o acquire their favor, and he wondered
when it would be his turn to fall really in love. Much of this poem,
which narrates tediously the love affair that was not long in coming,
is probably fictitious; but there is no doubt of the accuracy of his
description of himself in the opening lines, as fond of pleasure,
prone to gallantry, and susceptible to all the bright faces of
romance. From love and arms, he says, we are often told that all joy
and every honor flow. He informs us elsewhere that he was no sooner
out of school than he began to write, putting into verse the wars of
his time.

In 1361 he went to England, where Edward III was reigning with
Philippa his queen, a daughter of the Count of Hainault. His passport
to the favor of his great countrywoman was a book, the result of these
rhymings, covering the period from the battle of Poitiers, 1356, to
the time of his voyage. This volume is not known to exist, nor any
copy of it. The Queen made him a clerk of her chamber. He had abundant
opportunity in England to gratify his curiosity and fill his
note-book, for the court was full of French noblemen, lately come over
as hostages for King Jean of France, who was captured at the battle of
Poitiers.

In 1365 he took letters of recommendation from the Queen to David
Bruce, King of Scotland, whom he followed for three months in his
progress through that realm; spending a fortnight at the castle of
William Douglas and making everywhere diligent inquiry about the
recent war of 1345. In his delightful little poem 'The Debate between
the Horse and the Greyhound,' beginning, "Froissart from Scotland was
returning," we have a lifelike figure of the inquisitive young
chronicler, pushing unweariedly from inn to inn on a tired horse and
leading a footsore dog.

Between his thirtieth and his thirty-fourth year he was sometimes in
England and sometimes in various parts of the Continent. In August
1369, while he was abroad, his patroness Queen Philippa died. She had
encouraged him to continue his researches and writings, and he had
presented her with a second volume, in prose, which has come down to
us as a part of the chronicle. He admits that his work was an
expansion of the chronicle of Jean le Bel, Canon of Saint Lambert at
Liege, for he says:--"As all great rivers are made by the gathering
together of many streams and springs, so the sciences also are
extracted and compiled by many clerks: what one knows, the other does
not."