ambition and shortcomings may therefore be placed, not unfitly, among
the pen portraits of individuals who have attempted to change the map
of Europe.

The materials for an exhaustive study of the times, and of the
participants in the scenes thereof, are almost overwhelming
in quantity. Into this narrative, I have woven the words of
contemporaries when these related what they saw and thought, or at
least what they said they saw or thought, about events passing within
their sight or their ken. The veracity attained is only that of a
mosaic of bits, each with its morsel of truth. And the rim in which
these bits are set is too slender to contain all the illumination
necessary. The narrative is, of necessity, partial and fragmentary,
for a complete story would require a series of biographies presented
in parallel columns. My own preliminary chapter to this book--a
mere explanation of the presence of the dukes of Burgundy in the
Netherlands--grew into an account of a sovereign whom they deposed and
was published under the title of _A Mediæval Princess._

John Foster Kirk gave 1713 pages to his record of Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy. Forty years have elapsed since that publication
appeared and a mass of interesting material pertinent to the subject
has been given out to the public, while separate phases of it have
been minutely discussed by competent critics, so that at every point
there is new temptation for the biographer to expand the theme where
the scope of his work demands brevity.

In using the later fruit of historical investigation, it is delightful
for an American to find that scholars of all nations do justice to
Mr. Kirk's accuracy and industry even when they may differ from his