{"product_id":"2940013117365","title":"THE BOOK OF THE DUKE OF TRUE LOVERS","description":"TRANSLATOR’S NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe only two known MSS., both early fifteenth century French, of the\u003cbr\u003elove-story here rendered into English prose, are the one in the\u003cbr\u003eBibliothèque Nationale (836), and that in the British Museum (Harley,\u003cbr\u003e4431).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe MS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale forms one of the treasures of the\u003cbr\u003efamous collection of MSS. made by Jean, Duc de Berry, the Mecænas of\u003cbr\u003eilluminated MSS. At his death it passed into the possession of his\u003cbr\u003edaughter Marie, who, by marriage, had become Duchesse de Bourbon. When,\u003cbr\u003ein the reign of François I., the Connétable de Bourbon, to whom it had\u003cbr\u003edescended, was disgraced, the king seized his books and MSS., and\u003cbr\u003ecarried them off to Fontainebleau, well pleased to add by any means,\u003cbr\u003erighteous or unrighteous, to the treasures of the royal library. Here\u003cbr\u003ethis MS. and others remained until the reign of Charles IX., when they\u003cbr\u003ewere removed to Paris, and placed in the Bibliothèque du Roi, now the\u003cbr\u003eworld-famous Bibliothèque Nationale.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe MS. in the British Museum has also had an interesting and chequered\u003cbr\u003ecareer. It was originally presented by Christine de Pisan to Isabelle of\u003cbr\u003eBavaria, the queen of Charles VI. of France, whose books and MSS. were,\u003cbr\u003ein 1425, acquired by John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France. It is more\u003cbr\u003ethan probable that this MS. was amongst these and was brought to\u003cbr\u003eEngland, for the various signatures on the enclosing parchment would\u003cbr\u003ecertainly seem to indicate that this was the case. Late in the fifteenth\u003cbr\u003ecentury the MS. was sold to one of the most celebrated bibliophiles of\u003cbr\u003ethe day, Louis of Bruges. After this, there is a blank in its history,\u003cbr\u003euntil, in the seventeenth century, we find it once more in England, in\u003cbr\u003ethe possession of Henry, Duke of Newcastle, whose grand-daughter married\u003cbr\u003eEdward Harley, Earl of Oxford, the founder of the splendid collection of\u003cbr\u003eMSS. and books purchased in 1754 for the British Museum, and now known\u003cbr\u003eas the Harleian Collection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe writer of the story, Christine de Pisan, was one of the world’s many\u003cbr\u003efamous women, and one who, by her life and work, created an ideal for\u003cbr\u003ewomankind—that of sweetness and strength. Born in Venice in 1363, she\u003cbr\u003ewas, when five years of age, taken by her mother to Paris, to join her\u003cbr\u003efather, Thomas de Pisan, who had been summoned thither by the king,\u003cbr\u003eCharles V., to serve as his astrologer, in which service he remained\u003cbr\u003euntil the king’s death. The Court of Charles V. was, in spite of the\u003cbr\u003econstant warfare that troubled his kingdom, at once most cultured and\u003cbr\u003erefined, and it was in such surroundings that Christine was brought up.\u003cbr\u003eAt the age of fifteen she was married to the king’s notary and\u003cbr\u003esecretary, Etienne de Castel, a gentleman of Picardy, who, however, died\u003cbr\u003esome ten years later, leaving her with three children to provide for.\u003cbr\u003eLike many another, she turned to letters as both a material and a mental\u003cbr\u003esupport. She wrote not only purely lyrical poetry, of extraordinary\u003cbr\u003evariety and abundance considering that the subject is almost invariably\u003cbr\u003ethe joys and sorrows of love, sometimes, as she tells us, expressing her\u003cbr\u003eown sentiments, sometimes those of others at whose request she wrote,\u003cbr\u003ebut she also wrote sacred and scientific poems, and moral and political\u003cbr\u003eprose works, and a kind of romantic fiction, of which the story of The\u003cbr\u003eDuke of True Lovers is an example, although it is quite possible, and\u003cbr\u003eindeed probable, that it has some historic basis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChristine begins her story by saying that it had been confided to her by\u003cbr\u003ea young prince who did not wish his name to be divulged, and who desired\u003cbr\u003eonly to be known as The Duke of True Lovers. It has been suggested, with\u003cbr\u003emuch likelihood, that this is the love story of Jean, Duc de Bourbon,\u003cbr\u003eand Marie, Duchesse de Berry, who has already been alluded to as the\u003cbr\u003edaughter of the famous Jean, Duc de Berry, and the inheritor of his MSS.\u003cbr\u003eThis Marie had been married, when quite a child, to Louis III. de\u003cbr\u003eChatillon, Comte de Dunois, and afterwards to Philippe d’Artois, Comte\u003cbr\u003ed’Eu, Constable of France, whose wife she was at the time when the\u003cbr\u003eincidents which have been woven into this story are supposed to have\u003cbr\u003etaken place. Philippe d’Artois only survived the marriage three or four\u003cbr\u003eyears, and after three years of widowhood, the already much-married\u003cbr\u003eMarie wedded (1400) our hero, Jean, Duc de Bourbon.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47172103635184,"sku":"2940013117365","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013117365_p0.jpg?v=1763577051","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013117365","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}