Alain Chartier

French poet and scholar

• Born: c. 1385
• Birthplace: Bayeux, Normandy, France
• Died: c. 1430
• Place of death: Avignon, France

Chartier's skillful use of the French language and his imaginative, elegant literary style significantly influenced the development of French poetry in the fifteenth century. As royal secretary to Charles VII of Valois, Chartier played an active role in the complex political world during the Hundred Years’ War, a world that he accurately recorded in prose works of extraordinary literary and historical importance.

Early Life

Alain Chartier (ah-lan shahr-tyay), the most famous poet of early fifteenth century France, the canon of the Notre-Dame de Paris, a chronicler of his time, and the creator of the literary school known as the Grands Rhétoriqueurs, was the eldest of three sons of a prominent Norman family. One of his younger brothers, Guillaume, became bishop of Paris, and another, Thomas, like Alain, held a post as royal secretary and notary. Such distinguished service to the kings of France by the three Chartier brothers suggests that the family enjoyed a certain social and economic prominence. The young Alain attended the University of Paris and may even have been a maître (lecturer-teacher) at the University of Paris for a short while.

Life's Work

Although little is known of his youthful activities, by 1417, Chartier was well established both in his profession as royal secretary and as a poet. The office of “notary and secretary of the king” was a very desirable position. In addition to guaranteeing the holder a secure place within the court, it provided a rather substantial salary. A small number of notaries were also “secretaries”; that is, as the name implies, they were empowered to sign secret letters. In his position as secretary, Chartier had almost daily contact with the king while at court and, when serving as ambassador abroad, he would have been entrusted with the most sensitive matters of state politics.

For a writer and scholar such as Chartier, the secretarial post provided intellectual benefits far beyond financial security. During untroubled times, he had time to compose his lyric poetry, he had easy access to the works of earlier poets through the king's magnificent library at Paris and through the renowned papal library at Avignon, and he enjoyed the companionship, inspiration, and encouragement of other poets who resided at court.

Life at court, however, was not without difficulties for Chartier. On several occasions, he vehemently criticized the self-serving interests at court. In De vita curiali (1489; The Curial, 1888), he wrote:

The court is an assembly of people who under the pretence of acting for the good of all, come together to diddle each other. . . . The abuses of the court and the habits of courtiers are such that no one lasts there without being corrupted and no one succeeds there without being corruptible.

From 1410 to 1425, Chartier moved regularly with members of the king's household as they fled before the invading English armies led by Henry V. During most of Chartier's career at court, France was ravaged by constant attacks from the English as part of the Hundred Years’ War, and by a virulent civil war. Chartier was deeply immersed in the political machinations of this most complex period in French history, yet he proved to be both an able ambassador and a talented and thorough chronicler. For example, his Epistola de Puella (letter concerning the maid, Joan of Arc), written in 1429, describes in accurate and lengthy detail Joan of Arc' exploits and victories, including the breaking of the siege at Orléans and the crowning of Charles VII at Reims.

The last four years of his life, Chartier served as royal ambassador on a number of important missions abroad, including one to the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1425 and another to the court of James I of Scotland in 1428. These were troubled times to be serving as royal ambassador; the office called for men of great talent and even greater courage. As a direct result of the prolonged and bitter fighting between the French and English, royal ambassadors faced the constant danger of assassination or being taken hostage. Chartier often mentioned in his correspondence concern for his personal safety.

In 1428, while visiting the court of James I of Scotland, Chartier negotiated an alliance that would result in military support for France. Charles also authorized Chartier to arrange for the marriage of James's daughter, Margaret Stuart, to Charles's son, Louis XI. Chartier's association with Margaret's marriage contract led to one of the most famous, yet clearly apocryphal, anecdotes of the fifteenth century. According to this often-repeated story, the beautiful young dauphin secretly kissed the sleeping Chartier on the lips and offered these words in defense of her action: “I kissed not the man, but rather the precious mouth from which so much beautiful poetry and so many virtuous words have issued.”

The charming story of the youthful lady embracing the aging poet quickly seduced the court of Charles VII, for Chartier's ugliness, like his lyric poetry, had become proverbial. While still in his early forties, the poet's physical appearance already betrayed the effects of the rigorous and taxing life he had led as servant to the king. According to his own writings, his body had withered, his face had wrinkled, and he had become thin and pale. Nevertheless, Margaret did not appear at the French court until 1436, six or seven years after Chartier's death, and at that time she was only twelve years old hardly mature enough to have been overwhelmed by the poetic power of Chartier's lyrical works.

The connection between Chartier's professional life and his literary production is readily apparent. His poetry reflects the traditional medieval interest in allegory and the lofty concerns of love; it was written for a court audience that anticipated the use of conventional forms and commonplace subject matter. His prose, more measured, more engaged, was informed by his royal service and reflects many of the political and social concerns of the age. His literary production was relatively small, and his reputation rests largely on one poem, “La Belle Dame sans merci” (1424; “The Beautiful, Pitiless Lady”), and one long prose piece, Le Quadrilogue invectif (1489; The Invective Quadrilogue, late fifteenth century).

In “La Belle Dame sans merci” (the French title is still most often used in English, probably because of the influence of John Keats's poem of the same name), a young lover engages in a debate with his pitiless lady. The young man professes a love that, if unrequited, will lead to his death. Repeatedly, the young lover's advances are repulsed by the uncompromising arguments of the lady as she defends her freedom and steadfastly resists submitting her liberty to the mastery of a man. Finally, she loses patience and summarily dismisses the lover. Devastated, he ultimately dies of a broken heart.

Reaction to Chartier's poem was swift and venomous. The professional male suitors of the court took umbrage at the disparaging portrait of the merciless lady and her lachrymose lover. They demanded a quick trial and severe punishment for the poet from the Court of Love, an actual institution that had been founded by a group of scholars and poets at the court of Charles VI on Saint Valentine's Day, 1401. The charter of the Court of Love clearly stated its purpose to “honor and praise . . . all women.” According to his critics, Chartier's poem had maligned the good name of all women; as punishment, he was to be banished immediately from the court. Chartier was sufficiently troubled by the harsh reaction of the court that he penned “L’Excusation” (“The Excuse”), in which he maintained that he had simply recorded a dialogue that he had innocently witnessed while attending a party. Unappeased, the court continued to pursue the poet, adamantly calling for a public retraction and even hiring lawyers. The ultimate outcome of the matter has not been clearly determined; yet both the reaction of the court and of the poet reveal the exceptional popularity of the poem. For two centuries it was attacked, praised, imitated, and repudiated.

Despite his profound influence on the development of French poetry, many critics maintain that Chartier's greatest contribution to French letters is his prose work, The Invective Quadrilogue. The word “quadrilogue” refers to the fact that four allegorical figures (France and the three “estates,” or orders of French society: the knights, the clergy, and the peasantry) are involved in a heated debate (invectif) concerning the defeat of France at the hands of the English. Written shortly after the signing of the humiliating Treaty of Troyes (1420), the work provides an astonishingly honest and reasoned critique of the social and political problems facing France in 1422. The plundering of the provinces by Henry V, the devastating civil conflict, the widespread starvation as a result of the war, and the dearth of leadership, which collectively had drained France of all of its former glory, set the political context for the work.

Chartier wondered whether France's ills were not the result of internal weaknesses more than foreign invasions. In the midst of his reverie, he fell asleep and had a vision of a beautiful lady, the personification of France, standing beside a dilapidated palace, its former richness now only barely evident. Kneeling before her were three troubled men, representing the knights, the clergy, and the peasantry. The lady admonished the men for their laziness and cowardice and forthrightly blamed their indolent behavior for the destruction of France. Responding to the lady's bitter attacks, the knight and the peasant accused each other of causing France's defeat. As the dialogue became more quarrelsome, the clergy intervened and demanded an end to the destructive bickering, because, he observed, it is just such petty behavior that is at the very root of France's problems. For France to regain her rightful place among nations, all three estates must work together. In the end, the lady underscored the wisdom of the clergy as she reminded her people that a love of the common good will overshadow individual needs and lead France to glory. If all will work together, she counseled, then the fortunes they seek individually will accrue to them all collectively. The Invective Quadrilogue affected its readers powerfully in 1422 (when it was written) and through the centuries has been cited as one of the finest statements of patriotic “prose propaganda.”

After November, 1428, no records or official documents bear the name of Alain Chartier. Most likely, he was promoted to member of the royal council as the reward for long and faithful service to the king; thereafter, he would have had his own secretary. He died at Avignon and was buried there in the Church of Saint-Antoine.

His life was one of devotion to public service and to his art. First and foremost, he was a patriot, willingly serving his country as artist and ambassador. His work revealed his love of France and its people, as well as his fervent desire to find ways to reconcile the combative elements within French society.

Significance

Chartier's prose style, always controlled, often elegant, set the standard for French writers for more than two hundred years. A prominent modern critic, Gustave Lanson, calls Chartier a fifteenth century Balzac, referring to his ability to control and elevate the French language. Generations of poets have looked back on Chartier as the father of French eloquence. Although modern readers may find Chartier's didactic works tiresome, his lyric works frivolous, and his use of medieval rhetorical devices pedantic, it was not so in his own time. His humanism and his erudition were greatly admired by his contemporaries, who referred to him respectfully as Master Alain.

Bibliography

Brown, Cynthia J. “Allegorical Design and Image-Making in Fifteenth-Century France: Alain Chartier’s Joan of Arc.” French Studies 53, no. 4 (October, 1999): 385-404. Argues that allegory served as a means to understand and overcome moments of crisis, leading to the making of the figure and image of Joan of Arc.

Cayley, Emma J. “Collaborative Communities: The Manuscript Context of Alain Chartier’s Belle Dame Sans Mercy.” Medium Aevum 71, no. 2 (2002): 226-240. A scholarly discussion of the what the author calls the “play” of competition and dialogue between the text of the poem and the poet Chartier.

Hale, J. R., J. R. L. Highfield, and B. Smalley, eds. Europe in the Late Middle Ages. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1965. This collection of essays provides valuable background information on life in fourteenth and fifteenth century Europe. Lewis’s essay supplies helpful information on political and social life at court and makes direct reference to Chartier’s work.

Hoffman, Edward J. Alain Chartier: His Life and Reputation. New York: Wittes Press, 1942. One of the earliest and most complete treatments of Chartier’s life and works. This volume includes a full account of Chartier’s life and analyses of his major works. Portions of major works are cited in their original version, and the author assesses Chartier’s influence on French letters.

Laidlaw, J. C., ed. The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier. London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Provides brief but helpful introductions to all the poems and detailed study of the 113 manuscripts that contain Chartier’s poetical works. A thorough treatment.

Patterson, Warner Forrest. Three Centuries of French Poetic Theory: A Critical History of the Chief Arts of Poetry in France, 1328-1630. 2 vols. New York: Russell and Russell, 1966. Volume 1 contains an informative introduction to the historical and intellectual context in which Chartier and his contemporaries wrote. Volume 2 contains examples of Chartier’s work in the original French.

Tilley, Arthur, ed. Medieval France. New York: Hafner Press, 1964. A standard text that provides an account of the history, literature, art, and architecture of medieval France. Offers a concise introduction to the principal writers of the early fifteenth century and places Chartier in this context.