die pureft truth, difengaged from all flattery, par tiality, or ihtereft. It is this truth which our hiftorian piques himfelf cm having fought after with the greateft care* However, ali I have juft faid is taken from his own words, in a number of partages in his hiftory ; and it is on this alone that I depend. It remains to be feen if he has as faithfully obferved' this law which he irapofes on himfelf, as he has promifed. But before Tenter into an examination of this queftion, I fhall make fome general obfervations on hi» chronology : I fhall then fpeak of the firft thirty years of his hiftory, which are, properly fpeaking, but an introduâion to the forty, and fome yeari which follow them, to the end of the fourteenth century. VIH. The Chrófiologyof Froiffari. I OBSERVE in the chronology of Froil&rt two* material defe&s, which are the fource of all the diforder found in it. The firft, that when he pafle& from the hiftory of one country to that of another* he makes the hiftory which he begins go back to a period anterior to what he has juft fpoken of* without having, taken the precaution to inform hia readers of it. The fécond, which is not lefs con«* fiderable, is, that he has not fettled in his own mind the manner of counting the years ; he makes them, fometimes begin the χft of January, at other times at EafUri and fometimes even at Palm Sunday. Froil&rt does not confine himfelf to date bjp, yea* the events he relates: .months, days, hours of the