E (1540-1563), French poet, was born in
Dauphine, a scion of the house of Bayard. His name is inseparably
connected with Mary, queen of Scots. From the service of the Constable
Montmorency, Chastelard, then a page, passed to the household of Marshal
Damville, whom he accompanied in his journey to Scotland in escort of
Mary (1561). He returned to Paris in the marshal's train, but left for
Scotland again shortly afterward, bearing letters of recommendation to
Mary from his old protector, Montmorency, and the _Regrets_ addressed to
the ex-queen of France by Pierre Ronsard, his master in the art of song.
He undertook to transmit to the poet the service of plate with which
Mary rewarded him. But he had fallen in love with the queen, who is said
to have encouraged his passion. Copies of verse passed between them; she
lost no occasion of showing herself partial to his person and
conversation. The young man hid himself under her bed, where he was
discovered by her maids of honour. Mary pardoned the offence, and the
old familiar terms between them were resumed. Chastelard was so rash as
again to violate her privacy. He was discovered a second time, seized,
sentenced and hanged the next morning. He met his fate valiantly and
consistently, reading, on his way to the scaffold, his master's noble
_Hymne de la mort_, and turning at the instant of doom towards the
palace of Holyrood, to address to his unseen mistress the famous
farewell--"Adieu, toi si belle et si cruelle, qui me tues et que je ne
puis cesser d'aimer." This at least is the version of the _Memoires_ of
Brantome, who is, however, notoriously untrustworthy. But for his
madness of love, it is possible that Chastelard would have left no
shadow or shred of himself behind. As it is, his life and death are of
interest as illustrating the wild days in which his lot was cast.

CHASTELLAIN, GEORGES (d. 1475), Burgundian chronicler, was a native of
Alost in Flanders. He derived his surname from the fact that his
ancestors were burgraves or chatelains of the town; his parents, who
belonged to illustrious Flemish families, were probably the Jean
Chastellain and his wife Marie de Masmines mentioned in the town records
in 1425 and 1432. A copy of an epitaph originally at Valenciennes states
that he died on the 20th of March 1474-5 aged seventy. But since he
states that he was so young a child in 1430 that he could not recollect
the details of events in that year, and since he wa