‘The second chapter of the first volume, consisting of thirteen pages, contains only a challenge from a spanish esquire, accepted by an esquire of England, which, after four years of letters and messages, ends in nothing. The ridiculousness of so pompous a narration had struck Rabelais, who says, at page 158 of his third volume,—‘In reading this tedious detail, (which he calls a little before _le tant long, curieux et fâcheux conte_) we should imagine that it was the beginning, or occasion, of some severe war, or of a great revolution of kingdoms; but at the end of the tale we laugh at the stupid champion, the Englishman, and Enguerrand their scribe, _plus baveux qu’un pot à moutarde_.’[7] ‘Monstrelet employs many pages to report the challenges sent by the duke of Orleans, brother to king Charles VI., to Henry IV. king of England,—challenges which are equally ridiculous with the former, and which had a similar termination. When he meets with any event that particularly regards Flanders or Picardy, he does not omit the smallest circumstance: the most minute and most useless seem to him worth preserving,—and this same man, so prolix when it were to be wished he was concise, omits, for the sake of brevity, as he says, the most interesting details. This excuse he repeats more than once, for neglecting to enlarge on facts far more interesting than the quarrels of the Flemings and Picards. When speaking of those towns in Champagne and Brie which surrendered to Charles VII. immediately after his coronation, he says, ‘As for these surrenders, I omit the particular detail of each for the sake of brevity.’ In another place, he says, ‘Of these reparations, for brevity sake, I shall not make mention.’ These reparations were the articles of the treaty of peace concluded in 1437, between the duke of Burgundy and the townsmen of Bruges. ‘I have observed an omission of another sort, but which must be attributed solely to the copyists,—for I suspect them of having lost a considerable part of a chapter in the second volume. The head of this chapter is, ‘The duke of Orleans returns to the duke of Burgundy,’—and the beginning of it describes the meeting of the two princes in the town of Hêdin in 1441 (1442). They there determine to meet again almost immediately in the town of Nevers, ‘with many others of the great princes and lords of the kingdom of France,’ and at the end of eight days they separate; the one taking the road through Paris for Blois, and the other going into Burgundy.