[9] The same story is told of Guilhem de Bergedam, a Provençal poet who lived before Jean de Meung. Cf. F. Michel, Roman de la Rose, t. I., p. xv-xvi, and M. Méon, Roman de la Rose, t. II, p. 230 note.
[10] Ueber Christine von Pisan und ihre Schriften, in Der Teutsche Merkur, 1781, pp. 200-229.
[11] Ed. M. Roy, Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pisan (in Soc. des anc. textes franç.) t. II., p. 1 sqq.
[12] Counsellor and Chamberlain of Charles VI.—then prévôt of the City of Paris, 1401-1408—afterwards président de la chambre des comptes until his death (1414)—widely known on account of his execution of two clerks of the Université, guilty of assassination, whom he had hanged at night by torchlight and left attached to the gibbet for four months, when they were cut down and buried by Pierre des Essars (a creature of the duc de Bourgogne), who thus was able to infringe the commission of full power given Guillaume de Tignonville, June 21, 1401—of noble lineage, wise, a fine orator, and highly esteemed by the king—the translator, before becoming prévôt of Paris, of the Dicta Philosophorum under the title Livre des Philosophes. (Cf. P. Paris, Manuscrits français, IV., pp. 92-97, 173.)
[13] Cf. M. Roy, Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pisan (in the Soc. des anc. textes franç.) t. II., p. IV.
[14] Cf. A. Piaget in Romania, XX, pp. 417-454.
[15] Cf. Mss. 5233 and 10469, Bib. nat. fr.
[16] Ed. by F. Heuckenkamp, Halle, 1891, and by M. Roy, op. cit., II. p. 29 sqq.
[17] Cf. for chronology of the letters A. Piaget in Etudes romanes dédiées à Gaston Paris, 1891, pp. 113-120.
[18] Jean de Montreuil (called maistre Jehan Johannes by Christine de Pizan), diplomat and secrétaire du roi, was one of the leading humanists of his time, and numbered among his friends many famous men. Cf. A. Thomas, De Joannis de Monsterolio vita et operibus, Paris, 1883, p. 1: “ut Petro de Alliaco, Joanni Gersoni, Nicolao de Clamengiis, sed etiam italicis, ut Colutio Florentino Leonardoque Aretino amicitia conjunctus est.” He studied at the University of Paris, though he did not attend lectures there by Gontier Col, whom he elsewhere calls his “praeceptorem.” He seems to have abandoned the church, for which he was originally intended, and to have gone into public life. In 1391 we find him secretary to Charles VI, and also to the duc de Bourgogne and the duc d’Orléans. He soon became chanoine de Rouen, and then prévôt de Lille, a title which he liked. He undertook many embassies for the king of France: to England and Scotland, 1394; to Germany and Italy; to Pope Benedict XIII. at Avignon, 1404; to Rome (Jean XXIII.), 1412 (where he learned to know Leonardo Bruni). In 1413 he went as ambassador of the king of France to the duc de Bourgogne. In the civil war he attached himself to the party of Orléans and refused to leave Paris, with the result that it cost him his life in the massacre, June 12, 1418, of the party of the Armagnacs, which effected for a long time a stifling of the first Renaissance.