C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme (d. 1614)
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de (bro
-tōm’). A French chronicler (about 1527–1614); born at Périgord. He was for many years traveler or soldier; retired to his estate twenty years before his death, and used his leisure in writing his ‘Memoirs,’ in sections devoted to ‘Lives of Illustrious Men and Great Captains of Foreign Countries’; of ‘Illustrious Men, etc., of France’; of ‘Illustrious Women’; of ‘Courteous Dames’; ‘Anecdotes of Duels’; ‘Spanish Rhodomontades and Oaths’; etc. The author is vain and egotistical, but thoroughly naïve and honest. The style is charmingly piquant, with frequent sallies of wit and flashes of eloquence. He is indeed a fascinating chronicler. His ‘Complete Works’ (10 vols.) were published at The Hague (1740). (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).