness of counting the years, which he invariably begins on Easter-day and closes them on Easter-eve.
‘To chronological mistakes must be added the frequent disfiguring of proper names,—more especially foreign ones, which are often so mangled that it is impossible to decipher them. M. du Cange has corrected from one thousand to eleven hundred on the margin of his copy of the edition of 1572, which is now in the imperial library at Paris, and would be of great assistance, should another edition of Monstrelet be called for.[[6]] Names of places are not more clearly written, excepting those in Flanders and Picardy, with which, of course, he was well acquainted. We know not whether it be through affectation or ignorance that he calls many towns by their latin names, frenchifying the termination: for instance, Aix-la-Chapelle, Aquisgranie; Oxford, Oxonie,—and several others in the like manner.
‘These defects are far from being repaid, as they are in Froissart, by the agreeableness of the narration: that of Monstrelet is heavy, monotonous, weak and diffuse. Sometimes a whole page is barely sufficient for him to relate what would have been better told in six lines; and it is commonly on the least important facts that he labours the most.
‘The second chapter of the first volume, consisting of thirteen pages, contains only a challenge from a spanish esquire, accepted by an esquire of England, which, after four years of letters and messages, ends in nothing. The ridiculousness of so pompous a narration had struck Rabelais, who says, at page 158 of his third volume,—‘In reading this tedious detail, (which he calls a little before le tant long, curieux et fâcheux conte) we should imagine that it was the beginning, or occasion, of some severe war, or of a great revolution of kingdoms; but at the end of the tale we laugh at the stupid champion, the Englishman, and Enguerrand their scribe, plus baveux qu’un pot à moutarde.’[[7]]