[In the essay that follows, Laidlaw offers a critical overview of Chartier's poems in a biographical context.]

Storys to rede ar delitabill,
Suppos that thai be nocht bot fabill.

John Barbour

The preceding account of Chartier's life includes references to most of the poems which can be dated accurately; they will provide a convenient framework into which the other poems can be fitted. In discussing the order in which the poetical works were written,¹ the statements made by the poet about himself will be of importance. Chartier states in some poems that he has no lady and has never known love; in others he is in love; in others he mourns the death of his beloved and in his grief abandons poetry. Such statements cannot be assumed to be reliable and straight-forward. In evaluating them, some assessment will be made of the poems, their form, their intention and their quality. The chapter is not intended, however, to present a detailed analysis and appreciation of Chartier's poetical works. It would be premature to do so in the absence of satisfactory critical editions of Chartier's works in French prose.

LE LAY DE PLAISANCE

The Lay de Plaisance is one of Alain Chartier's earliest works.² It is a poem for the New Year written

Pour commencer joyeusement l'annee … (1)

The joy with which lovers greet one another is described and contrasted with the attitude of the poet. He has no lady and has never been granted true love:

Dame qui soit ne sera huy penee
Pour m'estrener, ne moy pour dame nee,
Dont je doy bien piteusement plourer. (16)

Although his mood is sad, he advises the friend whom he addresses in the second stanza to cultivate Plaisance, which is to be interpreted as ‘pleasure’ or a ‘pleasing, cheerful disposition’. The next nine stanzas are in definition and praise of Plaisance, which is necessary in love and is to be contrasted with Mirencolie. In the final stanzas the friend is enjoined to serve both Plaisance and Amours; if he does so, he will be the more acceptable and honoured as a lover.

Both the tone and the construction of the Lay de Plaisance confirm that it is an early work. The sections defining Plaisance and praising its worth are not well developed, being repetitive and at times obscure. The obscurity almost certainly results from the poet's need to force his thoughts into the difficult mould of the lay. The Lay de Plaisance is copied in a relatively small number of manuscripts and appears not to have been widely known or esteemed.

LE DEBAT DES DEUX FORTUNéS D'AMOURS

The Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours, also known as the Debat du Gras et du Maigre, is almost certainly an early work.³ It is a substantial poem, 1246 lines long, in which Alain Chartier displays more control over his material and much greater technical skill than in the Lay de Plaisance. In plan and also in metre, the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours resembles a number of narrative poems by earlier writers; it is particularly close to the Debat de Deux Amans written by Christine de Pisan between 1400 and 1402.⁴ The Acteur or Author plays a similar part in both works.

The two Fortunés d'Amours speak in turn; the fat knight, who maintains that more benefits than ills are to be derived from the service of love, is followed by his thin companion whose view is the reverse. These long speeches are followed by short replies from each knight before the problem is sent for arbitration. The author's role is that of observer and reporter: he sets the scene as the poem begins and ends, and he is the narrator of those passages which link the speeches delivered by the fat and thin knights; he is asked by the audience to make the debate ready for presentation to the arbiter. Although the author's role is restricted and passive, his character is not undeveloped.

The poet hesitates to join in the conversation of the company in which he finds himself. It is partly because the joyous mood of the knights and ladies gathered in the castle contrasts with his own, but chiefly because he is timid and lacks experience:

Ne ou parler d'elles ne me boutoye,
Mais mon penser et ma langue arrestoye
Et de faillir a parler me doubtoye,
Ardant d'apprendre (16)
Et d'aucun bien recevoir et comprendre
En si hault lieu ou Honneur se doit prendre,
Ou j'estoye le plus nice et le mendre.

When, towards the end of the poem, a search is made for a person suitable to record the debate, it is emphasised that he was

Seul clerc present, escoutant par derriere (1232)
Tout le debat, les poins et la maniere.

A final quatrain, which mentions the name Alain and with which the poem is signed, as it were, also emphasises the inexperience of a poet

Qui parle ainsi d'amours par ouïr dire (1246)

The arbiter to whom the poem was to be sent was Jean de Grailli, Count of Foix, who was at that time absent ‘en ost armé’. The poem shows that Alain Chartier had some knowledge of Jean de Grailli and his affairs. The Count's amorous device ‘J'ay belle dame’ and the fact that his arms were quartered are worked into the closing lines. At three points he is described as the heir of (Gaston) Phoebus.⁵

Possible dates for the composition of the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours are between 1412 and 1420, or between 1425 and 1430. Jean de Grailli was the eldest son of Archambaud, Captal of Buch and of Isabelle, Countess of Foix in her own right.⁶ On 22 February 1411/12, after the death of her husband, Isabelle confirmed her son as Count of Foix. Jean de Grailli was appointed Captain-General of the royal forces in Languedoc soon afterwards and was presently engaged in conflict with the Armagnacs. In 1420, after various complaints about his administration, he was deprived of his office by the Dauphin. Relations between the Dauphin, later Charles VII, and the Count of Foix were strained, not to say hostile, until the two became reconciled early in 1425.

In fact the date can be narrowed still further. The device ‘J'ay belle dame’ makes up one of the short lines and is therefore in an emphatic position. The short line next following is also emphatic:

Or l'a il (sc. Jean) belle. (1207)

It was taken by Gaston Paris to refer to Jean de Grailli's second marriage, to Jeanne d'Albret early in 1423; if this were the case, the poem would date from 1425 or 1426, in which years Jean de Grailli was engaged on several military expeditions.⁷

The case of the Count's first wife, Jeanne de Navarre, must also be considered, however. Perhaps the beauty of her person was such as to merit Chartier's description; as heiress apparent to the throne of Navarre, she was also an excellent match. If it is to her that Chartier is referring, then the poem must have been written between February 1411/12 and July 1413, when the Countess died. During 1412 the Count of Foix was at war with the Armagnacs: one expedition seems to have lasted from April until August or later; another foray took place in October.⁸ It is probable that the poem was composed in 1412 at a time when the French court was anxious to win and keep the support of the house of Foix. The house of Anjou which had extensive interests in Provence would also favour this policy;⁹ indeed, Louis of Anjou, King of Sicily, was present at the meeting of the Council at which the appointment of Jean de Grailli as Captain-General was approved.¹⁰

It would not be surprising in these circumstances that Alain Chartier, then in the service of Queen Yolande, should in 1412 have invited Jean, Count of Foix to serve as arbiter of the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours. The literary evidence already discussed supports that date, which will be confirmed by the account of the Livre des Quatre Dames which follows.

Doubtless the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours was intended to be presented to Jean de Grailli; no trace of a presentation copy has been found. One manuscript, Ga, contains only the poem, but its text is imperfect. Although the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours was apparently better known than the Lay de Plaisance, neither poem seems to have enjoyed as wide a circulation as those written later. Whether there is some connection between the early date of these two poems and the relatively small number of copies in which they have survived, is uncertain.

LE LIVRE DES QUATRE DAMES

The Livre des Quatre Dames is the longest and most ambitious of Chartier's poetical works, being almost three times as long as the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours. The prologue to the poem is in octosyllabic lines arranged in twelve stanzas of twelve or sixteen lines; the metre of the body of the poem recalls that of the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours. There are other similarities in plan and treatment.

The four ladies are met by the poet as he walks in the countryside on the first morning of May. They are all in distress, having been affected each in a different way by a recent battle against the English. The battle, which had been disastrous for France and from which a number of French knights had fled, can only be Agincourt. The criticism meted out to fugitives and laggards in the speeches of the First and Fourth Ladies echoes that in contemporary accounts.¹¹ Nevertheless, the name of the battle is not given within the poem itself; in only one manuscript, Pc, is it named in the rubric of the poem. After the four ladies in turn had described their plight to the author, he returned to Paris:

Envers Paris m'en retournay, (3450)
Car sans y estre, bon jour n'ay.

The poem must therefore have been begun after 25 October 1415, the date of the battle, and finished before May 1418 when Chartier fled Paris to join the Dauphin. A poem of 3531 lines must have taken a considerable time to compose; it cannot have been completed before 1416.

The theme with which the Livre des Quatre Dames opens is a commonplace one. A prey to Melancholy, the poet seeks solace in the spring landscape. He walks alone as is his custom; the joy which he takes in contemplating the scene around him is dispelled as he recalls the reasons for his grief. The skill with which this very detailed description is handled suggests from the beginning that the Livre des Quatre Dames will mark an advance on the earlier poems. The greater assurance of the poet is shown by his concern to amplify the introduction and by his confidence that, in doing so, he can retain the interest of his audience or reader: it is also apparent in the poet's willingness to analyse his own mood and to take an active rather than passive role in the action.

He is now in love and the victim of injustice at the hands of Amours. His lady is unaware of his love and he himself is too timid to declare his love to her or to recount the grief which besets him. His diffidence is further emphasised when he ventures the opinion that he is one of many who love her and that he is the least of them. His only consolation is that he has chosen well. In a passage which is probably more extravagant than true, he adds that since childhood he has suffered nothing but pain and trouble.

An account of his love-affair now follows. Of his heart he writes:

Je l'y ay mis (320)
Puis deux mois et m'en suy desmis,
Et si ay a Amours promis
Lui quicter, et m'en suy soubmis
A son bon vueil, (324)
Lui prïant qu'il change le dueil
Que passé a deux ans recueil,
Qui appert au doy et a l'oeil,
Par le refuz (328)
De celle a qui servant je fuz,
Qui mist en mon cuer fers et fustz
D'un dart amoureux dont confuz
Je me rendi (332)
Par deux ans sa grace actendi …

Thus his present lady is not the only one to whom Chartier has lost his heart. He had loved another, and had waited for two years to have some token of her love, but to no avail. If these statements are accepted as true, then two or three years at least must separate the Livre des Quatre Dames from the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours in which the poet ‘parle d'amours par ouïr dire’. The dates suggested for the two poems are consistent with such an interval.

Chartier's lady, to whom he has now abandoned his heart, is mentioned again at the end of the Livre des Quatre Dames. It had originally been suggested that the poet himself should act as arbiter in the debate between the four ladies. After each has expounded in turn her claim to be considered the most worthy of pity, that proposal is set aside in favour of Chartier's own suggestion that his lady should be asked to arbitrate; a lady would in any case be a more fitting judge of a dispute involving members of her own sex. The poet now recalls his own diffidence in matters concerning love; we learn that, in a conversation with the lady which had taken place almost a year before, he had asserted:

Qu'amant doit estre un an en crainte
Sans oser descouvrir la plainte
De quoy sa pensee est actainte.
Bien lui souvient (3424)
De ces paroles, se devient;
Maiz s'en memoire lui revient,
El scet que le bout de l'an vient.

A little earlier (lines 3396-7), he had said that it would soon be a year since he had fallen in love with his lady. That statement contradicts lines 320-33 quoted above; from them it seemed that Chartier had surrendered his heart to his lady some two months previously. The discrepancy can be explained by taking into account the time spent in writing the poem.

The Livre des Quatre Dames concludes with a request that the lady, who is not named, should judge the dispute. The poet hopes that she will not be displeased with the gift of his book and apologises in advance for any defects which it may contain. In its diffidence the apology recalls that with which the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours had ended:

Il m'est commis que je demande (3475)
Vostre avis, Belle,
D'une questïon bien nouvelle
Dont en ce livre la querele
J'ay mise en rime tele quele,
Au long escripte. (3480)

The ‘book’ referred to here and at other points in the concluding lines may be the poem itself; it may also be a presentation copy intended to be given to the lady. The length of the Livre des Quatre Dames is such that it could conveniently be copied to make up a volume of small format. Six manuscripts are known which contain only the poem. Dd and Df, although they are too late in date for either of them to be the presentation copy, do contain, among a series of delicate miniatures, one depicting the presentation to the lady of the Livre des Quatre Dames.

Who Chartier's lady was, whether she was real or not, is impossible to determine. The information given about her is presented in such a way that, if she existed, she alone could have recognised herself. It is almost as difficult to identify the Four Ladies. No personal details are given of the Third Lady whose lover is still missing after the battle, nor of the Fourth Lady whose lover fled the field. Although the First Lady's lover, who was killed in the battle, is described as being:

De hault sang et royal lignage, (706)

such a description fits more than one of the nobles who lost their lives at Agincourt.

More details are given of the Second Lady's lover, who now lies captive in England. In describing her love for him, the Second Lady mentions the great humility which he showed in loving her; she further stresses that, before he was twenty, he had often been the object of attacks by Fortune who had harried him since the age of ten:

                    Car sans mesprison,
Mort d'amis, guerres et prison, (1196)
Couroux et pertes,
Blasmes par mensonges appertes,
Traÿsons, mauvaistiez couvertes
A essaiees et expertes … (1200)

Before the battle her lover had been ill—she paints a pleasing picture of him composing ballades on his sick-bed—but had insisted on going to battle in order to forestall criticism. Since his capture she has had no letters from him nor indeed any news of him. The ladies of England are asked to intercede on his behalf.

The information given about the prisoner points to Charles d'Orléans. Charles was born on 24 November 1394 and was thus not quite twenty-one at the time of Agincourt.¹² The quarrel between the Burgundian and the Orleanist factions had turned into open hostility for the first time in the summer of 1405 when he was ten years old. The Second Lady refers to the ten years of civil war which ensued in lines 3293ff., especially in line 3298. During that time Fortune smiled but rarely on Charles d'Orléans: the murder of his father, Louis d'Orléans, in November 1407 is referred to by the Second Lady in lines 3260-3; December 1408 saw the death of his mother, Valentina Visconti; his wife, Isabelle de France, died in September 1409. And so Charles, at the age of fourteen, was left both an orphan and a widower. He subsequently married Bonne, daughter of the Count of Armagnac; their happiness was to be short-lived for Charles was captured at the battle of Agincourt. The Second Lady mentions her husband's great humility in loving her; if she were Bonne d'Armagnac, she might be referring both to the difference in rank between her husband and herself and also to the fact that Charles' first wife had been a daughter of Charles VI. While it is not known whether Charles d'Orléans was ill just before the battle, it is well established that he was already a poet of some repute.¹³

All four Ladies are fierce in their criticism of those who did not join the army or who fled the field, the First and Fourth Ladies being most outspoken. The way in which their two speeches combine expressions of private grief with bitter attacks on the behaviour of the noble and knightly classes is a striking and novel feature of the poem. As early as 1416, Alain Chartier was developing those ideas which he was to expound more forcibly and at greater length in prose, for example in the Quadrilogue Invectif of 1422 or in Latin works of the same period.

LE BREVIAIRE DES NOBLES

The duties incumbent on the nobility form the subject of the Breviaire des Nobles. Chartier's concern in the poem is to define and describe noblesse: he does so in a time-honoured and convenient way, by dividing the quality into twelve constituent virtues which are treated each in a separate ballade.¹⁴ Since the definition and description of these virtues are theoretical and general, the poem cannot be dated.¹⁵ In content, it recalls some of the lyrics of Christine de Pisan, particularly her Autres Ballades.¹⁶ The idea of writing a sequence of ballades was not an original one and may have occurred to Chartier through his acquaintance with the lyric poetry of Christine de Pisan or with the Cent Ballades.¹⁷

LE LAY DE PAIX

Possible dates for the composition of the Lay de Paix have already been discussed and rejected.¹⁸ The poem resembles the Breviaire des Nobles in that Peace, like Nobility, is discussed on a general level. Although the Lay de Paix is addressed to the ‘Princes nez du lis precïeux’, it is not certain that it was inspired by any particular event. The poem was probably composed before Chartier's embassy to the Duke of Burgundy but could have been written considerably earlier than April 1426.

LE DEBAT DU HERAULT, DU VASSAULT ET DU VILLAIN¹⁹

The plight of France is discussed in more specific terms in the Debat du Herault, du Vassault et du Villain. The greater part of the poem is taken up by a debate between a Herault and a Vassault. They both agree that the present situation is desperate, but, whereas the Vassault is discouraged and disillusioned, the Herault advocates positive action and a return to the values of earlier generations. Their debate is overheard by a Villain who interrupts it rudely to present the views of the peasantry. The grievances and prejudices of the three are set down in appropriately forthright language and in simple rhymes.

While in subject the poem bears some resemblance to the Quadrilogue Invectif, it is a much less developed and polished production than the prose work. The suggestions that the Debat du Herault … dates from 1422 like the Quadrilogue Invectif²⁰ or that it was written between 1421 and 1425²¹ can be discounted: the allusions in the poem are far from specific. The references to the English, however, do suggest that it dates from after the invasion of 1415.

The Debat du Herault … has some puzzling features. The last two stanzas, which indicate that the poem is by Chartier, are attached to the poem rather inconsequentially. They mention Pierre de Nesson, the ‘vaillant bailly d'Aigueperse’, but the words attributed to him show him to be anything but valorous.²² Chartier adds, tongue in cheek, that he has told his copyist not to show Nesson the poem:

… quant je l'ay fait escripre, (436)
J'ay a l'escripvain deffendu
Du moustrer. Au fort, s'on lui baille,
Bien assailly, bien deffendu;
Face, s'il scet, de pire taille! (440)

Chartier's ‘bon compaignon Neczon’ is being challenged to go one better, or rather, one worse. The little else that is known about relations between Chartier and Nesson has already been discussed. The story of the drunken crier and the sentence of banishment also pointed to a relationship good-humoured enough to allow both gibes and practical jokes.

Curiously, the Debat du Herault … survives in only one manuscript, Of, where it is copied just before two poems by Nesson. It cannot have circulated widely, and it may not have been its author's intention that it should.

LE DEBAT DE REVEILLE MATIN

Like the Debat du Herault …, the Debat de Reveille Matin contains little information about the date when it was written. The subject of the poem, a Sleeper being compelled to listen to, and to comment on, the grievances and aspirations of a sleepless Lover, recalls a passage in the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours:

S'il va couchier joieux, n'en faictes doubte. (388)
Si arraisonne
Son compaignon a qui sa foy s'adonne,
Et toute nuit la teste lui estonne …

Chartier, in presenting the debate between the Amoureux and the Compaignon, assumes his customary role of reporter and observer. The terseness of the introduction and the conclusion to the poem suggest on the part of the author a diffidence similar to that which characterises the opening and closing lines of the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours.

On the other hand, the Debat de Reveille Matin is markedly different in form and conception from that poem. The stanzas are of eight octosyllabic lines rhyming ababbcbc. Chartier almost certainly knew poems by Oton de Granson in which the same stanza form is used.²³ This type of octave was also chosen by Chartier for the Belle Dame sans Mercy and the Excusacion aux Dames. In the Debat du Herault … a second variety is found, with the rhyme-scheme ababcdcd.

If the Excusacion is excepted, the octave was used by Chartier for the purpose of debate. In the Debat de Reveille Matin and the Belle Dame sans Mercy two protagonists speak alternate stanzas, once the debate proper has begun. Much of the Debat du Herault … follows that pattern, although there longer and shorter speeches also occur to give variety. The method of presentation of the debate is thus very different from the technique of the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours or the Livre des Quatre Dames, in which the characters deliver long set speeches and in which the author, as he prepares the transition from one speech to another, assumes the role of commentator in addition to that of observer. These two poems are also much longer than the three debates now under consideration. These last are reminiscent of the earlier debat. It is in the development of this older form of the debat, in which he allies shrewdness of observation with dialogue of high quality, that Chartier is at his most original. One would like to know whether Chartier wrote the two types of debate at the same period or whether the more concise and original form succeeded the two long debates which recall similar poems by Christine de Pisan or Guillaume de Machaut;²⁴ although the latter order may seem the more likely, one cannot be certain.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY AND L'EXCUSACION AUX DAMES

The Debat de Reveille Matin was almost certainly written before the Belle Dame sans Mercy²⁵ which dates from 1424.²⁶ The two poems differ above all in tone and in outlook. The mood of the Debat de Reveille Matin is good-humoured; when the poet contrasts the extreme protestations and yearning of the sleepless courtly Lover with the prosaic statements and wise saws of his somnolent Companion, he does so sympathetically and indulgently. While the Debat de Reveille Matin may contain hints of irony and perhaps also of self-mockery, these are less developed than in the Belle Dame sans Mercy. The author plays an important role in the latter poem, a significant proportion of the work being devoted to a description of his mood and to an account of the events which preceded the debate. The poet is in mourning following the death of his lady and is far from anxious to join the gathering which he comes on ‘par droicte destinee’ (line 55). As he watches the particular Lover and Lady whose conversation is to form the centre-piece of the poem, the poet recalls his own love. The line and a half of direct speech uttered then:

(Si dis a par moy:) ‘Se m'aist Dieux,
Autel(27) fumes comme vous estes’, (120)

are clearly emphatic for they occur at the end of a stanza and are the only lines of direct speech within a long piece of narration. Line 120 is just as clearly ambiguous; the comparison between Chartier himself and the Lover may entail a comparison between the Lady and Chartier's dead mistress but need not do so. It is just as difficult to be certain about the tone and mood in which the two characters conduct their debate. A debate has affinities with a play; its different sections can be interpreted in different ways or given differing degrees of emphasis.

The character of the Lover is better developed and more finely drawn than that of his counterpart in the Debat de Reveille Matin. His protestations are even more extravagant and are couched in language of fitting eloquence. The Lady shuns rhetoric; while her speeches recall those of the Companion in their use of proverbial expressions, her attitude to the Lover is far less sympathetic than had been that of the Companion to his bedfellow. The Lady's wit and intelligence are more than proof against all the Lover's fervour and all the rhetoric which he can marshal. The good-natured banter of the Debat de Reveille Matin has become disillusion and self-mockery.

The poem can also be seen as a criticism of courtly attitudes and conventions. It was so interpreted by some contemporary readers who condemned it as an attack on courtly society and particularly the ladies. In his Excusacion aux Dames, written in the spring of 1425, Chartier excused himself and his poem.

LA COMPLAINTE

The allusion in the Belle Dame sans Mercy to the death of Chartier's lady makes it possible to assign his Complainte to the same period. The poem is written in stanzas of twelve or sixteen lines which rhyme: aa(a)baa(a)bbb(b)abb(b)a. The scheme is similar to that employed in the prologue to the Livre des Quatre Dames save that two rhymes, rather than three, are used in each stanza and that decasyllabic, not octosyllabic, lines are used; the longer line is in keeping with the gravity of the subject. Chartier addresses his complaint to untimely Death who has taken his mistress from him and who has thereby deprived the world and the poet of one who was the sum of all beauties and all virtues. This moving poem, in which Chartier's rhetorical and poetic skills are combined most effectively, was well known; its influence can be traced in many a later poem.²⁸

RONDEAULX ET BALADES

The lady's death was also the inspiration of a number of lyric poems, a rondeau (xvii) and two ballades (xxiv and xxvii). The other twenty-five lyrics treat different aspects of the poet's experience: in one (xxvi), he is newly fallen in love and he describes how it came about on Saint Valentine's Day; elsewhere (xxi), he protests his love for his lady and his intention to serve her; he is too timid to declare his love to his lady (i, ii); more often he asks for her mercy and dwells on the effects which he may suffer if it is refused (vii, ix, xv); elsewhere, he tells of the pains of separation (x, xiii) and, in one poem (xi), he tells how his lady has accepted another in his stead. The small collection of lyrics which has survived was written over a number of years. Some recall the aspirations of his earliest poems and are almost certainly contemporaneous with them, while others are of a much later period. The order in which the lyrics are presented in the manuscripts appears to be haphazard.

The opening stanzas of the Belle Dame sans Mercy include the following lines:

Je laysse aux amoreux malades
Qui ont espoir d'alegement
Faire chançons, diz et balades,
Chascun a son entendement. (28)
Desormais est temps de moy tayre,
Car de dire suis je lassé.
Je vueil laissier aux autres faire:
Leur temps est; le mien est passé. (36)

A similar sentiment is expressed in a ballade (xxiv) written after his lady's death:

… plus ne fais dit ne chançon nouvelle, (6)
… j'ay mis soubz le banc ma vïelle.

Such statements might be assumed to be either temporary or conventional reactions to grief; in fact none of the poems of Alain Chartier, narrative or lyric, appears to be later than the Belle Dame sans Mercy or the Excusacion.

The following list sets the poems in the order suggested by the discussion.

? Le Lay de Plaisance

1412-13 Le Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours

1416 Le Livre des Quatre Dames

? Le Debat du Herault, du Vassault et du Villain

? Le Breviaire des Nobles

? (before 1426) Le Lay de Paix

? Le Debat de Reveille Matin

1424 La Complainte

1424 La Belle Dame sans Mercy

1425 L'Excusacion aux Dames

c. 1410-1425 Rondeaulx et Balades

Notes

1. The reasons for accepting that a particular poem is authentic are given in the introduction to the edition of the poem.

2. Pierre Champion (Histoire poétique, 1, 8-10) was of the same opinion. In dating the poem 1 January 1413 or 1414, he relied on statements in the Livre des Quatre Dames, composed in 1416; according to them Chartier had been in love for two years. It is shown below that the Debat des Deux Fortunés d'Amours was written in 1412 or 1413. The Lay de Plaisance is almost certainly an earlier work than the Debat. New Year's Day is Easter Day (see pp. 7 and 17).

3. The contrary view has generally been taken. See p. 31, n. 1.

4. Roy, Christine de Pisan, 11, 1891, xiii.

5. Gaston III, Count of Foix (1331-91).

6. See L. Flourac, Jean 1er comte de Foix, vicomte souverain de Béarn, lieutenant du roi en Languedoc, Paris, Picard, 1884.

7. G. Paris, ‘Note additionnelle sur Jean de Grailli, comte de Foix’, Romania, xv, 1886, 611-13. Later critics have been of the same opinion, though some doubt was cast on the traditional date by D. Poirion (Le Poète et le prince …, Paris, Presses Univ. de France, 1965, 267, n. 81).

8. Flourac, Jean 1er comte de Foix, 51 and 54.

9. Coville, La Vie intellectuelle dans les domaines d'Anjou-Provence, 5-10.

10. Flourac, Jean 1er comte de Foix, 233-7.

11. Mlle Dupont (ed.), Mémoires de Pierre de Fenin, Paris, 1837, 62-7 (SHF); L. Douët-D'Arcq (ed.), La Chronique d'Enguerran de Monstrelet, iii, Paris, 1859, 103-21 (SHF).

12. See P. Champion, La Vie de Charles d'Orléans (1394-1465), Paris, Champion, 1911 (Bibliothèque du XVe siècle, xiii).

13. It is interesting to note that about 1442 the librairie of Charles d'Orléans contained ‘Ung viel livre des Quatre Dames, en papier, couvert de viel parchemin’ (P. Champion, La Librairie de Charles d'Orléans, Paris, 1910, 30); the way the manuscript is described suggests that he had owned it for some time.

14. A similar plan was used by Christine de Pisan in the Livre de la Paix, when she defined vertu in terms of prudence and six other virtues. See Charity C. Willard (ed.), The ‘Livre de la Paix’ of Christine de Pisan, 's-Gravenhage, Mouton, 1958, 64.

15. E. Droz (Alain Chartier: le Quadrilogue invectif, viii) suggested 1424 as a possible date.

16. For example Autre Ballade L, a description of the duties of a gentilhomme. See Roy, Christine de Pisan, i, 264-6.

17. See p. 23.

18. See p. 11.

19. The debate has until now been known as the Debat Patriotique. See p. 421.

20. Champion, Histoire poétique, i, 42; Droz, Alain Chartier: le Quadrilogue invectif, viii.

21. Walravens, Alain Chartier, études biographiques, 68-71.

22. Lines 429-32. It is not known when Nesson was appointed to that office; no other reference to it has been found. One would like to be sure that it was not just a nickname.

23. For example in the two Complaintes de Saint Valentin. See Piaget, Oton de Grandson, 183-93 and 221-5.

24. For example the Debat de Deux Amans (Roy, Christine de Pisan, ii, 49-109) or the Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne (Hoepffner, Œuvres de Guillaume de Machaut, i, 57-135).

25. Champion (Histoire poétique, i, 63-4) takes that view. The poem is dated 1425, a year later than the Belle Dame sans Mercy, by Droz (Alain Chartier: le Quadrilogue invectif, viii).

26. See p. 7.

27. Certain manuscripts have the alternative reading Autelz; see p. 335.

28. See p. 53.