[In the essay that follows, White reads the Débat patriotique as a depiction of a generational conflict between a patriotic old knight and a cynical young knight regarding the Hundred Years' War.]

A recent article on the Cent Ballades¹ places in contrast the attitude in 1390 of the mature and disillusioned chevaliers and that of their younger and more enthusiastic fellows toward the Hundred Years' War. The present study will continue and complement that of Professor Cottrell by discussing the attitudes and ideals of those same young knights, now mature themselves, and the attitudes of the knights of the following generation, between 1416 and 1422.² This contrast will be discussed in the context of the Débat patriotique of Alain Chartier.³

According to Cottrell,

… l'ardente jeunesse aristocrate, s'enorgueillissant de ses traditionelles fonctions militaires et avide d'aventures chevaleresques, envisageait la guerre comme un glorieux tournoi et s'y jetait à corps perdu. Au fur et à mesure que se prolongeait la désastreuse débâcle (La Guerre de Cent Ans), les nobles les plus mûrs, les plus désabusés, opposaient l'idéal de la sagesse pratique au délirant enthousiasme de la jeunesse. Le conflit qui s'ensuit entre l'exaltation idéaliste (et folle, puisqu'elle aveuglait les jeunes chevaliers sur les réalités de la guerre qui amènerait leur mort) et la sagesse pratique, se présente donc comme un conflit de deux générations.⁴

The Cent Ballades were first made public in 1390, and one may assume that the young chevaliers were at that time about twenty years old. “Avides des aventures qu'ils espéraient vivre dans la guerre de Cent Ans, ils s'accrochaient à un idéal qui prêchait engagement, héroisme, sacrifice.”⁵ The herault of the Débat patriotique represents the survivors of this same generation, thirty years later. In spite of the fact that he has matured and even grown old, he has lost neither his patriotic enthusiasm nor his ideal of engagement, heroism, and sacrifice. In the poem of Chartier, the vassault, whose sentiments, on account of his age, should correspond to those of the young knights of the Cent Ballades, is cynical and almost without ideals. (One is tempted to see analogies between the vassault and the young men of the post-World War II generation.)

The Débat patriotique of Alain Chartier contains four hundred and forty octosyllabic lines, arranged in fifty-five huitains, rhymed ababcdcd. The form of the poem is that of the traditional debate and is also a playlet with three characters: the herault, the vassault, and the villain. The first three huitains give us the mise-en-scène, and then the debate-playlet begins. The herault, a prudent old knight who has traveled extensively, is speaking to a young nobleman, son of a valiant knight, but the young nobleman seems not to have inherited many of his father's good qualities. The herault has begun the conversation with the vassault because he had observed the young man upbraiding the villain, a peasant from the neighboring countryside. The herault is both surprised and shocked at such ignoble behavior because he had formerly known the young man's father. Thus Chartier presents to us the mise-en-scène and three allegorical persons: the herault represents the old and time-honored traditions of chivalry; the vassault is the symbol of the new generation of nobility who are beginning to hold the ideals of chivalry in low esteem; the villain represents both the peasants and the bourgeoisie.

The herault scolds the vassault: far from “Villenant villains en villaige,”⁶ the vassault ought to be in the army, serving under a brave warrior, as his father had served under good old maréchal Sancerre, who had made him sleep on straw and eat on the ground. The vassault makes the eternal response of impatient youth—“But times have changed.” His father certainly would not have slept on straw if he had had a nice, soft bed. The herault replies that honor would never have come to men of his generation if they had all sought easy lives. Honor never does come easily, and cowards have neither worth nor reputation. The poor man who is brave has greater treasure than a hundred rich men, because he knows he is beloved, praised, and feared. Unfortunately, replies the vassault, many warriors have tried to attain honor but have lost their lives instead. Besides, brave men are not held in such high esteem as they once were. Moreover, why should one sacrifice one's possessions and perhaps even one's life at the risk of being ridiculed by court rumours? “Leur blasme vous est ung grant loz,”⁷ replies the herault. But the vassault contends that these courtiers are often great lords, who are themselves not setting good examples, because they are interested neither in honor nor in glory. He agrees that every gentleman should try to increase his honor, but brave masters and captains are necessary to make brave soldiers and valiant knights—and, times have changed. In this case, according to the herault, the opportunity is even greater for a truly brave warrior.

The debate continues with a criticism of the nobility, who seek honor in titles and waste their time at court. Many younger sons of noble houses become priests, without “lecture ne science.”⁸ What can one expect in a nation where such men are the leaders of government and church? Finally the villain, who has been listening all the while, enters the debate. He is particularly interested in the taille, which has been badly spent. Not a single victory has been won against the English, because the French soldiers prefer to pillage their own fellow citizens. According to the villain, the war would be won if the gentlemen did their duty—to serve the king with their “corps” as the peasants are doing with their “avoir.”⁹ The reputation of the French soldiery has sunk so low that even if they killed every English soldier, no one would believe it. The herault cannot keep from laughing, but the vassault gets angry, and answers that talk is cheap if one is not obliged to risk one's life. Chartier then ends the poem by telling us that it seemed to him that he had been witnessing the performance of a farce.

The Débat patriotique is the best of Alain Chartier's poems. Discovered by Siegfried Lemm only in 1914, it is interesting to note that critics before that date did not have Chartier's poetic masterpiece to aid them in formulating their judgments of his work. The poem has almost none of the poetic conventions (except the debate form) which are found in Chartier's other poems, as well as in those of the majority of his contemporaries. On the contrary, the Débat patriotique contains all the best qualities of that prose which is the source of Alain Chartier's reputation as “père de l'éloquence française.”¹⁰ The author does not insinuate himself into the debate, but presents to us the three currents of public opinion through the speech of the herault, the vassault, and the villain. Chartier can see that there is some truth in the ideas of each of these representatives of contemporary public opinion, but he leaves no doubt that the patriotism of the herault is closest to his own feelings. The poem is vigorous and bold, and contains an element of satire which is not characteristic of Chartier's other poems. The style is lively and direct, in a tone which is almost conversational; the dialogue is rapid and realistic. Without the conventional allegory, the débat amoureux, and the didacticism common to most of his other poems, and to so much of the poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Chartier reveals a quite different facet of his creativity. One might wish that he had been able to free himself more often from the poetic concepts and conventions of the epoch.

In the Débat patriotique then, we see another conflict of generations. The young chevalier of the Cent Ballades has now matured and grown old, but he has not lost his patriotic ideals and enthusiasm. Even after the disaster of Agincourt, he retains his courage, his love of his country, and loyalty to his legitimate king. The young vassault however, reared during the worst part of the Hundred Years' War, is discouraged and cynical. With such an attitude on the part of the youth of France, small wonder that it took a Joan of Arc to deliver the nation.

Notes

1. Robert D. Cottrell, “Le Conflict des générations dans les Cent Ballades,” French Review, XXXVII, No. 5 (April 1964), 517-523.

2. There is a difference of opinion as to the date of the Débat patriotique. Siegfried Lemm, who discovered the poem, says it was written between the time of the Battle of Agincourt and the Treaty of Troyes, that is between 1416 and 1420. Pierre Champion, in his Histoire poétique du quinzième siècle (Paris, 1923), I, 42, considers it as from the same period that produced Chartier's Quadrilogue invectif, and dates it in 1422.

3. The Débat patriotique was discovered and published by Siegfried Lemm, “Aus einer Chartier-Handschrift des kgl. Kupferstichkabinetts zu Berlin,” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, CXXXII (1914), 131-138.

4. p. 517.

5. p. 523.

6. l. 34.

7. l. 104.

8. l. 300.

9. ll. 403, 404.

10. Jean Bouchet, Les Annales d'Aquitaine (Poitiers, 1644; first edition Poitiers 1524), p. 252.