this
temperament and that of the men of the South, whom Chaucer was
nevertheless so akin to, let us compare this conclusion with that of the
"Filostrato" as translated at the same time into French by Pierre de
Beauveau: "You will not believe lightly those who give you ear; young
women are wilful and lovely, and admire their own beauty, and hold
themselves haughty and proud amidst their lovers, for vain-glory of
their youth; who, although they be gentle and pretty more than tongue
can say, have neither sense nor firmness, but are variable as a leaf in
the wind." Unlike Chaucer, Pierre de Beauveau contents himself with such
graceful moralisation,[523] which will leave no very deep impression on
the mind, and which indeed could not, for it is itself as light as "a
leaf in the wind."

IV.

After 1379 Chaucer ceased to journey on the Continent, and until his
death he lived in England an English life. He saw then several aspects
of that life which he had not yet known from personal experience. After
having been page, soldier, prisoner of the French, squire to the king,
negotiator in Flanders, France, and Italy, he entered Westminster the
1st of October, 1386, as member of Parliament; the county of Kent had
chosen for its representatives: "Willielmus Betenham" and "Galfridus
Chauceres."[524] It was one of the great sessions of the reign, and one
of the most stormy; the ministers of Richard II. were impeached, and
among others the son of the Hull wool merchant, Michel de la Pole,
Chancellor of the kingdom. For having remained faithful to his
protectors, the king and John of Gaunt, Chaucer, looked upon with ill
favour by the men then in power, of whom Gloucester was the head, lost
his places and fell into want. Then the wheel of Fortune revolved, and
new employments offered a new field to his activity. At the end of three
years, Richard, having dismissed the Council which Parliament had
imposed upon him, took the authority into his own hands, and the poet,
soldier, member of Parliament, and diplomate, was appointed clerk of the
royal works (1389). For two years he had to attend to the constructions
and repairs at Westminster, at the Tower, at Berkhamsted, Eltham, Sheen,
at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and in many others of those castles
which he had described, with "pinacles, imageries, and tabernacles,"
and

ful eek of windowes
As flakes falle in grete snowes.[525]

His great literary occupation, d