Et que je puisse mon estat gouverner
Moiennement, en grace, sanz envie,
Sanz trop avoir et sanz pain demander,
Car au jour d'ui est la plus seure vie."[1]
The quest of glory or of gain does but entail misery; only the poor man is happy, he lives tranquilly and long.
". . . Un ouvrier et uns povres chartons
Va mauvestuz, deschirez et deschaulx
Mais en ouvrant prant en gré ses travaulx
Et liement fait son euvre fenir.
Par nuit dort bien; pour ce uns tels cueurs loiaulx
Voit quatre roys et leur regne fenir."[2]
The picture of a working man surviving four kings pleased him so much that he used it several times.
The editor of Deschamps' works, Monsieur Gaston Raynaud, supposes that the poems of this tendency all date from the last period of his life, when, deprived of his functions, forsaken and disappointed, he has at last learned to understand the vanity of court affairs. This is perhaps going too far; these poems would seem rather to be the expression of sentiments, more or less conventional, current among the nobility itself in the midst of court life.
The theme of contempt for a courtier's life enjoyed great favour with a group of scholars who, towards the end of the fourteenth century, mark the beginning of French humanism, and whose circle was connected with that of the leaders of the great councils of the Church. Pierre d'Ailly himself is the author of a poem forming a companion piece with that of Franc Gontier: the tyrant, in contrast with the happy rustic, leading the life of a slave in continuous fear. The theme was admirably fit to be treated in the epistolary style, after the model of Petrarch. Jean de Montreuil tried his hand
- ↑ I only ask of God to give me That I may serve and praise him in this world, Live for myself, my coat or doublet whole, One horse to carry my labour, And that I may govern my estate In mediocre style, in grace, without envy, Without having too much and without begging my bread, For this day is the safest life.
- ↑ A working man and a poor waggoner, Go about ill dressed, in torn clothes and ill shod, But, labouring, he takes pleasure in his work And merrily finishes it. At night he sleeps well; and therefore such a loyal heart Sees four kings and their reigns end.
