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.'

'An historian devoted to the duke of Burgundy would have treated this affair more tenderly, and would not have failed to throw the whole blame of the plot on the wicked partisans of the duke, without saying expressly that they had acted under his directions and by his orders contained ' in credential letters signed with his hand.' It is rather singular, that Juvénal des Ursins, who cannot be suspected of being a Burgundian, should, in his history of Charles VI. have merely related this event, and that very summarily, without attributing

any part of it to the duke of Burgundy, whom he does not even name.

The impartiality of Monstrelet is not less clear in the manner in which he speaks of the leaders of the two factions, Burgundians or Armagnacs, who are praised or blamed without exception of persons, according to the merit of their actions. The excesses which both parties indulged in are described with the same strength of style, and in the same tone of indignation. In 1411, when Charles VI. in league with the duke of Burgundy, ordered, by an express edict, that all of the Orleans party should be attacked as enemies throughout the king dom, it was a pitiful thing,' says the historian, to hear daily miserable complaints of the persecutions and sufferings of individuals.' He is no way sparing of his expressions in this instance, and they are still stronger in the recital which immediately follows: • Three thousand combatants marched to Bicêtre, a very handsome house belonging to the duke of Berry (who was of the Orleans party),—and from hatred to the said duke, they destroyed and villainously demolished the whole, excepting the walls.'