There are so many delightful Memoirs to which one would like to have access at will. Jean de Boucicault, Marshal of France, stands out as one of the most interesting figures in mediæval France and, indeed, Europe. Nicknamed 'le meingre,' he was Vicomte de Turenne, and bore arms at the age of ten. His father[78] also was a Marshal of France. Few men have lived such a stirring life as this paragon of knightly prowess. At Rosebeque in 1382 (where Philip van Artevelde and 20,000 Flemings were slain), being then a page of honour to Charles vi., he fought at the King's side and acquitted himself so well that he received knighthood at the King's hands. Thenceforward he was fighting continually in Flanders, Normandy, Brittany, Languedoc—in short wherever there was fighting to be done. In 1396, marching with the flower of the French chivalry through Bulgaria against the Turks, he was one of the three thousand knights taken prisoner at the disastrous battle of Nicopoli; but was among the twenty-five whose lives were spared by the savage victor. Four years later he was defending Constantinople for the Emperor against his late captor, and here again he distinguished himself greatly by his bravery.
Not long after this he was appointed Governor of Genoa. In command of the Genoese fleet he undertook to chastise the Cypriots for an outrage on some Genoese gentlemen. But calling at Rhodes on the way, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers persuaded him to try the effect of mediation first of all, and proceeded to Cyprus himself for that purpose. Whereupon the Marshal, 'to beguile the time, and give employment to the fiery spirits on board his squadron' (says a later chronicler) 'ran down at a venture to the Syrian city of Scanderoon, which place he carried by assault and plundered.' Encouraged by this success, on the Grand Master's return he persuaded that great personage to accompany him on a further expedition, and together they harried the whole coast of Syria, the Hospitaller confining his attention to the Infidels whilst the Marshal razed the factories which the Venetians (enemies to the Genoese) had established at Baruth and other places. Thus passing a very pleasant summer.
In Italy he took an active part in the turmoil betwixt Guelphs and Ghibellines, and seized Milan for the former (1409). At Agincourt in 1415 he commanded the vanguard of the French army, and was taken prisoner. Being sent to England, he remained there until his death six years later. This great soldier was a man of many accomplishments, an ardent musician as well as a poet; and his leisure was passed chiefly in composing ballads, rondeaux, and virelays. Yet his 'Livre des Faicts' remains unenglish'd.
Another truly great man of a later period was that great warrior of saintly life and death, Henri, Duc de Montmorency. After a long and noble career of arms in the service of his king no less than of his countrymen, he fell a victim to the jealousy of Cardinal de Richelieu. 'Dieu vouloit que sa mort fust aussi admirable que sa vie,' writes his biographer; 'que ses dernieres actions couronnassent toutes les autres; et que ses vertus Chrestiennes jettassent encor plus d'eclat que n'avoient fait les Heroiques.' Brought to the scaffold he refused to avail himself of the indulgence of having his hands at liberty. 'So great a sinner as I,' he said, 'cannot die with too much ignominy.' Of his own accord he took off his splendid dress. 'How can I,' said he, 'being so great a sinner go to my death in such attire when my guiltless Saviour died naked upon the Cross.' Yet save we are contented to turn to a poorly printed seventeenth-century edition of his Life, there is no place (to my knowledge at least) where we can read of this truly great man, and, of course, no version other than that in the French tongue.
Then there is that great and vivacious chronicle of the house of Burgundy during the fifteenth century, the Memoirs of Messire Olivier, Sieur de la Marche. No historian would write of the Flemish wars, from the Peace of Arras in 1435 to the taking of Ghent by the Archduke Maximilian in 1491, without constant reference to this invaluable work, for la Marche was often an eye-witness of the events which he records. Yet so far it has not been rendered in English, and I know of no complete edition in modern French. It is the same with the memorials of Bouchet, Chartier, de Coussy, Crillon, Olivier de Clisson, and many other great soldiers, all of whom have much to say of the wars 'contre les Anglois.' The famous history of Bertrand du Guesclin[79] contained in 'Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux' does not seem to have been reprinted after its second appearance in Spanish at Barcelona in 1586, and there is no English version.
Why is it that biography has such a peculiar fascination for most men? Is it but curiosity to know how others have passed their lives, mere idle inquisitiveness? Or is it that we may store up in our minds what these great ones said and did upon occasions that may occur to us some day? This is, perhaps the more likely; for women dislike biographies, and women, we are told, care not a fig for examples, but act upon their native intuition. Be the reason what it may, the fact remains that for one man who looks to the future there are fifty who look to the past. Moreover the sages of all times encourage us to seek examples in the lives of other men, and examples are certainly of more value than idle speculations. 'With what discourses should we feed our souls?' asked one of that pleasant philosopher Maximus of Tyre. 'With those that lead the mind ἐπὶ τὸν πρόσθεν χρόνον—towards former times,' replied the sage—those that exhibit the deeds of past ages.
Possibly it would be better to include biographical dictionaries under this heading than under 'Dictionaries.' Oettinger's 'Bibliographie Biographique Universelle,' published first in quarto at Leipzig, 1850, describes some 26,000 biographies, under their subjects' names. A second edition appeared in two octavo volumes at Brussels four years later. There is a useful catalogue of 174 biographical dictionaries in all languages at the end of the third volume of John Gorton's 'General Biographical Dictionary,' the 1833 edition.
Famous Authors and Books.
9. Celebrated Authors and Books. How interesting it would be to know which individual work, after the Bible, has passed through the greatest number of editions. 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Decameron,' 'The Compleat Angler,' 'Paradise Lost,' all these must have been reprinted an immense number of times; while others such as 'Gil Blas' and 'Don Quixote' would not be so very far behind. Then there are the ancients, such as Homer, Horace, Virgil, with the great host of classics of the old world. Perhaps, however, the palm would be awarded to the 'Imitatio Christi' of the saintly Thomas à Kempis. The editions of it, from the presses of almost every country in the old and the new worlds, run well into four figures. An English collector, Edmund Waterton, succeeded in amassing no less than thirteen hundred, and at his death the British Museum acquired all those of his treasures which were not already upon its shelves.
There is another name to couple with this, though (I hasten to add) from a purely bibliographical standpoint—that of the great Dominican Giacomo di Voraggio, or Jacobus de Voragine. Except to the student of Early Fathers, the hagiologist, and the bibliophile, his very name has almost sunk into oblivion; but to these savants he stands forth as the compiler of that marvellous collection of the Lives of the Saints, known as The Golden Legend. The first Latin edition of his great work was printed in folio at Cologne in 1470, and six years later it appeared in French at Lyons and in Italian at Venice. Caxton translated and published an English version, and from that time to the middle of the sixteenth century it is said to have undergone more impressions than any other contemporary work.[80]
