ties were committed by the most chivalrous, it must have been difficult to deserve. The force was arrayed as it ought to be, says the old historian, for there were many wise men well practised in arms, both in the van, and in the king's battle, and in the rear guard, and they knew all that ought to be done, car la estoit la fleur de la bonne chevalerie du monde. The Oriflamme was brought forth on this occasion, after a great debate, whether it were lawful to display it against Christians; the matter was determined upon the ground, that, as the Flemings were Urbanists, acknowledging him whom the French held to be the anti-pope, they were to be regarded as infidels, and therefore this banner, which, by a great mystery, had been sent from heaven, might be displayed against them. Against these mighty preparations, the commons of Flanders could oppose equal numbers, and far greater resources, but in policy and in military skill they were far inferior; and the knights, in whom the strength of the French army consisted, had, in their armour, an advantage which is unknown in modern warfare. Arteveld ought to have acted on the defensive, in which case winter would soon have been his sure ally; but he confided too much upon his fortune; and knowing that, if he gained a victory, the people in Paris, and in all the great cities of the north of France would rise simultaneously against the nobles and the government which oppressed them, he resolved to meet the invaders and give them battle. The battle of Roosebeke, which ensued, was, in its consequences, of such importance, that perhaps there are only two in earlier times, which proved equally influential upon the condition of society; the victory of Etius over Attila, and that of Charles Martel over the Moors: for if the villains,' says Froissart, had carried their intent, never so great cruelties and horribilities have happened in the world, as would have been wrought by the commons, who would have rebelled everywhere, and destroyed all gentle blood!' Less than half an hour decided it; for, instead of waiting in a strong position to receive the attack, Arteveld advanced to meet it: his men were arrayed so closely, and with so little judgement, that being driven one upon another, they had not room to wield their weapons, and as many died by suffocation, as by the sword and spear: it was observed, that never was so little blood seen, when so many men were killed. The heralds reported, that nine thousand were left dead upon the field; but in the pursuit, the carnage was so great that the lowest computation makes the total loss of the Flemings twenty-five thousand,-other accounts carrying it to forty. The young king expressed a wish to see Arteveld, whether he were alive or dead, and a reward was offered for the person who should discover him. A Ghentsman pointed out the

6

body:

:

body it was covered with wounds, none of which would have been mortal; but he had fallen in a ditch, and so many of his comrades upon him, that he had been pressed to death. The body was suspended upon a gibbet ;—yet, as in other cases, where a leader who was dear to his people had disappeared, it was reported that the French had been deceived in this poor vengeance, and that Arteveld's corpse had not been found. How dearly he was beloved, appeared in the conduct of the man who pointed out the corpse; for, when the king told him his life should be spared, he would not allow his wounds to be bound up, and therefore, in the determination not to survive his captain and liberator, for that name had been conferred upon Arteveld, he bled to death.

If the Flemings had been a free people when the age of literature arrived, or if, in the great struggle for religious freedom, they had secured their civil and intellectual liberty, like the United Provinces, Philip von Arteveld would, and ought to have been, their national hero. Some Van Haren or Bilderdijk would have celebrated his actions in lyric or in heroic verse: some Vondel would have dramatized them; and his name would have been made as popular by the theatre in Ghent, as that of Gysbracht van Aemstel is, at this day, in Amsterdam. The war wherein he was engaged was one in which the most single-minded men might with perfect sincerity have been engaged on either side, according to the circumstances wherein they were placed; but no man could have taken a part in it with a stronger or sincerer feeling than Arteveld, for the public voice which summoned him was in accord with filial piety and the sense of an inherited obligation. Richard Cromwell, to whom Gray's appellation of the meek usurper may truly be applied, would have shrunk from the means which he used, at Vanden Bosch's instigation, for securing himself, when his life as well as his authority was threatened but even old Oliver, the most merciful as well as the most magnanimous man that ever attained to sovereignty by crooked ways and unlawful means, was deeper dyed in blood; and when prosperity had intoxicated Arteveld; when, with the trappings and the suits of greatness, he had put on its dissoluteness-as if they had carried infection with them,— when further success would inevitably have hurried him into a career of horrors from which there could have been no retreat, and no redemption,-then he was, mercifully for himself, cut off. The portents preceding his death are such as Shakspeare might have conceived, or would have delighted in appropriating. Arteveld's chief captains had supped with him in his tent, and before they separated, he gave directions to them how they were to use

some of

the

the victory; which, according to the contemporary historian, he fully expected to obtain. They were instructed to take the young king prisoner, because he was a child who knew not what he was doing; and, therefore, they were to have compassion on him. We will carry him to Ghent,' said Arteveld, where he may learn to speak Flemish. But for the rest, dukes, counts, and men at arms-slay all! take none to mercy! The Commons of France will thank us for this good work: it being their wish, and I am well assured of it, that none of their people may return.' They then broke up, and Arteveld lay down awhile upon a rug before a coal fire. He had a mistress with him, who, being unable to sleep at such a time, went out of the tent about midnight, to look at the sky, and see what hour of the night it might be. Looking toward Roosebeke, she saw the smoke and the fires of the French camp; but between the two camps, upon a plain called the Mont-d'or, she heard a stir, a tumult as of battle, and the battle-cries of the French and of the Count,—and above them all, that of Mount-joye: alarmed at which, she re-entered the tent, and awakened Arteveld, saying, 'Arm yourself, Sir, and make ready in haste, for there is a great uproar on Mont-d'or, and I believe they are coming to attack you. Upon this Arteveld arose, scarfed a night gown round him, and taking a battle-axe in his hand, went forth. He also heard the like sounds in the same direction, and believing, as she did, that the enemy was advancing, he ordered the trumpets to be sounded. Some of his watch came at the call; but when he reproached them for neglect of duty, in letting the French approach unobserved, they told him that they had heard the stir and the voices upon Mont-d'or, and had sent scouts who had been there and seen no one, neither had they perceived any movement in the enemy's camp. Arteveld was troubled at this, and slept no more. And some there were, who said that the devils were sporting and tourneying upon that place where the battle was to be, in their joy for the prey which they expected. The situation and the character of the man are admirably adapted for poetry; and were this subject treated by a poet, like the author of Isaac Comnenus,' who can enter into the heart of man, and has too true a sense of poetry and of human nature to be seduced into any monstrosities of feeling, and extravagances of language, or any meretriciousness of thought or of expression, Arteveld might afford a lesson in the drama, which is not so likely to be sought in history,-but which will never be out of date. M. de Barante's work is composed throughout of such materials

M. de Barante's authorities have misled him into a few inaccuracies. For example, the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, is said, in one place, to have been son of the Duke of York. (T. ii. 131.) Moubray (T. ii. 351) is called Count of Nottingham, when

terials as are exhibited in this portion of his story;-great actions and great crimes, the most revolting cruelties, and the most splendid examples of heroism and magnanimity, occurring sometimes in the same person. The principle of honour and of personal fidelity was carried, in that age, to the highest point of devotion; but we seek in vain for any manifestation of a holier principle: the best and most high-minded men, so they were faithful to their immediate engagement, seemed to care not in what treachery, in what barbarity, in what baseness they were employed. Any detailed history of those times leads us to the conclusion that in Christendom then, as it is now in Mahommedan and Pagan states, the higher ranks, generally speaking, were the most depraved. More crimes, and of a blacker character, were committed by nobles, princes, kings, cardinals, and popes, than by persons in humble life. The peasantry, the yeomanry, and the citizens, were kept in order, except in times of insurrection, by their station in society, and by the wholesome restraint of human laws. But laws were set at defiance by the privileged and the powerful; and there could be little restraint of conscience when absolution was to be purchased for any sins. The reign of Charles VI. exhibits a series of profligate and flagitious conduct on the part of the two great factions who contended for the government during the long insanity of that poor king, than which nothing worse is to be found in the worst times of the Roman republic, or of the Greek empire: the most insolent injustice and the most odious cruelty; laws perverted to the end of private malice; treaties made with the intent of breaking them; extortion, oppression, rapine, perjuries, poisoning, assassinations, massacres. M. de Barante intermingles no reflections in his narrative; the facts, indeed, are sufficiently impressive: but few of his readers can fail to observe, in the profligacies of the Orleans party, and in the atrocities committed upon that party by the Burgundian mob, a striking resemblance to the reckless prodigality which preceded the French revolution, and to the September butcheries. How little had France profited by the lessons which its own history contains, when such things could have taken place there a second time! The historian himself seems to have lost sight of this, when he remarks in his preface, that, tandis que la voix publique a imposé au peuple Anglais, en le personnalisant, le nom d'un animal indompté, Jacques Bonhomme est le sobriquet que le Français d'autrefois se donne à lui-meme. Had he forgotten that Jacques Bonhomme was the King Ludd, or Captain Rock

when he was Duke of Norfolk. The Bishop of Norwich (T. iv. 224, &c.) is called Bishop of Norfolk. Such inaccuracies would not have occurred if the author had referred more frequently to English historians.

of

of the Jacquerie,-the most ferocious wretches that ever broke loose upon society! and that the appellation itself began not in a compliment which the French people paid themselves, but in the insolence of the men at arms, who used to say, when they were living at free-quarters upon the miserable husbandmen, that Goodman John paid for all? Destructive as the wars were of Henry V. and of the Regent Bedford, it can hardly in truth be said that they aggravated the miseries of France! They had at least the salutary effect of extinguishing at last all factions, by making them combine against a foreign enemy; and of giving occupation in a national struggle, where there was at least an honourable cause, and might be a virtuous feeling, to men who would otherwise have been engaged with equal ardour in civil broils.

M. de Barante's book is not less interesting to an Englishman or a Netherlander, than to a French reader, so fortunate is the choice of his subject. During the golden age of Burgundy and the Low Countries,-that age for which the present skilful historian has found such delightful materials as the Memoirs of Olivier de la Marche and Philip de Comines,-the English, who had enjoyed so long an exemption from the evils of war in their own country, were made to execute vengeance upon themselves, a dispensation in which we may acknowledge the mercy that spared them from suffering under a foreign foe. It is noticeable also, that there appears in that age to have existed a far kindlier feeling between the higher and lower ranks of society in England, than in France and the adjoining states. The French could oppose no archers against the English yeomanry, from whose long bows they suffered so severely at Cressy, and at Poictiers, and Agincourt, because they feared to put so efficient a weapon into the hands of the people. There evidently existed a strong democratical feeling on the Continent, not in the Low Countries alone, where commerce, and, still more, manufactures were likely to generate it, but in France also, and in parts of France where it must have been induced by a sense of the grievous evils brought upon the nation by misgovernment and oppression. This spirit broke out wherever opportunity offered; while with us the struggle was either between the great barons and the crown, or contending claimants for the sovereignty.

But the history of any nation is sufficiently humiliating to those who love their country, and sufficiently mournful to those who have any sympathy for their fellow-creatures. It is, however, consolatory to observe the visible course of Providence, even in such a chronicle of crimes as is presented by these volumes, for visible it is to any who are not wilfully blind. Evil is seen producing evil to the guilty agents; treachery punished by treachery;

blood