, as is sometimes
stated, also a brother of the poet Alain studied, as his elder brother
had done, at the university of Paris. His earliest poem is the _Livre des
quatre dames_, written after the battle of Agincourt. This was followed
by the _Debat du reveille-matin_, _La Belle Dame sans merci_, and others.
None of these poems show any very patriotic feeling, though Chartier's
prose is evidence that he was not indifferent to the misfortunes of his
country. He followed the fortunes of the dauphin, afterwards Charles
VII., acting in the triple capacity of clerk, notary and financial
secretary. In 1422 he wrote the famous _Quadrilogue-invectif_. The
interlocutors in this dialogue are France herself and the three orders of
the state. Chartier lays bare the abuses of the feudal army and the
sufferings of the peasants. He rendered an immense service to his country
by maintaining that the cause of France, though desperate to all
appearance, was not yet lost if the contending factions could lay aside
their differences in the face of the common enemy. In 1424 Chartier was
sent on an embassy to Germany, and three years later he accompanied to
Scotland the mission sent to negotiate the marriage of Margaret of
Scotland, then not four years old, with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI.
In 1429 he wrote the _Livre d'esperance_, which contains a fierce attack
on the nobility and clergy. He was the author of a diatribe on the
courtiers of Charles VII. entitled _Le Curial_, translated into English
(_Here foloweth the copy of a lettre whyche maistre A. Charetier wrote to
his brother_) by Caxton about 1484. The date of his death is to be placed
about 1430. A Latin epitaph, discovered in the 18th century, says,
however, that he was archdeacon of Paris, and declares that he died in
the city of Avignon in 1449. This is obviously not authentic, for Alain
described himself as a _simple clerc_ and certainly died long before
1449. The story of the famous kiss bestowed by Margaret of Scotland on
_la precieuse bouche de laquelle sont issus et sortis tant de bons mots
et vertueuses paroles_ is mythical, for Margaret did not come to France
till 1436, after the poet's death; but the story, first told by Guillaume
Bouchet in his _Annales d'Aquitaine_ (1524), is interesting, if only as a
proof of the high degree of estimation in which the ugliest man of his
day was held. Jean de Masles, who annotated a portion of his verse, has
recorded how the pages and y