I prince never forgot that his uncle, The court of France had not son. "Froissart, who informs us of this circumstance, with which he must have been well acquainted, tells us another, which clearly shows that Winceslaus ever preserved the friendship of king of king Charles, as well as that of his coun cil. During the time the war was carrying on with the greatest obstinacy, he obtained a passport for the princess Anne of Bohemia® to go to England, where she was to marry Richard II. Charles and his uncles accompanied this favour with the most obliging letters, adding, they only granted it out of friendship to him. Froissart had not any interest to write against France during the time he passed with this prince; he had, shortly afterwards, still less, when he was secretary to the count de Blois, who crowned a life, completely devoted to the interests of France, by the sacrifice of the interests of his own family. The most trifling marks of ill-will against France would have exposed him to lose not only the good graces of his master, but the fruit of his historical labours, which he had induced him to continue, and which he so generously recom pensed. The historian therefore, fearful of the reproaches which might be made him for being too good a Frenchman, reproaches very different from those which have been since made him, thinks himself bound to justify, in the following terms, what he relates of the inviolable attachment of the Bretons to the crown of France against the English. Let no one say I have been corrupted by the favour which the count Guy de Blois (who has made me write this his'tory) has shown unto me, and who has so liberally paid me for it that I am satisfied, because he was nephew to the true duke of Britanny, and so nearly related as 'son to count Louis de Blois, brother-german to Charles de Blois, who, as long as he lived, was duke of Britanny: no, by my troth, it is not so; for I will not speak at all, unless it be the truth, and go straight forward, forward, without colouring one 'more than another: besides, the gallant prince and court, who have made me undertake this history, had no other wish but for me to say what is true.' "Since Froissart, in all these times which carry us almost to the end of his Chronicle, cannot be suspected of hatred to the French, nor of affection to the English, I return to those years I have omit ted from 1529 to 1369, of which he passed a considerable part in England, attached to the king and queen, and living in a sort of familiarity with the young princes, their children: it is in respect to these years that the suspicion of partiality to the English can subsist with the greatest force. It was difficult, in a court where every thing breathed hatred to France, for him to preserve that perfect neutrality which the quality of an historian demands and that he should not lean towards that passion of princes to whom he owed his present fortune, and from whom he expected more considerable establishments. shall simply consult the text of Froissart, which must, in this respect, be the rule for our judg ment. After having read him with all the attention I am capable of, without having remarked one single trace of the partiality they reproach him with, I have examined with the utmost care some principal points, where naturally it ought to have been the most apparent. "The accession of Philip de Valois to the crown had incensed all England, who adopted the chimerical pretensions of Edward ill. This was a delicate circumstance for an historian; who, living in the midst of a court, and a nation so strongly prejudiced, was deter mined not to quit the line of duty. Now, these are the terms in which Froissart relates this event, after having mentioned the deaths of the kings, Louis Hutin, Philip le Long, and Charles le Bel: The twehe peers and barons of France did not give the realm of France to their sister, who was queen of England, because they declared and maintained, and still resolve, that the kingdom of France is so "One might find reasons to noble, that it ought not to descend weaken this prejudice in the sweet- to a female, nor consequently to ness and moderation which queen the king of England, her eldest Philippa ever preserved in the son; for thus they determine, that midst of all these wars; who the son of a female cannot claim calmed the fury of her husband at any right of succession as coming the siege of Calais, and who ob- from his mother, when the mother tained, by her instances, the par- herself has not any right; so that, don of the six generous citizens of for these reasons, the twelve peers that town, whom he had condemned and the barons of France unanito death. I might add, that if mously decreed the kingdom of Froissart was of the household of France to my lord Philip, nephew king Edward, he was also of the to the good king Philip of France, bousehold of king John; and it before mentioned, and took from seems, he was attached to this the queen of England and her son prince even at the time when he the right of succeeding to the last was in England. king, Charles. Thus, as it ap "But, without seeking to com-peared to many persons, did the bat these prejudices by others, I kingdom of France. go out of the ⚫ straight 3. straight line of succession, which occasioned very great wars in consequence, &c.' "This whole passage presents nothing but what must make one admire the courage and candour of the historian, when even he should have added these words, 'it appeared to many persons; since it is not any matter of doubt that the succession passed from the straight line to the collateral branch. "Nevertheless, some malignant intention was thought to lurk beneath; and the words took from' having offended some readers, they have added in the margin a sort of correction, which I have seen in two manuscripts in a hand almost as ancient as the manuscripts themselves: They never could take Iaway what they had never been in possession of, nor had any right to. They never took it away; for, neither the foresaid lady, nor her son, had even a right to it; but Froissart shows he was partial to the English.' "The homage which king Edward III. paid to the king of France hurt exceedingly the delicacy of the English: they had disputed for some time, and with great warmth, on the form in which it was to be made; seeking to curtail it of all that was humiliating to them. As the king of France firmly supported the prerogatives of his crown, and obliged Edward to acquit himself of this duty according to the terms which had been practised by his predecessors, an historian who was desirous of being complaisant would have slightly passed over this article. Froissart, however, insists upon it as much as he is able; he neither omits the difficulties, which the English made, nor the authori ties which king Philip opposed to them; and he accompanies these details with the original accounts most proper to confirm them; so that, if the kings of France should ever have occasion to verify their rights, the deposition alone of Froissart would fuinish an authentic and incontestable title. I "The English accuse the French of not being very scrupulous in observing treaties; and maintain, that sir Geoffry de Charni acted by the secret orders of the king of France, when, in contempt of a truce which had been made, he attempted to surprise Calais in 1349. Rapin embraces this opinion, and supports it by the testimony of Froissart, whom he quotes in the margin. know not from what copy, nor what manuscript, he has taken his authority; but, for my part, I read in all the printed and in all the manuscripts these words, which are quité contrary to his sentiments: I believe, that Geoffry de Charni had never spoken of it to the king of France: for, the king would never have advised him to attempt it, " on account of the truce.' "The English again impute to Charles V. the infraction of the treaty of Bretigny, which they first broke, if we believe the French. Far from finding any thing in Froissart which favours the English pretensions, I believe that, if the terms in which he expresses himself were strictly examined, they would at least form a presumption against them. I do not despair but that one day a brother academician will give us all the proofs which a sound criticism,, and a mature reading of the historical monuments of that age, can furnish on a point of history which is of equal consequence to the nation and to truth. "The singular combat proposed in 1354 between the kings of France France and of England is still a matter of dispute between the historians of the two nations. According to the French, the challenge sent in the name of king John was not accepted by Edward; whilst the English say, their king dared the king of France to battle, but that he refused the combat: Froissart decides formally for the French. The king of France,' says he,' went after him as far as St. Omer, and sent to him (the 'king of England) by the marshal d'Authain, and by several other knights, that he would fight with him if he pleased, body to body, or strength against strength, any day he would name: but the king of England refused the combat, and recrossed the sea to England; and the king of France returned 'to Paris.' "To these examples, I could add a great number of other passages where he gives much praise, as well to the people, as to the lords who signalised themselves by their attachment to the party of the French, and wherein he neither spares those who had declared themselves against, nor those who had cowardly abandoned them. In addition to what he says of the fidelity of the Bretons, and of the counts de Blois, their legitimate sovereigns, he praises the zeal with which several lords in Scotland received the French fleet sent in 1385 to assist them against the English. The earl of Douglas, to whom he appears much attached, and in whose castle he had spent several days in his travels into Scotland, seems to be of this number. At the same time he declaims against those whose bad faith, and ingratitude, rendered this armament fruitless. He speaks in the strongest terms of the presump tion of the duke of Gueldres, who dared to declare war against the king of France (Charles VI.) in 1387, and of the insolence with which he expressed himself in his declaration of war. He applauds the just indignation which induced this monarch to march in person to chastise the pride of this petty prince. "In short, of all the nations whom he speaks of in his history, there are but few whom he has not sometimes marked with odious epithets. According to him, the Portuguese are passionate and quarrelsome; the Spaniards envious, haughty, and uncleanly; the Scots perfidious and ungrateful; the Italians assassins and poisoners; the English vain-boasters, contemptuous, and cruel. There is not one trait against the French: on the contrary, this brave nation supports itself, according to Froissart, by the vigour and strength of its knighthood, which was never so totally overwhelmed by its misfortunes, as not in the end to find some marvellous resources in its courage. The historian also seems to have taken a pride in having been born a Frenchman, in telling us that he owed to this title the good reception which a French esquire gave him, when he lodged with him at Ortez. "It is true, that the king of England, and his son the prince of Wales, seem to have been, as long as they lived, the heroes of his history; and that, in the recital of several battles, he is more occupied with them than with the king of France. But, where is the Frenchman of candour, who will not find himself forced to give these princes the utmost praise? Besides, does not our historian render justice to the valour and intrepidity "I think I have fully established, by all that you have just read, that Froissart was not that partial historian he has been accused of. Nevertheless, I think it will be more sure to read him with some circumspection, and that one ought, as much as may be possible, never to lose sight, I repeat it, of two objects which I have particularly endeavoured to make observed in the preceding pages: 1 mean to say, on one hand, the details of his life, his different attachments to divers princes and to certain lords, the connexions he had, or the friendships he contracted with various persons; on the other, the situations in which he was placed when he wrote his history, what parts of it were undertaken at the solicitation of the count de Namur, a partisan of the English, and those which he composed by the orders of the count de Blois, a friend to France. "For, if one is determined to persuade oneself that he ought to be. disposed to favour the English in all, he relates until 1369; from the same reason he should lean to the French in all the ensuing years until the conclusion of his Chroni-" cle. I ought not to neglect to mention that his prejudices are sometimes visible when he enters into the minutest details, as one may be convinced of by the praises he gives to the piety and other virtues of the count de Foix,' strongly contrasted with those actions of cruelty he had just before' related. But when an historian, disengaged from all passion, should hold an even balance between the different parties; when to this quality he adds that which cannot be refused to Froissart, I mean a continual anxiety to be informed of every event, and of every particular, that may interest his readers; he will yet be very far from per fection, if to these acquirements he does not add sound criticism, which, in the multitude of discordant relations, knows how to separate every thing that is distant from truth; or his work will otherwise be less an history, than a heap of fables and popular rumours." " INQUIRY into MILTON's early READING. [From TODD's Edition of MILTON'S POETICAL WORKS.] specting the origin of Paradise Lost, which has been submitted to the public, is contained in Mr. Dunster's Considerations on Milton's early Reading, and the 1801. |