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The Chronicles of Froissart are history seen through the eyes of a herald; the Memoirs of PHILIPPE DE COMMYNES are history envisaged by a politician and a diplomatist.
In the contemporary chronicle of Froissart, the reign of Edward III. shines with a long array of knightly pageants, and a loftier cast of imaginative adornment is imparted by the historical dramas of Shakspeare to the troubled rule of the house of Lancaster and the crimes and fall of the brief dynasty of York.
Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful Burgundian knight, "the which, seeing," says Froissart, "that the King of England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that all sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city without further notice.
In spite of a month's resistance the prince took the place, and gave it up as a prey to a mob of reckless plunderers, whose excesses were such that Froissart himself, a spectator generally so indifferent, and leaning rather to the English, was deeply shocked.
This spot is interesting to an Englishman, from the memorable events to which the fatal pretensions of Edward the Third gave rise, and which occupy the pages of French and English history, during a period of more than a century . Froissart mentions the English army being drawn out on a hill, in battle array, near the town.
I assumed the name, Simpson, with some reluctance, as in my true patronym, Froissart, I felt a very pardonable pride believing that I could trace a descent from the immortal author of the "Chronicles." While on the subject of names, by the bye, I may mention a singular coincidence of sound attending the names of some of my immediate predecessors. My father was a Monsieur Froissart, of Paris.
You do not blame Holinshed or Froissart for believing and repeating the things they had read or been told, though you cannot always believe these things yourself. But when Cellini tells you that he saw this or did that, and you find it impossible to believe him, you lose patience with him, and are disposed to doubt everything in his autobiography.
Crowfield, you are too bad!" said Humming-Bird, as she perched upon a corner of my study-table, and put her little feet upon an old "Froissart" which filled the armchair. "To be listening to our nonsense!" said Pheasant. "Lying in wait for us!" said Dove. "Well, now, you have brought us all down on you," said Humming-Bird, "and you won't find it so easy to be rid of us.
"He had continually after him," says Froissart, "sixty or eighty armed varlets, amongst whom were two or three who knew some of his secrets.
Satan, and turning over several leaves of his notebook, he rattled out the following names: "Alcibiades, kind of statesman; Beau Brummel, fop; Cagliostro, conjurer; Robespierre, politician; Charles Stuart, Pretender; Warwick, King-maker; Borgia, A., Pope; Ditto, C., toxicologist; Wallenstein, mercenary; Bacon, Roger, man of science; Ditto, F., dishonest official; Tell, W., patriot; Jones, Paul, pirate; Lucullus, glutton; Simon Stylites, eccentric; Casanova, loose liver; Casabianca, cabin-boy; Chicot, jester; Sayers, T., prize-fighter; Cook, Captain, tourist; Nebuchadnezzar, food-faddist; Juan, D., lover; Froissart, war correspondent; Julian, apostate?"
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