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THOMAS JOHNES, ESQ.
Memoirs of the life of Sir John Froissart
page 7
wlere, as he -fays, 1 'they love - war better than peace, and where frange» are well received/ He fpeaks of England,—the reception given him, the amufements procured for him in the focietiesof4 lords, ladies and damlels/ and thev carefles they- loaded him with ;. but nothing was able to calm the -melancholy which overwhelmed him,—fo that, not being longer able to fupport the* pangs of abfence, -he rcfalvod to return nearer to the lady of * hi& heart. *
Queen Philippa of Hainault detained him in England, and learnt from • a virelay, which he prefented to her, the-caufe of his trouble : (he took, oompaffion on him'5 by ordering him-to go back to his own country, on * conditicHi, however, of his promife to return, and furniihed him withf * money and horfes to perform the joufney..
Love foon conduéled him to the lady of his afieâîons.. Froiflàrt let no opportunity flip of frequenting whatever company the-might honour with t her prefence, and of converting with her.. We have before feen (ho was of fiich high birth that€ kings and emperors might have fought her,*. Thefo words taken literally would only be applicable ta a perfon. of* blood royal or the ifTue of a fovereign prince ; but how can we connect the idea ofc fuch high birth with- the detail he gives us o£ the iecret converfations, thei • * amufements and aflèmblies which he was at liberty to. partake of by day on night ? andy as if-thefe traits were not fufficient- to make her known at the* time he wrote, he feems to havewiihed to point her out more clearly by tha name of Anne, in the enigmatical verfes which make part of his manufcript -poems. - It may be prefumed that this4over fo paiionate and tender, had the ufual fate of almoft every paHon.'-
EroifTart fpeaks in one of his rondeaus of another-lady whom* he hadr loved, and whofe name, compoied. of five letters, was to be found in that of Polixena : this-may be Alix,, which was formerly written Aelix. There is reafon to believe he had a third flame called Margaret, and that it is lhe whom he indire&ly celebrates* in-a poem* under the titleT and.in honour* of the flower which bears her name f •
* • Dtttie de a Fleur de la Marguerite/ pages 70 and the following of his manufcript poems* . f- The engli(h readtrmuft be informed, iliac Marguerite is not only the name of a woman but • aMb of the lower called Daify and of a pearl*
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