A Short History of French Literature
laics, extends further to the reign of Louis XI. The necessity of
translation ceased as soon as the example of writing in the vernacular
had been set, though Latin chronicles continued to be produced as well
as French.
[Sidenote: Villehardouin.]
Long, however, before history on the great scale had been thus
attempted, and very soon after the first attempt of Nicholas of Senlis
had shown that the vulgar tongue was capable of such use, original prose
memoirs and chronicles of contemporary events had been produced, and, as
happens more than once in French literature, the first, or one of the
first, was also the best. The _Conquete de Constantinoble_[132] of
Geoffroy de Villehardouin was written in all probability during the
first decade of the thirteenth century. Its author was born at
Villehardouin, near Troyes, about 1160, and died, it would seem, in his
Greek fief of Messinople in 1213. His book contains a history of the
Fourth Crusade, which resulted in no action against the infidels, but in
the establishment for the time of a Latin empire and in the partition of
Greece among French barons. Villehardouin's memoirs are by universal
consent among the most attractive works of the middle ages. Although no
actually original manuscript exists, we possess a copy which to all
appearance faithfully represents the original. To readers, who before
approaching Villehardouin have well acquainted themselves with the
characteristics of the Chansons de Gestes, the resemblance of the
_Conquete de Constantinoble_ to these latter is exceedingly striking.
The form, putting the difference between prose and verse aside, is very
similar, and the merits of vigorous and brightly coloured language, of
simplicity and vividness of presentation, are identical. At the same
time either his own genius or the form which he has adopted has saved
Villehardouin from the crying defect of most mediaeval work, prolixity
and monotony. He has much to say as well as a striking manner of saying
it, and the interest of his work as a story yields in nothing to its
picturesqueness as a piece of literary composition. His indirect as well
as direct literary value is moreover very great, because he enables us
to see that the picture of manners and thought given by the Chansons de
Gestes is in the main strictly true to the actual habits of the
time--the time, that is to say, of their composition, not of their
nominal subjects. Villehardouin is the chief literary exponent of the
first stage of chivalry, the stage in which adventure was an actual fact
open to every one, and when Eastern Europe and Western Asia offered to
the wandering knight opportunities quite as tempting as those which the
romances asserted to have been open to the champions of Charlemagne and
Arthur. But, as a faithful historian, he, while putting the poetical and
attractive side of feudalism in the best light, does not in the least
conceal its defects, especially the perpetual jarring and rivalry
inevitable in armies where hundreds of petty kings sought each his own
advantage.
[Sidenote: Minor Chroniclers between Villehardouin and Joinville.]
The Fourth Crusade was fertile in chroniclers. Villehardouin's work was
supplemented by the chronicle of Henri de Valenciennes, which is written
in a somewhat similar style, but with still more resemblance to the
manner and diction of the Chansons, so much so that it has been even
supposed, though probably without foundation, to be a rhymed Chanson
thrown into a prose form. This process is known to have been actually
applied in some cases. Another historian of the expedition whose work
has been preserved was Robert de Clari. Baldwin Count of Flanders, who
also accompanied it, was not indeed the author but the instigator of a
translation of Latin chronicles which, like the _Grandes Chroniques de
France_, was continued by original work and attained, under the title of
_Chronique de Baudouin d'Avesnes_, very considerable dimensions.
The thirteenth century also supplies a not inconsiderable number of
works dealing with the general history of France. Guillaume de Nangis
wrote in the latter part of the century several historical treatises,
first in Latin and then in French. An important work, entitled _La
Chronique de Rains_ (Rheims), dates from the middle of the period, and,
though less picturesque in subject and manner than Villehardouin, has
considerable merits of style. Normandy, Flanders, and, the Crusades
generally, each have groups of prose chronicles dealing with them, the
most remarkable of the latter being a very early French translation of
the work of William of Tyre, with additions[133]. Of the Flanders group,
the already mentioned chronicle called of Baudouin d'Avesnes is the
chief. It is worth mentioning again because in its case we see the way
in which French was gaining ground. It exists both in Latin and in the
vernacular. In other cases the Latin would be the original; but in this
case it appears, though it is not positively certain, that the book was
written in French, and translated for the benefit of those who might
happen not to understand that language.
[Sidenote: Joinville.]
As Villehardouin is the representative writer of the twelfth century, so
is Joinville[134] of the thirteenth, as far as history is concerned.
Jean de Joinville, Senechal of Champagne, was born in 1224 at the castle
of Joinville on the Marne, which afterwards became the property of the
Orleans family, and was destroyed during the Revolution. He died in
1319. He accompanied Saint Louis on his unfortunate crusade in 1248,
but not in his final and fatal expedition to Tunis. Most of the few
later events of his life known to us were connected with the
canonisation of the king; but he is known to have taken part in active
service when past his ninetieth year. His historical work, a biography
of St. Louis, deals chiefly with the crusade, and is one of the most
circumstantial records we have of mediaeval life and thought. It is of
much greater bulk than Villehardouin's _Conquete_, and is composed upon
a different principle, the author being somewhat addicted to gossip and
apt to digress from the main course of his narrative. It has, however,
to be remembered that Joinville's first object was not, like
Villehardouin's, to give an account of a single and definite enterprise,
but to display the character of his hero, to which end a certain amount
of desultoriness was necessary and desirable. His style has less vigour
than that of his countryman and predecessor, but it has more grace. It
is evident that Joinville occasionally set himself with deliberate
purpose to describe things in a literary fashion, and his interspersed
reflections on manners and political subjects considerably increase the
material value of his work. It is unfortunate that nothing like a
contemporary manuscript has come down to us, the earliest in existence
being one of the late fourteenth century, when considerable changes had
passed over the language. With the aid of some contemporary documents on
matters of business which Joinville seems to have dictated, M. de Wailly
has effected an exceedingly ingenious conjectural restoration of the
text of the book, but the interest of this is in strictness diminished
by the fact that it is undoubtedly conjectural. The period of
composition of Joinville's book was somewhat late in his life,
apparently in the first years of the fourteenth century, and about 1310
he presented it to Louis le Hutin, though it does not appear what became
of the manuscript.
The period between Joinville and Froissart is peculiarly barren in
chronicles. Besides the serial publications already noticed, the
_Chroniques de France_ and the _Chroniques de Flandre_, there are
perhaps only two which are worth mentioning. The first is a _Chronique
des Quatre Premiers Valois_, written with exactness and careful
attention to authentic sources of information. The other is the
_Chronique_ of Jean Lebel, canon of Liege. This is not only a work of
considerable merit in itself, but still more remarkable because it was
the model, and something more, of Froissart. That historian began by
almost paraphrasing the work of Lebel; and though by degrees he worked
the early parts of his book into more and more original forms according
to the information which he picked up, these parts remained to the last
indebted to the author from whom they had been originally compiled.
[Sidenote: Froissart.]
Froissart was born in 1337 and did not die till after 1409, the precise
date of his death being unknown. There are few problems of literary
criticism which are more difficult than that of arranging a definitive
edition of his famous Chroniques[135]. In most cases the task of the
critic is to decide which of several manuscripts, all long posterior to
the author's death, deserves most confidence, or how to supply and
correct the faults of a single document. In Froissart's case there is,
on the contrary, an embarrassing number of seemingly authentic texts.
During the whole of his long life, Froissart seems to have been
constantly occupied in altering, improving, and rectifying his work, and
copies of it in all its states are plentiful. The early printed editions
represent merely a single one of these; Buchon's is somewhat more
complete. But it is only within the last few years that the labours of
M. Kervyn de Lettenhove and M. Simeon Luce have made it possible (and
not yet entirely possible) to see the work in all its conditions. M.
Kervyn de Lettenhove's edition is complete and excellent as far as it
goes. That of M. Luce is still far from finished. The editor, however,
has succeeded in presenting three distinct versions of the first book.
This is the most interesting in substance, the least in manner and
style. It deals with a period most of which lay outside of Froissart's
own knowledge, and in treating which he was at first content to
paraphrase Jean Lebel, though afterwards he made this part of the book
much more his own. It never, however, attained to the gossiping
picturesqueness of the later books (there are four in all), in which the
historian relies entirely on his own collections. Although Cressy,
Poitiers, and Najara may be of more importance than the fruitless
_chevauchee_ of Buckingham through France, the gossip of the Count de
Foix' court, and the kite-and-crow battles of the Duke de Berri and his
officers with Aymerigot Marcel and Geoffrey Tete-Noire, they are much
less characteristic of Froissart. The literary instinct of Scott enabled
him (in a speech of Claverhouse[136]) exactly to appreciate our author.
Some of his admirers have striven to make out that traces of political
wisdom are to be found in the later books. If it be so, they are very
deeply hidden. A sentence which must have been written when Froissart
was more than fifty years old puts his point of view very clearly.
Geoffrey Tete-Noire, the Breton brigand, 'held a knight's life, or a
squire's, of no more account than a villain's,' and this is said as if
it summed up the demerits of the free companion. Beyond knights and
ladies, tourneys and festivals, Froissart sees nothing at all. But his
admirable power of description enables him to put what he did see as
well as any writer has ever put it. Vast as his work is, the narrative
and picturesque charm never fails; and in a thousand different lights
the same subject, the singular afterglow of chivalry, which the
influence of certain English and French princes kept up in the
fourteenth century, is presented with a mastery rare in any but the best
literature. He is so completely indifferent to anything but this, that
he does not take the slightest trouble to hide the misery and the
misgovernment which the practical carrying out of his idea caused.