he vividness and picturesqueness of
his work. The pageant of medieval life in court and camp dazzled and
delighted him, and it is as a pageant that we see the Middle Ages in
his book.

Froissart holds a distinguished place among the poets as well as the
historians of his century. He wrote chiefly in the allegorical style
then in vogue; and his poems, though cast in a mold no longer in
fashion, are fresh and full of color, and were found worthy of
imitation by Geoffrey Chaucer.

But it is as the supreme chronicler of the later age of chivalry that
he lives. "God has been gracious enough" he writes, "to permit me to
visit the courts and palaces of kings, ... and all the nobles, kings,
dukes, counts, barons, and knights, belonging to all nations, have
been kind to me, have listened to me, willingly received me, and
proved very useful to me.... Wherever I went I enquired of old knights
and squires who had shared in deeds of arms, and could speak with
authority concerning them, and also spoke with heralds in order to
verify and corroborate all that was told me. In this way I gathered
noble facts for my history, and as long as I live, I shall, by the
grace of God, continue to do this, for the more I labour at this the
more pleasure I have, and I trust that the gentle knight who loves
arms will be nourished on such noble fare, and accomplish still more."_

THE CAMPAIGN OF CRECY

HOW THE KING OF ENGLAND CAME OVER THE SEA AGAIN, TO RESCUE THEM IN
AIGUILLON

The king of England, who had heard how his men were sore constrained
in the castle of Aiguillon, then he thought to go over the sea into
Gascoyne with a great army. There he made his provision and sent for
men all about his realm and in other places, where he thought to speed
for his money. In the same season the lord Godfrey of Harcourt came
into England, who was banished out of France: he was well received
with the king and retained to be about him, and had fair lands
assigned him in England to maintain his degree. Then the king caused a
great navy of ships to be ready in the haven of Hampton, and caused
all manner of men of war to draw thither. About the feast of Saint
John Baptist the year of our Lord God MCCCXLVI., the king departed
from the queen and left her in the guiding of the earl of Kent his
cousin; and he stablished the lord Percy and the lord Nevill to be
wardens of his realm with (the archbishop of Canterbury,) the
archbishop of York, the bishop