[458] Froissart declares concerning his own poems that he "les commencha a faire sus l'an de grace Nostre Seigneur, 1362." He wrote them "a l'ayde de Dieu et d'Amours, et a le contemplation et plaisance de pluisours haus et nobles signours et de pluisours nobles et vaillans dames." MS. Fr. 831 in the National Library, Paris.--On Guillaume de Deguileville, who wrote about 1330-5, see Ward, "Catalogue of Romances," 1893, vol. ii. p. 558; Hill, "An Ancient Poem of G. de Guileville," London, 1858, 4to, illustrated, and my "Piers Plowman," chap. vii. Chaucer imitated from him his "A.B.C.," one of his first works.--On Machault, who died in 1377, see Tarbe, "Oeuvres Choisies," Reims and Paris, 1849, 8vo, and Thomas, "Romania," x. pp. 325 ff. (papal bulls concerning him, dated 1330, 1332, 1333, 1335).--On Des Champs, see "Oeuvres Completes publiees d'apres le Manuscrit de la Bibliotheque Nationale," by the Marquis de Queux de St. Hilaire, Societe des Anciens Textes, 1878 ff. (which MS. contains, _e.g._, 1175 ballads, 171 roundels, and 80 virelais), and A. Sarradin, "Etude sur Eustache des Champs," Versailles, 1878, 8vo.--On Granson, a knight and a poet slain in a judicial duel, in 1397, see Piaget, "Granson et ses poesies," "Romania," vol. xix.; Chaucer imitated in his later years his "Compleynt of Venus," from a poem of "Graunson, flour of hem that make in Fraunce." [459] Chaucer's favourite flower; he constantly praises it; it is for him a woman-flower (see especially the prologue of the "Legend of Good Women"). This flower enjoyed the same favour with the French models of Chaucer. One of the ballads of Froissart has for its burden: "Sus toutes flours j'aime la margherite" ("Le Paradis d'Amour," in "Poesies," ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1870, 3 vols. 8vo), vol. i. p. 49. Des Champs praised the same flower; Machault wrote a "Dit de la Marguerite" ("Oeuvres Choisies," ed. Tarbe, p. 123): J'aim une fleur qui s'uevre et qui s'encline Vers le soleil, de jour quand il chemine; Et quand il est couchiez soubz sa courtine Par nuit obscure, Elle se clost ainsois que le jour fine. [460] Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first part of the "Roman" ab. 1237; Jean de Meun wrote the second towards 1277. On the sources of the poem see the important work of Langlois: "Origines et Sources du Roman de la Rose," Paris, 1891, 8vo. M. Langlois has traced the originals for 12,000 out of the 17,500 lines of Jean de Meun; he is preparing (1894) a much-needed critical edition of the text.