For it was during this forced inactivity, apparently in 1584, that he began his literary labours, which he continued for the next thirty years, most of which he spent on his estate. He died in 1614, leaving a will of portentous length, in which, among other things, he charged his heirs to have his works printed _en belle et grand lettre et grand volume_. The charge was neglected, and it was not till 1665–1666 that an incomplete and defective edition was published at Leyden, in the Elzevir form. Previous to this, however, several copies had been made of his manuscripts, and Le Laboureur in his edition of Castelnau’s Memoirs, published in 1659, had printed long extracts. Brantôme was a disappointed man when he wrote his memoirs. He had been an assiduous courtier for a quarter of a century and had gained nothing by it, while he had seen men whose merits he believed to be inferior to his rise to wealth and honour. But though he had the love of frivolity and the moral indifference of a true courtier, he had not his pliability. “He was violent,” says Le Laboureur, “difficult to live with and of a too unforgiving spirit.” Perhaps the best thing that can be said in his favour is that among his most intimate friends were two of the most virtuous characters of their time, Téligny, the son-in-law of Coligny, and Téligny’s brother-in-law, François de la Noue. Among his other friends were Louis de Bérenger, seigneur du Guast, who was assassinated by order of Marguerite de Valois, and above all Filippo Strozzi, the son of Piero Strozzi, who was his friend for over twenty years, and who exercised over him considerable influence. The names by which Brantôme’s writings are generally known are not those which he himself gave them. Thus the titles _Dames illustres_ and _Dames galantes_ are an invention of the Leyden publisher for the _Premier et Second livre des Dames_. The other main division of his writings, _Hommes_, consisted in Brantôme’s manuscript of two volumes, the first containing the _Grands capitaines_, French and Spanish, and the second _Les couronnels, Discours sur les duels, Rodomontades espagnoles_, and a separate account of La Noue. His original manuscript was completed while Margaret was still the wife of Henry IV., that is to say before November, 1599, but some time after her divorce he made a carefully revised copy. It is upon this copy that the text of M. Lalanne’s edition is based for the first five volumes.