THE LIFE OF MONSTRELET;

WITH

AN ESSAY ON HIS CHRONICLES,

BY M. DACIER.

MATERIALS for the biography of Monstrelet are still more scanty than for that of Froissart. The most satisfactory account both of his life and of the continuators of his history is contained in the " Mémoires de l'Académie de Belles-Lettres," vol. xliii. p. 535, by M. Dacier:—

"We are ignorant of the birthplace of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, and of the period when he was born, as well as of the names of his parents. All we know is, that he sprang from a noble family, which he takes care to tell us himself, in his introduction to the first volume of the Chronicles; and his testimony is confirmed by a variety of original deeds, in which his name is always accompanied with the distinction of noble man,' or 'esquire *.* "According to the historian of the Cambresis, Monstrelet was descended from a noble family settled in Ponthieu from the beginning of the twelfth century, where one of his ancestors, named Enguerrand, possessed the estate of Monstrelet in the year 1125,--but Carpentier does not name his authority for this. A contemporary historian (Matthieu de Couci, of whom I shall have occasion to speak in the course of this essay), who lived at Peronne, and who seems to have been personally acquainted with Monstrelet, positively asserts that this historian was a native of the county of the Boulonnois, without precisely mentioning the place of his birth. This authority ought to weigh much besides, Ponthieu and the Boulonnois are so near to each other that a mistake on this point might easily have happened. It results from what these two writers say, that we may fix, his birthplace in Picardy.

"M. l'abbé Carlier, however, in his History of the Duchy of Valois,' claims this honour for his province, wherein he has discovered an ancient family of the same name,—a branch of which, he pretends, settled in the Cambresis, and he believes that from this branch sprung Enguerrand de Monstrelet. This opinion is advanced without proof, and the work of Monstrelet itself is sufficient to destroy it. He shows so great an affection for Picardy, in

These deeds, and the greater part of others quoted in these memoirs, are preserved in the Chartulary of Cambray. Extracts from them were communicated by

M. Mutte, dean of Cambray, to M. de Foncemagne, who lent them to M. Dacier.

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divers parts of his Chronicle, that we cannot doubt of his being strongly attached to it: he is better acquainted with it than with any other parts of the realm: he enters into the fullest details concerning it: he frequently gives the names of such Picard gentlemen, whether knights or esquires, as had been engaged in any battle, which he omits to do in regard to the nobility of other countries,-in the latter case naming only the chief commanders. It is almost always from the bailiff of Amiens that he reports the royal edicts, letters missive, and ordinances, &c., which abound in the two first volumes. In short, he speaks of the Picards with so much interest, and relates their gallant actions with such pleasure, that it clearly appears that he treats them like countrymen.

"Monstrelet was a nobleman then, and a nobleman of Picardy; but we have good reason to suspect that his birth was not spotless. John le Robert, abbot of St. Aubert in Cambray from the year 1432 to that of 1469, and author of an exact journal of everything that passed during his time in the town of Cambray and its environs, under the title of Mémoriaux *,' says plainly,' qu'il fut né de bas,'-which term, according to the glossary of Du Cange, and in the opinion of learned genealogists, constantly means a natural son; for at this period bastards were acknowledged according to the rank of their fathers. Monstrelet, therefore, was not the less noble; and the same John le Robert qualifies him, two lines higher, with the titles of 'noble man' and 'esquire,' to which he adds a eulogium, which I shall hereafter mention ;—because, at the same time that it does honour to Monstrelet, it confirms the opinion I had formed of his character when attentively reading his work.

"My researches to discover the precise year of his birth have been fruitless. I believe, however, it may be safely placed prior to the close of the fourteenth century; for, besides speaking of events at the beginning of the fifteenth as having happened in his time, he states positively, in his Introduction, that he had been told of the early events in his book (namely, from the year 1400), by persons worthy of credit, who had been eye-witnesses of them. To this proof, or to this deduction, I shall add, that under the year 1415, he says, that he heard (at the time) of the anger of the count de Charolois, afterwards Philippe le bon, duke of Burgundy, because his governors would not permit him to take part in the battle of Azincourt. I shall also add, that under the year 1420, he speaks of the homage which John duke of Burgundy paid the king of the Romans for the counties of Burgundy and of Alost. It cannot be supposed that he would have inquired into such particulars, or that any one would have taken the trouble to inform him of them if he had not been of a certain age, such as twenty or twenty-five years old, which would fix the date of his birth about 1390 or 1395.

"No particulars of his early years are known, except that he evinced, when young, a love for application, and a dislike to indolence. The quotations from Sallust, Livy, Vegetius, and other ancient authors, that occur in his Chronicles, show that he must have made some progress in Latin literature. Whether his love for study was superior to his desire of military glory, or whether a weakly constitution, or some other reason, prevented him from following the profession of arms, I do not find that he yielded to the reigning passion of his age, when the names of gentleman and of soldier were almost synonymous.

"The wish to avoid indolence by collecting the events of his time, which he testifies in the introduction to his Chronicles, proves, I think, that he was but a tranquil spectator of them. Had he been an Armagnac or a Burgundian, he would not have had occasion to seek for solitary occupations; but what proves more strongly that Monstrelet was not of

*They are preserved in MS. by the regular canons of St. Aubert in Cambray.