BRANTOME, Pierre de Bout deilIe (LORD OF THE ABBEY OF : b.
Perigord, Gascony, about 1540; d. 1614. Being the younger son of a nobleman, he was des tined for ecclesiastical preferment but left the Church to become a page at the court of Mar garet of Navarre. In his epitaph, composed by himself, he relates in a vaunting manner how he first bore arms under the great Francis of Guise and afterward served the king, his mas ter. He studied in Paris and was gentleman of the chamber to Charles IX. He visited Scot land as escort of Mary Stuart. He also spent some time at the courts of Henry III and Henry IV. After the death of Charles IX, he withdrew to his estates, where he wrote his memoirs, which have a great deal of vanity and self-complacency, mingled with much that is interesting. Brantenne was personally ac quainted with the great characters of the time and an eye-witness of all the important events which then took place, and in some was an actor. He was a courtier, regardless of right or wrong, who does not blame the great but observes and relates their faults and crimes as ingenuously as if he were uncertain whether they deserve praise or blame; as indifferent about honor and chastity in women as about integrity in men. He places us in the middle
of that century when expiring chivalry was contending with the forming and as yet unset tled manners of later times. Brantome, in the midst of his wandering life, had acquired more learning than most of his fellow soldiers. He has left 'Vies des grands capitaines f ran cais' ; 'Vies des grands capitaines strangers' ; 'Vies des dames illustres,' and "Vies des dames galantes' (together called 'Recueil des dames)), besides other works. All his manuscripts were collected by the Ecoles des Chartes in 1904. Consult Lalanne, 'Brantome, sa vie et ses ecrits' (Paris 1897) Wormeley, K. P., 'Illus trious Dames of the Court of the Valois Kings' (New York 1912).