While the Flemish writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries wrote mostly for the bourgeoisie and the people and kept in close contact with the religious aspirations of the time, the authors belonging to the Walloon part of the country were nearly all attached to some court and confined themselves to the production of chronicles and memoires destined for the aristocracy. Though extremely limited, this genre was cultivated with great success by the Walloon writers and is typical of the Belgian branch of the French letters of the period. As early as the fourteenth century, Jean Le Bel of Liege had related with extraordinary vividness his adventures at the court of Hainault and the part played by his master, Jean de Beaumont, in the expedition led by Edward III against the Scots. Le Bel writes in French, but as far as his political views are concerned remains impervious to French influence and chooses an English King, "le noble roi Edowart," for his hero, while he has nothing but harsh words for Philip de Valois. [_JEAN FROISSART_] Jean Froissart, of Valenciennes, who continued the work of Le Bel and served as a link between him and the Burgundian school of chroniclers, had a much wider field of vision. Attached successively to Albert of Bavaria, Queen Philippa of England and Wenceslas of Luxemburg, he had many opportunities to study European affairs, and, as a Belgian, was able to consider them from an independent and even a sceptical point of view. Though generally considered as a French writer, he remains independent of French influence. With Monstrelet, Chastellain, Jean Molinet and Jean Lemaire de Belges, who wrote for the dukes of Burgundy, this independent attitude is still further strengthened. All these writers extolled the Burgundian regime and supported the duke's policy, whether friendly or antagonistic to France. From a literary point of view, they are greatly inferior to their predecessors and often lapse into rhetorical eloquence. Their style, which appears to be overloaded with flowery images, excited great admiration at the time, especially in the case of Chastellain, who was hailed by his contemporaries as a "supreme rhetorician." * * * * *