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The lais of Marie de France were written in England, and the greater number of the romances composing the matière de Bretagne seem to have passed from England to France through the medium of Anglo-Norman. Asaph had stamped upon them. One Folie Tristan was composed in England in the last years of the 12th century.
Now the following winter, the king was to wed the Lady Anne of Bretagne; and as Lady Anne was a great admirer and collector of beautiful painted books, the king thought no gift would please his bride quite so much as a piece of fine illumination; and he decided that it should be an hour book.
These two men had naturally seen much of each other since Duplessis had returned from Bretagne and delivered Alain from the gripe of Louvier.
In all probability, the design of the armament was either to intimidate the French into proposals of peace; to make a diversion from the Rhine, by alarming the coast of Bretagne; or to throw over a body of troops into Flanders, to effect a junction with the hereditary prince of Brunswick, who, at the head of twenty thousand men, had made an irruption as far as the Lower Rhine, and even crossed that river; but he miscarried in the execution of his design.
Turning to the historical data on which the romance is based, it will be found that in the year 778 A.D. Charlemagne, accompanied by his nephew, Count Roland of Bretagne, and the flower of Frankish chivalry, made a raid across the Spanish border.
The goodman here it may be well to explain that in Touraine, Anjou, Pitou, and Bretagne the word "goodman," already used to designate Grandet, is bestowed as often upon harsh and cruel men as upon those of kindly temperament, when either have reached a certain age; the title means nothing on the score of individual gentleness the goodman took his hat and gloves, saying as he went out,
"The war must greatly disturb the money-market, affect many speculative adventures and operations when at the very moment credit may be most needed. It is absolutely necessary that I should be daily at my post on the Bourse, and hourly watch the ebb and flow of events. Under these circumstances I had counted, permit me to count still, on your presence in Bretagne.
On Tuesday, the 8th March, Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne, eldest son of Monsieur le Dauphin, who had succeeded to the name and rank of his father, being then only five years and some months old, and who had been seized with measles within a few days, expired, in spite of all the remedies given him.
Having travelled thus far, attend us to Paris and imagine yourself seated in a velvet chair in the Hotel de Bretagne, Rue de Richelieu, that is to say, when translated into London terms, conceive yourself seated in one of the Hotels in or near Covent Gardens, close to Theatre and shops and all that a stranger wishes to be near for a week when the sole purpose of his visit is seeing and hearing.
He seemed to me so much more thoughtful than most at our age are, so much more stately and proud; well, also so much more pure, so impressed with the responsibilities of station, so bent on retaining the old lands in Bretagne; by habit and rearing so simple and self-denying, that I took it for granted he was proof against stronger temptations than those which a light nature like my own puts aside with a laugh.
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