To Anne Branch Cabell “Ainsi a vous, Madame, a ma très haulte et très noble dame, a qui j’ayme a devoir attachement et obéissance, j’envoye ce livret.”...

Imprimis, as concerns the authenticity of these tales perhaps the less debate may be the higher wisdom, if only because this Nicolas de Caen, by common report, was never a Gradgrindian. And in this vo...

Inasmuch as it was by your command, illustrious and exalted lady, that I have gathered together these stories to form the present little book, you should the less readily suppose I have presumed to de...

In this place we have to do with the opening tale of the Dizain of Queens. I abridge, as afterward, at discretion; and an initial account of the Barons’ War, among other superfluities, I amputate as m...

In the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), about the festival of Saint Peter ad Vincula, the Prince de Gâtinais came to Burgos. Before this he had lodged for three months in the district of Ponthieu;...

In the year of grace 1298, a little before Candlemas (thus Nicolas begins), came letters to the first King Edward of England from his kinsman and ambassador to France, Earl Edmund of Lancaster. It was...

In the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas begins) you could have found in all England no couple more ardent in affection or in despair more affluent than Rosamund Eastney and Sir Gregory Darrell. She wa...

In the year of grace 1326, upon Walburga’s Eve, some three hours after sunset (thus Nicolas begins), had you visited a certain garden on the outskirts of Valenciennes, you might there have stumbled up...

In the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. Thi...

In the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) dwelt in a hut near Caer Dathyl in Arvon, as he had dwelt for some five years, a gaunt hermit, notoriously consecrate, whom neighboring Welshmen revered as t...

In the year of grace 1400 (Nicolas begins) King Richard, the second monarch of that name to rule in England, wrenched his own existence, and nothing more, from the close wiles of his cousin, Harry of ...

In the year of grace 1386, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew (thus Nicolas begins), came to the Spanish coast Messire Peyre de Lesnerac, in a warship sumptuously furnished and manned by many persons...

In the year of grace 1417, about Martinmas (thus Nicolas begins), Queen Isabeau fled with her daughter the Lady Katharine to Chartres. There the Queen was met by the Duke of Burgundy, and these two la...

Intrepidly depart, my little book, into the presence of that most illustrious lady who bade me compile you. Bow down before her judgment. And if her sentence be that of a fiery death, I counsel you no...

For this perplexing matter the curious may consult Paul Verville’s Notice sur la vie de Nicolas de Caen, p. 93 et seq. The indebtedness to Antoine Riczi is, of course, conceded by Nicolas in his “Epil...