The account of those few days’ ride with Espaing de Lyon is the most charming, the most graphic, and the most vivid chapter in the whole of Froissart. Every turn of the road brings with it the sight of a ruined castle, about which this knight of many memories has a tale or a reminiscence. The whole country teems with fighting stories. Froissart never tires of listening nor the good knight of telling. “Sainte Marie!” cries Froissart in mere rapture. “How pleasant are your tales, and how much do they profit me while you relate them! And you shall not lose your trouble, for they shall all be set down in memory and remembrance in the history which I am writing.” Arrived at length at Orthez, Froissart lost no time in presenting his credentials to the count of Foix. Gaston Phoebus was at this time fifty-nine years of age. His wife, from whom he was separated, was that princess, sister of Charles of Navarre, with whom Guillaume de Machault carried on his innocent and poetical amour. The story of the miserable death of his son is well known, and may be read in Froissart. But that was already a tale of the past, and the state which the count kept up was that of a monarch. To such a prince such a visitor as Froissart would be in every way welcome. Mindful no doubt of those paid clerks who were always writing verses, Froissart introduced himself as a chronicler. He could, of course, rhyme, and in proof he brought with him his romance of Méliador; but he did not present himself as a wandering poet. The count received him graciously, speedily discovered the good qualities of his guest, and often invited him to read his Méliador aloud in the evening, during which time, says Froissart, “nobody dared to say a word, because he wished me to be heard, such great delight did he take in listening.” Very soon Froissart, from reader of a romance, became raconteur of the things he had seen and heard; the next step was that the count himself began to talk of affairs, so that the notebook was again in requisition. There was a good deal, too, to be learned of people about the court. One knight recently returned from the East told about the Genoese occupation of Famagosta; two more had been in the fray of Otterbourne; others had been in the Spanish wars.
Leaving Gaston at length, Froissart assisted at the wedding of the old duke of Berry with the youthful Jeanne de Bourbon, and was present at the grand reception given to Isabeau of Bavaria by the Parisians. He then returned to Valenciennes, and sat down to write his fourth book. A journey undertaken at this time is characteristic of the thorough and conscientious spirit in which he composed his work; it illustrates also his restless and curious spirit. While engaged in the events of the year 1385 he became aware that his notes taken at Orthez and elsewhere on the affairs of Castile and Portugal were wanting in completeness. He left Valenciennes and hastened to Bruges, where, he felt certain, he should find some one who would help him. There was, in fact, at this great commercial centre, a colony of Portuguese. From them he learned that a certain Portuguese knight, Dom Juan Fernand Pacheco, was at the moment in Middelburg on the point of starting for Prussia. He instantly embarked at Sluys, reached Middelburg in time to catch this knight, introduced himself, and conversed with him uninterruptedly for the space of six days, getting his information on the promise of due acknowledgment. During the next two years we learn little of his movements. He seems, however, to have had trouble with his seigneur Gui de Blois, and even to have resigned his chaplaincy. Froissart is tender with Gui’s reputation, mindful of past favours and remembering how great a lord he is. Yet the truth is clear that in his declining years the once gallant Gui de Blois became a glutton and a drunkard, and allowed his affairs to fall into the greatest disorder. So much was he crippled with debt that he was obliged to sell his castle and county of Blois to the king of France. Froissart lays all the blame on evil counsellors. “He was my lord and master,” he says simply, “an honourable lord and of great reputation; but he trusted too easily in those who looked for neither his welfare nor his honour.” Although canon of Chimay and perhaps curé of Lestines as well, it would seem as if Froissart was not able to live without a patron. He next calls Robert de Namur his seigneur, and dedicates to him, in a general introduction, the whole of his chronicles. We then find him at Abbeville, trying to learn all about the negotiations pending between Charles VI. and the English. He was unsuccessful, either because he could not get at those who knew what was going on, or because the secret was too well kept. He next made his last visit to England, where, after forty years’ absence, he naturally found no one who remembered him. Here he gave King Richard a copy of his “traités amoureux,” and got favour at court. He stayed in England some months, seeking information on all points from his friends Henry Chrystead and Richard Stury, from the dukes of York and Gloucester, and from Robert the Hermit.
On his return to France, he found preparations going on for that unlucky crusade, the end of which he describes in his Chronicle. It was headed by the count of Nevers. After him floated many a banner of knights, descendants of the crusaders, who bore the proud titles of duke of Athens, duke of Thebes, sire de Sidon, sire de Jericho. They were going to invade the sultan’s empire by way of Hungary; they were going to march south; they would reconquer the holy places. And presently we read how it all came to nothing, and how the slaughtered knights lay dead outside the city of Nikopoli. In almost the concluding words of the Chronicle the murder of Richard II. of England is described. His death ends the long and crowded Chronicle, though the pen of the writer struggles through a few more unfinished sentences.
The rest is vague tradition. He is said to have died at Chimay; it is further said that he died in poverty so great that his relations could not even afford to carve his name upon the headstone of his tomb; not one of his friends, not even Eustache Deschamps, writes a line of regret in remembrance; the greatest historian of his age had a reputation so limited that his death was no more regarded than that of any common monk or obscure priest. We would willingly place the date of his death, where his Chronicle stops, in the year 1400; but tradition assigns the date of 1410. What date more fitting than the close of the century for one who has made that century illustrious for ever?
Among his friends were Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps, the most vigorous poet of this age of decadence, and Cuvelier, a follower of Bertrand du Guesclin. These alliances are certain. It is probable that he knew Chaucer, with whom Deschamps maintained a poetical correspondence; there is nothing to show that he ever made the acquaintance of Christine de Pisan. Froissart was more proud of his poetry than his prose. Posterity has reversed this opinion, and though a selection of his verse has been published, it would be difficult to find an admirer, or even a reader, of his poems. The selection published by Buchon in 1829 consists of the Dit dou florin, half of which is a description of the power of money; the Débat dou cheval et dou lévrier, written during his journey in Scotland; the Dittie de la flour de la Margherite; a Dittie d’amour called L’Orlose amoureus, in which he compares himself, the imaginary lover, with a clock; the Espinette amoureuse, which contains a sketch of his early life, freely and pleasantly drawn, accompanied by rondeaux and virelays; the Buisson de jonesce, in which he returns to the recollections of his own youth; and various smaller pieces. The verses are monotonous; the thoughts are not without poetical grace, but they are expressed at tedious length. It would be, however, absurd to expect in Froissart the vigour and verve possessed by none of his predecessors. The time was gone when Marie de France, Rutebœuf and Thibaut de Champagne made the 13th-century language a medium for verse of which any literature might be proud. Briefly, Froissart’s poetry, unless the unpublished portion be better than that before us, is monotonous and mechanical. The chief merit it possesses is in simplicity of diction. This not infrequently produces a pleasing effect.
As for the character of his Chronicle, little need be said. There has never been any difference of opinion on the distinctive merits of this great work. It presents a vivid and faithful drawing of the things done in the 14th century. No more graphic account exists of any age. No historian has drawn so many and such faithful portraits. They are, it is true, portraits of men as they seemed to the writer, not of men as they were. Froissart was uncritical; he accepted princes by their appearance. Who, for instance, would recognize in his portrait of Gaston Phoebus de Foix the cruel voluptuary, stained with the blood of his own son, which we know him to have been? Froissart, again, had no sense of historical responsibility; he was no judge to inquire into motives and condemn actions; he was simply a chronicler. He has been accused by French authors of lacking patriotism. Yet it must be remembered that he was neither a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but a Fleming. He has been accused of insensibility to suffering. Indignation against oppression was not, however, common in the 14th century; why demand of Froissart a quality which is rare enough even in our own time? Yet there are moments when, as in describing the massacre of Limoges, he speaks with tears in his voice.
Let him be judged by his own aims. “Before I commence this book,” he says, “I pray the Saviour of all the world, who created every thing out of nothing, that He will also create and put in me sense and understanding of so much worth, that this book, which I have begun, I may continue and persevere in, so that all those who shall read, see, and hear it may find in it delight and pleasance.” To give delight and pleasure, then, was his sole design.
As regards his personal character, Froissart depicts it himself for us. Such as he was in youth, he tells us, so he remained in more advanced life; rejoicing mightily in dances and carols, in hearing minstrels and poems; inclined to love all those who love dogs and hawks; pricking up his ears at the uncorking of bottles,—“Car au voire prens grand plaisir”; pleased with good cheer, gorgeous apparel and joyous society, but no commonplace reveller or greedy voluptuary,—everything in Froissart was ruled by the good manners which he set before all else; and always eager to listen to tales of war and battle. As we have said above, he shows, not only by his success at courts, but also by the whole tone of his writings, that he possessed a singularly winning manner and strong personal character. He lived wholly in the present, and had no thought of the coming changes. Born when chivalrous ideas were most widely spread, but the spirit of chivalry itself, as inculcated by the best writers, in its decadence, he is penetrated with the sense of knightly honour, and ascribes to all his heroes alike those qualities which only the ideal knight possessed.
The first edition of Froissart’s Chronicles was published in Paris. It bears no date; the next editions are those of the years 1505, 1514, 1518 and 1520. The edition of Buchon, 1824, was a continuation of one commenced by Dacier. The best modern editions are those of Kervyn de Lettenhove (Brussels, 1863-1877) and Siméon Luce (Paris, 1869-1888); for bibliography see Potthast, Bibliotheca hist. medii aevi, i. (Berlin, 1896). An abridgment was made in Latin by Belleforest, and published in 1672. An English translation was made by Bouchier, Lord Berners, and published in London, 1525. See the “Tudor Translations” edition of Berners (Nutt, 1901), with introduction by W. P. Ker; and the “Globe” edition, with introduction by G. C. Macaulay. The translation by Thomas Johnes was originally published in 1802-1805. For Froissart’s poems see Scheler’s text in K. de Lettenhove’s complete edition; Méliador has been edited by Longnon for the Société des Anciens Textes (1895-1899). See also Madame Darmesteter (Duclaux), Froissart (1894).
(W. Be.)