s_; that
_nuance_ which distinguishes an ambassador from a messenger was held as
insignificant, and escaped observation; the two functions formed but
one. "You," said Eustache Des Champs, "you, ambassador and messenger,
who go about the world to do your duty at the Courts of great princes,
your journeys are not short ones!... Don't be in such a hurry; your plea
must be submitted to council before an answer can be returned: just wait
a little more, my good friend; ... we must talk of the matter with the
chancellor and some others.... Time passes and all turns out
wrong."[468] Precedents are a great thing in diplomacy; here we find a
time-honoured one.

Recourse was often had to men of letters, for these mixed functions, and
they were filled by the most illustrious writers of the century,
Boccaccio in Italy, Chaucer in England, Des Champs in France. The
latter, whose career much resembles Chaucer's, has traced the most
lamentable pictures of the life led by an "ambassador and messenger" on
the highways of Europe: Bohemia, Poland, Hungary; in these regions the
king's service caused him to journey. His horse is half dead, and "sits
on his knees"[469]; the inhabitants have the incivility to speak only
their own language, so that one cannot even order one's dinner; you must
needs take what is served: "'Tis ill eating to another's appetite."[470]

The lodging is worse: "No one may lie by himself, but two by two in a
dark room, or oftener three by three, in one bed, haphazard." One may
well regret sweet France, "where each one has for his money what he
chooses to ask for, and at reasonable price: room to himself, fire,
sleep, repose, bed, white pillow, and scented sheets."[471]

Happily for Chaucer, it was in Flanders, France, and Italy that he
negotiated for Edward and Richard. In December, 1372, he traverses all
France, and goes to Genoa to treat with the doge of commercial matters;
then he repairs to Florence, and having thus passed a whole winter far
from the London fogs (which already existed in the Middle Ages), he
returns to England in the summer of 1373. In 1376 a new mission is
entrusted to him, this time a secret one, the secret has been well kept
to this day; more missions in 1377 and 1378. "On Trinity Sunday," 1376,
says Froissart, "passed away from this world the flower of England's
chivalry, my lord Edward of England, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, in
the palace of Westminster by London, and was embalmed and put