The moon, he says, rules the first four years of life; Mercury the next ten; Venus follows. He was fourteen when the last goddess appeared to him in person, as he tells us, after the manner of his time, and informed him that he was to love a lady, "belle, jone, et gente." Awaiting this happy event, he began to consider how best to earn his livelihood. They first placed him in some commercial position-impossible now to say of what kind -which he simply calls "la marchandise." This undoubtedly means some kind of buying and selling, not a handicraft at all. He very soon abandoned merchandise-"car vaut mieux science qu'argens "-and resolved on becoming a learned clerk. He then naturally began to make verses, like every other learned clerk. Quite as naturally, and still in the character of a learned clerk, he fulfilled the prophecy of Venus and fell in love. He found one day a demoiselle reading a book of romances. He did not know who she was, but stealing gently towards her, he asked her what book she was reading. It was the romance of Cleomades. He remarks the singular beauty of her blue eyes and fair hair, while she reads a page or two, and then-one would almost suspect a reminiscence of Dante

* Adont laissames nous le lire."

He was thus provided with that essential for soldier, knight or poet, a mistress-one for whom he could write verses. She was rich and he was poor; she was nobly born and he obscure; it was long before she would accept the devotion, even of the conventional kind which Froissart offered her, and which would in no way interfere with the practical business of her life. And in this hopeless way, the passion of the young poet remaining the same, and the coldness of the lady being unaltered, the course of this passion ran on for some time. Nor was it until the day of Froissart's departure from his native town that she gave him an interview and spoke kindly to him, even promising, with tears in her eyes, that "Doulce Pensée" would assure him that she would have no joyous day until she should see him again

He was eighteen years of age; he had learned all that he wanted to learn; he possessed the mechanical art of verse; he had read the slender stock of classical literature accessible; he longed to see the world. He must already have acquired some distinction, because, on setting out for the court of England, he was able to take with him letters of recommendation from the king of Bohemia and the count of Hainaut to Queen Philippa, niece of the latter. He was well received by the queen, always ready to welcome her own countrymen; he wrote ballades and virelays for her and her ladies. But after a year he began to pine for another sight of "la très douce, simple, et quoie," whom be loved loyally. Good Queen Philippa, perceiving his altered looks and guessing the cause, made him confess that he was in love and longed to see his mistress. She gave him his congé on the condition that he was to return. It is clear that the young clerk had already learned to ingratiate himself with princes.

The conclusion of his single love adventure is simply and unaffectedly told in his Trellie de l'espinette amoureuse. It was a passion conducted on the well-known lines of conventional love; the pair exchanged violets and roses, the lady accepted ballads; Froissart became either openly or in secret her recognized lover, a mere title of honour, which conferred distinction on her who bestowed it, as well as upon him who received it. But the progress of the amour was rudely interrupted by the arts of "Malebouche," or Calumny. The story, whatever it was, that Malebouche whispered in the ear of the lady led to a complete rupture. The damoiselle not only scornfully refused to speak to her lover or acknowledge him, but even seized him by the hair and pulled out a handful. Nor would she ever be reconciled to him again. Years afterwards, when Froissart writes the story of his one love passage, he shows that he still takes delight in the remembrance of her, loves to draw her portrait, and lingers with fondness over the thought of what she once was to him.

Perhaps to get healed of his sorrow, Froissart began those

He first visited Avignon, perhaps to ask for a benefice, perhaps as the bearer of a message from the bishop of Cambray to pope or cardinal. It was in the year 1360, and in the pontificate of Innocent VI. From the papal city he seems to have gone to Paris, perhaps charged with a diplomatic mission. In 1361 he returned to England after an absence of five years. He certainly interpreted his leave of absence in a liberal spirit, and it may have been with a view of averting the displeasure of his kind-hearted protector that he brought with him as a present a book of rhymed chronicles written by himself. He says that notwithstanding his youth, he took upon himself the task "à rimer et à dicter "-which can only mean to "turn into verse "--an account of the wars of his own time, which he carried over to England in a book "tout compilé,"-cómplete to date,-and presented to his noble mistress Philippa of Hainaut, who joyfully and gently received it of him. Such a rhymed chronicle was no new thing. One Colin had already turned the battle of Crécy into verse. The queen made young Froissart one of her secretaries, and he began to serve her with "beaux dittiés et traités amoureux."

Froissart would probably have been content to go on living at ease in this congenial atmosphere of flattery, praise and caresses, pouring out his virelays and chansons according to demand with facile monotony, but for the instigation of Queen Philippa, who seems to have suggested to him the propriety of travelling in order to get information for more rhymed chronicles. It was at her charges that Froissart made his first serious journey. He seems to have travelled a great part of the way alone, or accompanied only by his servants, for he was fain to beguile the journey by composing an imaginary conversation in verse between his horse and his hound. This may be found among his published poems, but it does not repay perusal. In Scotland he met with a favourable reception, not only from King David but from William of Douglas, and from the earls of Fife, Mar, March and others. The souvenirs of this journey are found scattered about in the chronicles. He was evidently much impressed with the Scots; he speaks of the valour of the Douglas, the Campbell, the Ramsay and the Graham; he describes the hospitality and rude life of the Highlanders; he admires the great castles of Stirling and Roxburgh and the famous abbey of Melrose. His travels in Scotland lasted for six months. Returning southwards he rode along the whole course of the Roman wall, a thing alone sufficient to show that he possessed the true spirit of an archaeologist; he thought that Carlisle was Carlyon, and congratulated himself on having found King Arthur's capital; he calls Westmorland, where the common people still spoke the ancient British tongue, North Wales; he rode down the banks of the Severn, and returned to London by way of Oxford-"l'escole d'Asque-Suffort."

In London Froissart entered into the service of King John of France as secretary, and grew daily more courtly, more in favour with princes and great ladies. He probably acquired at this period that art, in which he has probably never been surpassed, of making people tell him all they knew. No newspaper correspondent, no American interviewer, has ever equalled this medieval collector of intelligence. From Queen Philippa, who confided to him the tender story of her youthful and lasting love for her great husband, down to the simplest knight-Froissart conversed with none beneath the rank of gentlemen-all united in telling this man what he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything: he liked the story of a battle from both sides and from many points of view; he wanted the details of every little cavalry skirmish, every capture of a castle, every gallant action and brave deed. And what was more remarkable, he forgot nothing. "I had," he says, "thanks to God, sense, memory, good remembrance of everything, and an intellect clear and keen to seize upon the acts which I could learn." But as yet he had not begun to write in prose.

At the age of twenty-nine, in 1366, Froissart once more left England. This time he repaired first to Brussels, whither were gathered together a great concourse of minstrels from all parts,

This part of his work finished, he considered what to do next. | There was small chance of anything important happening in Picardy or Hainault, and he determined on making a journey to the south of France in order to learn something new. He was then fifty-one years of age, and being still, as he tells us, in his prime," of an age, strength, and limbs able to bear fatigue," he set out as eager to see new places as when, 33 years before, he rode through Scotland and marvelled at the bravery of the Douglas. What he had, in addition to strength, good memory and good spirits, was a manner singularly pleasing and great personal force of character. This he does not tell us, but it comes out abundantly in his writings; and, which he does tell us, he took a singular delight in his book. "The more I work at it," he says, "the better am I pleased with it."

On this occasion he rode first to Blois; on the way he fell in with two knights who told him of the disasters of the English army in Spain; one of them also informed him of the splendid hospitalities and generosity of Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix, on hearing of which Froissart resolved to seek him out. He avoided the English provinces of Poitou and Guienne, and rode southwards through Berry, Auvergne and Languedoc. Arrived at Foix he discovered that the count was at Orthez, whither he proceeded in company with a knight named Espaing de Lyon, who, Froissart found, had not only fought, but could describe. The account of those few days' ride with Espaing de Lyon is the most charming, the most graphic, and the most vivid chapter in the whole of Froissart. Every turn of the road brings with it the sight of a ruined castle, about which this knight of many memories has a tale or a reminiscence. The whole country teems with fighting stories. Froissart never tires of listening nor the good knight of telling "Sainte Marie!" cries Froissart in mere rapture. "How pleasant are your tales, and how much do they profit me while you relate them! And you shall not lose your trouble, for they shall all be set down in memory and remembrance in the history which I am writing." Arrived at length at Orthez, Froissart lost no time in presenting his credentials to the count of Foix. Gaston Phoebus was at this time fifty-nine years of age. His wife, from whom he was separated, was that princess, sister of Charles of Navarre, with whom Guillaume de Machault carried on his innocent and poetical amour. The story of the miserable death of his son is well known, and may be read in Froissart. But that was already a tale of the past, and the state which the count kept up was that of a monarch. To such a prince such a visitor as Froissart would be in every way welcome. Mindful no doubt of those paid clerks who were always writing verses, Froissart introduced himself as a chronicler. He could, of course, rhyme, and in proof he brought with him his romance of Maliador; but he did not present himself as a wandering poet. The count received him graciously, speedily discovered the good qualities of his guest, and often invited him to read his Mélieder aloud in the evening, during which time, says Froissart, "nobody dared to say a word, because he wished me to be heard, such great delight did he take in listening." Very soon Froissart, from reader of a romance, became raconteur of the things he had seen and heard; the next step was that the count himself began to talk of affairs, so that the notebook was again in requisition. There was a good deal, too, to be learned of people about the court. One knight recently returned from the East told about the Genoese occupation of Famagosta; two more had been in the fray of Otterbourne; others had been in the Spanish wars.

Leaving Gaston at length, Froissart assisted at the wedding of the old duke of Berry with the youthful Jeanne de Bourbon, and was present at the grand reception given to Isabeau of Bavaria by the Parisians. He then returned to Valenciennes, and sat down to write his fourth book. A journey undertaken at this time is characteristic of the thorough and conscientious spirit in which he composed his work; it illustrates also his restless and curious spirit. While engaged in the events of the year 1385 he became aware that his notes taken at Orthez and eisewhere on the affairs of Castile and Portugal were wanting in completeness. He left Valenciennes and hastened to Bruges, where, he felt certain, he should find some one who would help

him. There was, in fact, at this great commercial centre, a colony of Portuguese. From them he learned that a certain Portuguese knight, Dom Juan Fernand Pacheco, was at the moment in Middelburg on the point of starting for Prussia. He instantly embarked at Sluys, reached Middelburg in time to catch this knight, introduced himself, and conversed with him uninterruptedly for the space of six days, getting his information on the promise of due acknowledgment. During the next two years we learn little of his movements. He seems, however, to have had trouble with his seigneur Gui de Blois, and even to have resigned his chaplaincy. Froissart is tender with Gui's reputation, mindful of past favours and remembering how great a lord he is. Yet the truth is clear that in his declining years the once gallant Gui de Blois became a glutton and a drunkard, and allowed his affairs to fall into the greatest disorder. So much was he crippled with debt that he was obliged to sell his castle and county of Blois to the king of France. Froissart lays all the blame on evil counsellors. "He was my lord and master," he says simply, "an honourable lord and of great reputation; but he trusted too easily in those who looked for neither his welfare nor his honour." Although canon of Chimay and perhaps curé of Lestines as well, it would seem as if Froissart was not able to live without a patron. He next calls Robert de Namur his seigneur, and dedicates to him, in a general introduction, the whole of his chronicles. We then find him at Abbeville, trying to learn all about the negotiations pending between Charles VI. and the English. He was unsuccessful, either because he could not get at those who knew what was going on, or because the secret was too well kept. He next made his last visit to England, where, after forty years' absence, he naturally found no one who remembered him. Here he gave King Richard a copy of his "traités amoureux," and got favour at court. He stayed in England some months, seeking information on all points from his friends Henry Chrystead and Richard Stury, from the dukes of York and Gloucester, and from Robert the Hermit.

On his return to France, he found preparations going on for that unlucky crusade, the end of which he describes in his Chronicle. It was headed by the count of Nevers. After him floated many a banner of knights, descendants of the crusaders, who bore the proud titles of duke of Athens, duke of Thebes, sire de Sidon, sire de Jericho. They were going to invade the sultan's empire by way of Hungary; they were going to march south; they would reconquer the holy places. And presently we read how it all came to nothing, and how the slaughtered knights lay dead outside the city of Nikopoli. In almost the concluding words of the Chronicle the murder of Richard II. of England is described. His death ends the long and crowded Chronicle, though the pen of the writer struggles through a few more unfinished sentences.

The rest is vague tradition. He is said to have died at Chimay; it is further said that he died in poverty so great that his relations could not even afford to carve his name upon the headstone of his tomb; not one of his friends, not even Eustache Deschamps, writes a line of regret in remembrance; the greatest historian of his age had a reputation so limited that his death was no more regarded than that of any common monk or obscure priest. We would willingly place the date of his death, where his Chronicle stops, in the year 1400; but tradition assigns the date of 1410. What date more fitting than the close of the century for one who has made that century illustrious for ever?

Among his friends were Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps, the most vigorous poet of this age of decadence, and Cuvelier, a follower of Bertrand du Guesclin. These alliances are certain. It is probable that he knew Chaucer, with whom Deschamps maintained a poetical correspondence; there is nothing to show that he ever made the acquaintance of Christine de Pisan. Froissart was more proud of his poetry than his prose. Posterity has reversed this opinion, and though a selection of his verse has been published, it would be difficult to find an admirer, or even a reader, of his poems. The selection published by Buchon in 1829 consists of the Dit dou florin, half of which is a description of the power of money; the Débat dou cheva!

et dou levrier, written during his journey in Scotland; the Diltie de la flour de la Margherite; a Dillie d'amour called L'Orlose amoureus, in which he compares himself, the imaginary lover, with a clock; the Espinette amoureuse, which contains a sketch of his early life, freely and pleasantly drawn, accompanied by rondeaux and virelays; the Buisson de jonesce, in which he returns to the recollections of his own youth; and various smaller pieces. The verses are monotonous; the thoughts are not without poetical grace, but they are expressed at tedious length. It would be, however, absurd to expect in Froissart the vigour and verve possessed by none of his predecessors. The time was gone when Marie de France, Rutebœuf and Thibaut de Champagne made the 13th-century language a medium for verse of which any literature might be proud. Briefly, Froissart's poetry, unless the unpublished portion be better than that before us, is monotonous and mechanical. The chief merit it possesses is in simplicity of diction. This not infrequently produces a pleasing effect.

As for the character of his Chronicle, little need be said. There has never been any difference of opinion on the distinctive merits of this great work. It presents a vivid and faithful drawing of the things done in the 14th century. No more graphic account exists of any age. No historian has drawn so many and such faithful portraits. They are, it is true, portraits of men as they seemed to the writer, not of men as they were. Froissart was uncritical; he accepted princes by their appearance. Who, for instance, would recognize in his portrait of Gaston Phoebus de Foix the cruel voluptuary, stained with the blood of his own son, which we know him to have been? Froissart, again, had no sense of historical responsibility; he was no judge to inquire into motives and condemn actions; he was simply a chronicler. He has been accused by French authors of lacking patriotism. Yet it must be remembered that he was neither a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but a Fleming. He has been accused of insensibility to suffering. Indignation against oppression was not, however, common in the 14th century; why demand of Froissart a quality which is rare enough even in our own time? Yet there are moments when, as in describing the massacre of Limoges, he speaks with tears in his voice.

Let him be judged by his own aims. "Before I commence this book," he says, "I pray the Saviour of all the world, who created every thing out of nothing, that He will also create and put in me sense and understanding of so much worth, that this book, which I have begun, I may continue and persevere in, so that all those who shall read, see, and hear it may find in it delight and pleasance." To give delight and pleasure, then, was his sole design.

As regards his personal character, Froissart depicts it himself for us. Such as he was in youth, he tells us, so he remained in more advanced life; rejoicing mightily in dances and carols, in hearing minstrels and poems; inclined to love all those who love dogs and hawks; pricking up his ears at the uncorking of bottles," Car au voire prens grand plaisir "; pleased with good cheer, gorgeous apparel and joyous society, but no commonplace reveller or greedy voluptuary, everything in Froissart was ruled by the good manners which he set before all else; and always eager to listen to tales of war and battle. As we have said above, he shows, not only by his success at courts, but also by the whole tone of his writings, that he possessed a singularly winning manner and strong personal character. He lived wholly in the present, and had no thought of the coming changes. Born when chivalrous ideas were most widely spread, but the spirit of chivalry itself, as inculcated by the best writers, in its decadence, he is penetrated with the sense of knightly honour, and ascribes to all his heroes alike those qualities which only the ideal knight possessed.

The first edition of Froissart's Chronicles was published in Paris. It bears no date; the next editions are those of the years 1505, 1514, 1518 and 1520. The edition of Buchon, 1824, was a continuation

of one commenced by Dacier. The best modern editions are those of Kervyn de Lettenhove (Brussels, 1863-1877) and Siméon Luce (Paris, 1869-1888); for bibliography see Potthast, Bibliotheca hist.

medii aevi, i. (Berlin, 1896). An abridgment was made in Latin by Belleforest, and published in 1672. An English translation was made by Bouchier, Lord Berners, and published in London, 1525 See the "Tudor Translations" edition of Berners (Nutt, 1901), with introduction by W. P. Ker; and the "Globe " edition, with introduction by G. C. Macaulay. The translation by Thomas Johnes was originally published in 1802-1805. For Froissart's Méliador has been edited by Longnon for the Société des Anciens poems see Scheler's text in K. de Lettenhove's complete edition: Textes (1895-1899). See also Madame Darmesteter (Duclaux), Froissart (1894). (W. BE.)

FROME, a market town in the Frome parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, 107 m. W. by S. of London by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 11,057. It is unevenly built on high ground above the river Frome, which is here crossed by a stone bridge of five arches. It was formerly called Frome or Froome Selwood, after the neighbouring forest of Selwood; and the country round is still richly wooded and picturesque. The parish church of St John the Baptist, with its fine tower and spire, was built about the close of the 14th century, and, though largely restored, has a beautiful chancel, Lady chapel and baptistery. Fragments of Norman work are left; the interior is elaborately adorned with sculptures and stained glass. The market-hall, museum, school of art, and a free grammar school, founded under Edward VI., may be noted among buildings and institutions. The chief industries are brewing and art metal-working, also printing, metal-founding, and the manufacture of cloth, silk, tools and cards for wooldressing. Dairy farming is largely practised in the neighbourhood. Selwood forest was long a favourite haunt of brigands, and even in the 18th century gave shelter to a gang of coiners and highwaymen.

The Saxon occupation of Frome (From) is the earliest of which there is evidence, the settlement being due to the foundation of a monastery by Aldhelm in 705. A witenagemot was held there in 934, so that Frome must already have been a place of some size. At the time of the Domesday Survey the manor was owned by King William. Local tradition asserts that Frome was a medieval borough, and the reeve of Frome is occasionally mentioned in documents after the reign of Edward I., but there is no direct evidence that Frome was a borough and no trace of any charter granted to it. It was not represented in parliament until given one member by the Reform Act of 1832. Separate representation ceased in 1885. Frome was never incorporated. A charter of Henry VII. to Edmund Leversedge, then lord of the manor, granted the right to have fairs on the 22nd of July and the 21st of September. In the 18th century two other fairs on the 24th of February and the 25th of November were held. Cattle fairs are now held on the last Wednesday in February and November, and a cheese fair on the last Wednesday in September. The Wednesday market is held under the charter of Henry VII. There is also a Saturday cattle market. The manufacture of woollen cloth has been established since the 15th century, Frome being the only Somerset town in which this staple industry has flourished continuously.

FROMENTIN, EUGÈNE (1820-1876), French painter, was born at La Rochelle in December 1820. After leaving school he studied for some years under Louis Cabat, the landscape painter. Fromentin was one of the earliest pictorial interpreters of Algeria, having been able, while quite young, to visit the land and people that suggested the subjects of most of his works, and to store his memory as well as his portfolio with the picturesque and characteristic details of North African life. In 1849 he obtained a medal of the second class. In 1852 he paid a second visit to Algeria, accompanying an archaeological mission, and then completed that minute study of the scenery of the country and of the habits of its people which enabled him to give to his after-work the realistic accuracy that comes from intimate knowledge. In a certain sense his works are not more artistic results than contributions to ethnological science. His first great success was produced at the Salon of 1847, by the Gorges de la Chiffa." Among his more important works are "La Place de la brèche à Constantine (1849); "Enterrement

Maure" (1853); "Bateleurs nègres " and "Audience chez un chalife (1859); "Berger kabyle" and Courriers arabes (1861); "Bivouac arabe," "Chasse au faucon," "Fauconnier arabe (now at Luxembourg) (1863); "Chasse au héron " (1865); "Voleurs de nuit (1867); "Centaurs et arabes attaqués par une lionne" (1868); " Halte de muletiers" (1869); "Le Nil " and "Un Souvenir d'Esneh " (1875). Fromentin was much influenced in style by Eugène Delacroix. His works are distinguished by striking composition, great dexterity of handling and brilliancy of colour. In them is given with great truth and refinement the unconscious grandeur of barbarian and animal attitudes and gestures. His later works, however, show signs of an exhausted vein and of an exhausted spirit, accompanied or caused by physical enfeeblement. But it must be observed that Fromentin's paintings show only one side of a genius that was perhaps even more felicitously expressed in literature, though of course with less profusion. Dominique," first published in the Revue des deux mondes in 1862, and dedicated to George Sand, is remarkable among the fiction of the century for delicate and imaginative observation and for emotional earnestness. Fromentin's other literary works are Visites artistiques (1852); Simples Pèlerinages (1856); Un Elé dans le Sahara (1857); Une Année dans le Sahel (1858); and Les Mattres d'autrefois (1876). In 1876 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Academy. He died suddenly at La Rochelle on the 27th of August 1876.

FROMMEL, GASTON (1862-1906), Swiss theologian, professor of theology in the university of Geneva from 1894 to 1906. An Alsatian by birth, he belonged mainly to French Switzerland, where he spent most of his life. He may best be described as continuing the spirit of Vinet (q.v.) amid the mental conditions marking the end of the 19th century. Like Vinet, he derived his philosophy of religion from a peculiarly deep experience of the Gospel of Christ as meeting the demands of the moral consciousness; but he developed even further than Vinet the psychological analysis of conscience and the method of verifying every doctrine by direct reference to spiritual experience. Both made much of moral individuality or personality as the crown and criterion of reality, believing that its correlation with Christianity, both historically and philosophically, was most intimate. But while Vinet laid most stress on the liberty from human authority essential to the moral consciousness, the changed needs of the age caused Frommel to develop rather the aspect of man's dependence as a moral being upon God's spiritual initiative," the conditional nature of his liberty." "Liberty is not the primary, but the secondary characteristic " of conscience; "before being free, it is the subject of obligation." On this depends its objectivity as a real revelation of the Divine Will. Thus he claimed that a deeper analysis carried one beyond the human subjectivity of even Kant's categorical imperative, since consciousness of obligation was "une expérience imposée sous le mode de l'absolu." By his use of imposée Frommel emphasized the priority of man's sense of obligation to his consciousness either of self or of God. Here he appealed to the current psychology of the subconscious for confirmation of his analysis, by which he claimed to transcend mere intellectualism. In his language on this fundamental point he was perhaps too jealous of admitting an ideal element as implicit in the feeling of obligation. Still he did well in insisting on priority to selfconscious thought as a mark of metaphysical objectivity in the case of moral, no less than of physical experience. Further, he found in the Christian revelation the same characteristics as belonged to the universal revelation involved in conscience, viz God's sovereign initiative and his living action in history. From this standpoint he argued against a purely psychological type of religion (agnosticisme religieux, as he termed it)-a tendency to which he saw even in A. Sabatier and the symbolodéisme of the Paris School-as giving up a real and unifying faith. His influence on men, especially the student class, was greatly enhanced by the religious force and charm of his personality. Finally, like Vinet, he was a man of letters and a penetrating critic of men and systems.

LITERATURE.-G. Godet, Gaston Frommel (Neuchâtel, 1906), a compact sketch, with full citation of sources; cf. H. Bois, in Sainteedition of his writings was begun in 1907. Croix for 1906, for "L'Étudiant et le professeur." A complete (J. V.B.)

FRONDE, THE, the name given to a civil war in France which lasted from 1648 to 1652, and to its sequel, the war with Spain in 1653-59. The word means a sling, and was applied to this contest from the circumstance that the windows of Cardinal Mazarin's adherents were pelted with stones by the Paris mob. Its original object was the redress of grievances, but the movement soon degenerated into a factional contest among the nobles, who sought to reverse the results of Richelieu's work and to overthrow his successor Mazarin. In May 1648 a tax levied on judicial officers of the parlement of Paris was met by that body, not merely with a refusal to pay, but with a condemnation of earlier financial edicts, and even with a demand for the acceptance of a scheme of constitutional reforms framed by a committee of the parlement. This charter was somewhat influenced by contemporary events in England. But there is no real likeness between the two revolutions, the French parlement being no more representative of the people than the Inns of Court were in England. The political history of the time is dealt with in the article FRANCE: History, the present article being concerned chiefly with the military operations of what was perhaps the most costly and least necessary civil war in history.

The military record of the first or "parliamentary" Fronde is almost blank. In August 1648, strengthened by the news of Condé's victory at Lens, Mazarin suddenly arrested the leaders of the parlement, whereupon Paris broke into insurrection and barricaded the streets. The court, having no army at its immediate disposal, had to release the prisoners and to promise reforms, and fled from Paris on the night of the 22nd of October. But the signing of the peace of Westphalia set free Condé's army, and by January 1649 it was besieging París. The peace of Rueil was signed in March, after little blood had been shed. The Parisians, though still and always anti-cardinalist, refused to ask for Spanish aid, as proposed by their princely and noble adherents, and having no prospect of military success without such aid, submitted and received concessions Thenceforward the Fronde becomes a story of sordid intrigues and half-hearted warfare, losing all trace of its first constitutional phase. The leaders were discontented princes and nobles-Monsieur (Gaston of Orléans, the king's uncle), the great Condé and his brother Conti, the duc de Bouillon and his brother Turenne. To these must be added Gaston's daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier (La grande Mademoiselle), Condé's sister, Madame de Longueville, Madame de Chevreuse, and the astute intriguer Paul de Gondi, later Cardinal de Retz. The military operations fell into the hands of war-experienced mercenaries, led by two great, and many second-rate, generals, and of nobles to whom war was a polite pastime. The feelings of the people at large were enlisted on neither side.

This peace of Rueil lasted until the end of 1649. The princes, received at court once more, renewed their intrigues against Mazarin, who, having come to an understanding with Monsieur, Gondi and Madame de Chevreuse, suddenly arrested Condé, Conti and Longueville (January 14, 1650). The war which followed this coup is called the "Princes' Fronde." This time it was Turenne, before and afterwards the most loyal soldier of his day, who headed the armed rebellion. Listening to the promptings of his Egeria, Madame de Longueville, he resolved to rescue her brother, his old comrade of Freiburg and Nördlingen. It was with Spanish assistance that he hoped to do so; and a powerful army of that nation assembled in Artois under the archduke Leopold, governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands. But the peasants of the country-side rose against the invaders, the royal army in Champagne was in the capable hands of César de Choiseul, comte du Plessis-Praslin, who counted fifty-two years of age and thirty-six of war experience, and the little fortress of Guise successfully resisted the archduke's attack. Thereupon, however, Mazarin drew upon Plessis-Praslin's army