Bending the Truth ‘Ceci n’est pas un conte’ —Froissart, Merigot Marches, and the well-ordered narrative

Abstract Froissart’S style has long been recognized as remarkable, and it is an undeniably important element of his literary appeal. However, it is not the sole, or even the most fundamental element of the literary specificity of the Chroniques. The texts studied here and in subsequent chapters are all characterized, in their various ways, by their ability to generate connotative readings of considerable richness. They have, as such, no equivalent in the other historical works examined above, and are all marked by that feature which signals the ‘set towards the message’ of Froissart’s best writing: they promise, or threaten, or even purport, to say much more than their obvious, referential meaning. Instead of merely expounding or explaining the phenomena they recount (what ever may have been the intentions of their author), they appear to open up to question these very ‘facts’, for further reflection, scrutiny, or aesthetic enjoyment. From the end of Book II onwards, and especially in the opening chapters of Book III, the chronicler begins to show signs of leaving behind the primarily linear mode of the chronicle of events. The change involved is not easy to circumscribe, but there can be no doubt that, from this point on, we are at times dealing with a much richer textuality than hitherto encountered. The texts under discussion below in Parts II and III all spring, it seems to me, from a creative tension born of the chronicler’s ‘hesitation’ between an attitude of fascination and one of aversion with respect to a number of phenomena that challenge his understanding of what is acceptable in society (according to the consecrated paradigms that he himself recognizes). These texts are all responsive, in varying ways, to readings that allow for the presence of ‘configured’ or even metaphorical meanings.