In this instance, however, Christine associated with him his uncles Berry and Burgundy and his brother Orleans, who during his incapacity divided the real power between them: “Et puis a vous, haulz ducs magnifiez, Dicelle fleur fais et ediffiez, Dont l’esplendeur s’espant par toute terre, Par quel honneur fait los a France a querre.” In her presentation copies she was not wont to measure her language, and probably Scrope’s extravagant eulogy of the Duke of Berry was based upon what he found in his MS., although, instead of translating the dedication as it stood, he chose to embody it in his preface. On the other hand, Christine of course was in no way responsible for the statement that the duke lived for a hundred years (p. 3). How it originated is a mystery, for there is no doubt whatever that he died on 15th June, 1416, at the age of seventy-six.[84] Jean Bouchet indeed in his _Annales d’Aquitaine_,[85] although he records the date of his death correctly, states that he was ninety or thereabouts, but he gives no authority, and it is enough to say that Berry’s father King John II. was born in 1319, and his eldest brother Charles V. in 1337. It will be seen that Scrope represents him as a perfect paragon of chivalrous qualities, unrivalled in his time both in war and in council, as well as for deeds of piety. In more sober history, however, he by no means appears to such advantage. His cultured and sumptuous tastes, his splendid buildings and his library and other rich collections, have shed a certain lustre on his name; but, as he showed especially in his government of Languedoc, he was cruel, rapacious, and unprincipled, and in critical times his life was that of a selfish and prodigal voluptuary. For war he had neither talent nor zest; his real element appears to have been diplomacy, and, apart from his patronage of art and letters and his benefactions to the church, his chief claim to credit rests on his repeated attempts to mediate between the Burgundian and Orleanist factions. Scrope’s estimate of him is in striking contrast with that of modern historians, such as Raynal[86] and Martin, the latter of whom in recording his death writes, “Ce prince laissa une mémoire souillée entre toutes dans cette êpoque de souillures. Il joignait à bien d’autres vices le vice que la France pardonne le moins à ses chefs, le péché irremissible, la lâcheté.”[87]