Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume I.djvu/384

Rh admiration to have any value as a biography. The conclusion of the account of Monluc may be quoted not only for its reference to Monluc's conversational powers, but as throwing light on Brantôme's own character.

Much of the interest of Brantôme's book is to be found in his numerous digressions, for which he is constantly apologizing. Thus in the middle of the account of Montmorency we have a laudatory sketch of Michel de l'Hospital, in that of Tavannes a digression on the order of St. Michael, in that of Bellegarde an account of his own treatment by Henry III. The digressions are frequently made occasions for amusing stories, which, like Montaigne's, are distinguished from such as Bouchet and Beroalde de Verville collected, in that they generally illustrate some trait of human character.

Like Montaigne again, Brantôme copies freely and without acknowledgment from books. Whole pages are taken from Le loyal serviteur, stories are borrowed from Rabelais, Des Periers, and the Heptameron, as well as from most of the writers dealt with in the last chapter. But Brantôme, unlike Montaigne, tries to conceal his thefts by judicious alterations, or by pretending that he heard the story himself, or even that he was a witness of the event related. J'ai ouy conter and J'ai vu are frequently in his mouth. He was doubtless chiefly influenced in these endeavours to conceal his borrowings by the same form of vanity as Montaigne, the desire to be regarded, not as a man of letters, but as a gentleman who amused himself by putting down his reminiscences on paper. It is for this reason that he tries to give a negligent and conversational air to his style. The result is that he is often ungrammatical and sometimes obscure. Yet his style, at any rate in the eyes of a foreigner, has considerable merit, and chiefly from its power of vivid presentment. For Brantôme, like other Gascons, like Montaigne and Monluc and Henry IV., saw things vividly and can make his readers see them. He has a store of expressive words and phrases such as un peu