conclusions. It has been my privilege to be permitted free access to
this scholar's collection of books, and I would here express my deep
gratitude to the Kirk family for their generosity and courtesy towards
me.

After some preliminary reading at Brussels and Paris and in England,
the work for this volume has been completed in America, where the
opportunity of securing the latest results of research and criticism
is constantly increasing, although these results are still lodged
under many roofs. I have had many reasons to thank the librarians of
New York, Boston, and Washington, and also those of Harvard, Columbia,
and Cornell universities for courtesies and for serviceable aid; and
just as many reasons to regret the meagreness of what can be put
between two covers as the gleanings from so rich a harvest.

One word further in explanation of the use of _Bold_. The adjective
has been retained simply because it has been so long identified with
Charles in English usage. I should have preferred the word _Rash_ as
a better equivalent for the contemporary term, applied to the duke in
his lifetime,--_le téméraire_.

R.P.

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1908.

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CONTENTS