‘Monstrelet employs many pages to report the challenges sent by the duke of Orleans, brother to king Charles VI., to Henry IV. king of England,—challenges which are equally ridiculous with the former, and which had a similar termination. When he meets with any event that particularly regards Flanders or Picardy, he does not omit the smallest circumstance: the most minute and most useless seem to him worth preserving,—and this same man, so prolix when it were to be wished he was concise, omits, for the sake of brevity, as he says, the most interesting details. This excuse he repeats more than once, for neglecting to enlarge on facts far more interesting than the quarrels of the Flemings and Picards. When speaking of those towns in Champagne and Brie which surrendered to Charles VII. immediately after his coronation, he says, ‘As for these surrenders, I omit the particular detail of each for the sake of brevity.’ In another place, he says, ‘Of these reparations, for brevity sake, I shall not make mention.’ These reparations were the articles of the treaty of peace concluded in 1437, between the duke of Burgundy and the townsmen of Bruges.
‘I have observed an omission of another sort, but which must be attributed solely to the copyists,—for I suspect them of having lost a considerable part of a chapter in the second volume. The head of this chapter is, ‘The duke of Orleans returns to the duke of Burgundy,’—and the beginning of it describes the meeting of the two princes in the town of Hêdin in 1441 (1442). They there determine to meet again almost immediately in the town of Nevers, ‘with many others of the great princes and lords of the kingdom of France,’ and at the end of eight days they separate; the one taking the road through Paris for Blois, and the other going into Burgundy.
‘This recital consists of about twenty lines, and then we read, ‘Here follows a copy of the declaration sent to king Charles of France by the lords assembled at Nevers, with the answers returned thereto by the members of the great council, and certain requests made by them.’ This title is followed by the declaration he has mentioned, and the answer the king made to the ambassadors who had presented it to him.—Now, can it be conceived that Monstrelet would have been silent as to the object of the assembly of nobles? or not have named some of those who had been present? and that, after having mentioned Nevers as the place of meeting, he should have passed over every circumstance respecting it, to the declarations and resolutions that had there been determined upon? There are two reasons for concluding that part of this chapter must be wanting: first, when Monstrelet returns to his narration, after having related the king’s answer to the assembled lords, he speaks as having before mentioned them, ‘the aforesaid lords,’ and I have just noticed that he names none of them; secondly, when in the next chapter he relates the expedition to Tartas, which was to decide on the fate of Guienne, as having before mentioned it, ‘of which notice has been taken in another place,’ it must have been in the preceding chapter,—but it is not there spoken of, nor in any other place.
‘If the numerous imperfections of Monstrelet are not made amends for, as I have said, by the beauty of his style, we must allow that they are compensated by advantages of another kind. His narration is diffuse, but clear,—and his style heavy, but always equal. He rarely offers any reflections,—and they are always short and judicious. The temper of his mind is particularly manifested by the circumstance that we do not find in his work any ridiculous stories of sorcery, magic, astrology, or any of those absurd prodigies which disgrace the greater part of the historians of his time. The goodness of his heart also displays itself in the traits of sensibility which he discovers in his recitals of battles, sieges, and of towns won by storm: he seems then to rise superior to himself,—and his style acquires strength and warmth. When he relates the preparations for, and the commencement of, a war, his first sentiment is to deplore the evils by which he foresees that the poorer ranks will soon be overwhelmed. Whilst he paints the despair of the wretched inhabitants of the country, pillaged and massacred by both sides, we perceive that he is really affected by his subject, and writes from his feelings. The writer of the cordelier register and the abbot of St Aubert, have not, therefore, said too much, when they called him, ‘a very honest and peaceable man.’ It appears, in fact, that benevolence was the marked feature of his character, to which I am not afraid to add the love of truth.
‘I know that in respect to this last virtue, his reputation is not spotless, and that he has been commonly charged with partiality for the house of Burgundy, and for that faction. Lancelot Voesin de la Popeliniere is, I believe, the first who brought this accusation against him. ‘Monstrelet,’ says he, ‘has scarcely shown himself a better narrator than Froissart,—but a little more attached to truth, and less of a party man.’ Denis Godefroy denies this small advantage over Froissart which had been conceded to him by La Popeliniere. ‘Both of them,’ he says, ‘incline toward the Burgundians.’
‘Le Gendre in his critical examination of the french historians, repeats the same thing, but in more words. ‘Monstrelet,’ he writes, ‘too plainly discovers his intentions of favouring, when he can, the dukes of Burgundy and their friends.’ Many authors have adopted some of these opinions, more or less disadvantageous to Monstrelet; hence has been formed an almost universal prejudice, that he has, in his work, often disfigured the truth in favour of the dukes of Burgundy.
‘I am persuaded that these different opinions, advanced without proof, are void of foundation; and I have noticed facts, which having happened during the years of which Monstrelet writes the history, may, from the manner in which he narrates them, enable us to judge whether he was capable of sacrificing truth to his attachment to the house of Burgundy.
‘In 1407, doctor John Petit, having undertaken to justify the assassination of the duke of Orleans by orders from the duke of Burgundy, sought to diminish the horror of such a deed, by tarnishing the memory of the murdered prince with the blackest imputations. Monstrelet, however, does not hesitate to say, that many persons thought these imputations false and indecent. He reports, in the same chapter, the divers opinions to which this unfortunate event gave rise, and does not omit to say, that ‘many great lords, and other wise men, were much astonished that the king should pardon the burgundian prince, considering that the crime was committed on the person of the duke of Orleans.’ We perceive, in reading this passage, that Monstrelet was of the same opinion with the ‘other wise men.’
‘In 1408, Charles VI. having insisted that the children of the late duke of Orleans should be reconciled to the duke of Burgundy, they were forced to consent.—‘Sire, since you are pleased to command us, we grant his request;’ and Monstrelet lets it appear that he considers their compliance as a weakness, which he excuses on account of their youth, and the state of neglect they were in after the death of their mother the duchess of Orleans, who had sunk under her grief on not being able to avenge the murder of her husband. ‘To say the truth, in consequence of the death of their father, and also from the loss of their mother, they were greatly wanting in advice and support.’ He likewise relates, at the same time, the conversations held by different great lords on this occasion, in whom sentiments of humanity and respect for the blood-royal were not totally extinguished. ‘That henceforward it would be no great offence to murder a prince of the blood, since those who had done so were so easily acquitted, without making any reparation, or even begging pardon.’ A determined partisan of the house of Burgundy would have abstained from transmitting such a reflection to posterity.
‘I shall mention another fact, which will be fully sufficient for the justification of the historian. None of the writers of his time have spoken with such minuteness of the most abominable of the actions of the duke of Burgundy: I mean that horrid conspiracy which he had planned in 1415, by sending his emissaries to Paris to intrigue and bring it to maturity, and the object of which was nothing less than to seize and confine the king, and to put him to death, with the queen, the chancellor of France, the queen of Sicily, and numberless others. Monstrelet lays open, without reserve, all the circumstances of the conspiracy: he tells us by whom it was discovered: he names the principal conspirators, some of whom were beheaded, others drowned.—He adds, ‘However, those nobles whom the duke of Burgundy had sent to Paris returned as secretly and as quietly as they could without being arrested or stopped.’