‘Monstrelet was a nobleman then, and a nobleman of Picardy; but we have good reason to suspect that his birth was not spotless. John le Robert, abbot of St Aubert in Cambray from the year 1432 to that of 1469, and author of an exact journal of every thing that passed during his time in the town of Cambray and its environs, under the title of ‘Memoriaux,’[2] says plainly, ‘_qu’il fut né de bas_,’—which term, according to the glossary of du Cange, and in the opinion of learned genealogists, constantly means a natural son; for at this period, bastards were acknowledged according to the rank of their fathers. Monstrelet, therefore, was not the less noble; and the same John le Robert qualifies him, two lines higher, with the titles of ‘noble man’ and ‘esquire,’ to which he adds an eulogium, which I shall hereafter mention,—because, at the same time that it does honour to Monstrelet, it confirms the opinion I had formed of his character when attentively reading his work. ‘My researches to discover the precise year of his birth have been fruitless. I believe, however, it may be safely placed prior to the close of the fourteenth century; for, besides speaking of events at the beginning of the fifteenth as having happened in his time, he states positively, in his introduction, that he had been told of the early events in his book (namely, from the year 1400,) by persons worthy of credit, who had been eye-witnesses of them. To this proof, or to this deduction, I shall add, that under the year 1415, he says, that he heard (_at the time_) of the anger of the count de Charolois, afterwards Philippe le bon duke of Burgundy, because his governors would not permit him to take part in the battle of Azincourt. I shall also add, that under the year 1420, he speaks of the homage which John duke of Burgundy paid the king of the Romans for the counties of Burgundy and of Alost. It cannot be supposed that he would have inquired into such particulars, or that any one would have taken the trouble to inform him of them if he had not been of a certain age, such as twenty or twenty-five years old, which would fix the date of his birth about 1390 or 1395. ‘No particulars of his early years are known, except that he evinced, when young, a love for application, and a dislike to indolence. The quotations from Sallust, Livy, Vegetius, and other ancient authors, that occur in his chronicles, show that he must have made some progress in latin literature. Whether his love for study was superior to his desire of military glory, or whether a weakly constitution or some other reason, prevented him from following the profession of arms, I do not find that he yielded to the reigning passion of his age, when the names of gentleman and of soldier were almost synonimous.