by himself. And, at the same time, he makes us feel
that Louis is not the less a man because he is a saint. Certain human
infirmities of temper are his; yet his magnanimity, his sense of
justice, his ardent devotion, his charity, his pure self-surrender
are made so sensible to us as we read the record of Joinville that
we are willing to subscribe to the sentence of Voltaire: "It is not
given to man to carry virtue to a higher point."

During the fourteenth century the higher spirit of feudalism
declined; the old faith and the old chivalry were suffering a decay;
the bourgeoisie grew in power and sought for instruction; it was an
age of prose, in which learning was passing to the laity, or was
adapted to their uses. Yet, while the inner life of chivalry failed
day by day, and self-interest took the place of heroic self-surrender,
the external pomp and decoration of the feudal world became more
brilliant than ever. War was a trade practised from motives of vulgar
cupidity; but it was adorned with splendour, and had a show of
gallantry. The presenter in literature of this glittering spectacle
is the historian JEAN FROISSART. Born in 1338, at Valenciennes, of
bourgeois parents, Froissart, at the age of twenty-two, a
disappointed lover, a tonsured clerk, and already a poet, journeyed
to London, with his manuscript on the battle of Poitiers as an offering
to his countrywoman, Queen Philippa of Hainault. For nearly five years
he was the _ditteur_ of the Queen, a sharer in the life of the court,
but attracted before all else to those "ancient knights and squires
who had taken part in feats of arms, and could speak of them rightly."
His patroness encouraged Froissart's historical inquiries. In the
_Chroniques_ of Jean le Bel, canon of Liege, he found material ready
to his hand, and freely appropriated it in many of his most admirable
pages; but he also travelled much through England and Scotland, noting
everything that impressed his imagination, and gathering with
delight the testimony of those who had themselves been actors in the
events of the past quarter of a century. He accompanied the Black
Prince to Aquitaine, and, later, the Duke of Clarence to Milan. The
death of Queen Philippa, in 1369, was ruinous to his prospects. For
a time he supported himself as a trader in his native place. Then
other patrons, kinsfolk of the Queen, came to his aid. The first
revised redaction of the first book of his Chronicles was his chief
o