Imaginary dialogue between Marie de Champagne and Chrétien de Troyes
by Charactorium · Chrétien de Troyes (1135 — 1181) · Literature · 6 min read
It is in the great hall of the comital palace of Troyes, a winter evening in the year 1181, that Marie de Champagne detains her clerk after the guests have retired. The wrought-iron chandeliers cast a flickering light on the tapestries, and a bowed vielle has fallen silent in a corner. They have known each other for fifteen years now, ever since the countess made her court a hearth of letters; she, daughter of Eleanor, he, the master craftsman of her romances. Tonight, she wants to hear him speak not as a jongleur, but in confidence.
—Master Chrétien, even before I commissioned anything from you, you had written Erec and Enide. What did you intend to establish there, where others were content merely to tell tales?
You know this, my lady, for you heard that romance in this very hall. I took a tale of adventure that jongleurs were tearing apart from court to court, and I drew from it a beautiful conjointure, an arrangement where each of Erec's trials responds to the next. The storytellers spoiled the matter by fragmenting it; I wanted a meaning to hold the whole narrative, from the first verse to the last. Erec must learn to reconcile his love for Enide with prowess, without one devouring the other. This is, I believe, the first romance where the Matter of Britain becomes something other than entertainment: a school of moderation. It is only right that he who has received the knowledge of speaking well should not keep it silent.
The storytellers spoiled the matter by fragmenting it; I wanted a meaning to hold the whole narrative.
—Why this Matter of Britain, these Britons and their fountains, rather than Rome or the deeds of Charlemagne that everyone recites?
Because the matter of Rome is worn like an old road, and that of France smells too much of battle and blood. The Breton tales, for their part, keep a share of the marvelous that no clerk has yet tamed: forests like Brocéliande, fountains that raise storms, knights who follow adventure without knowing where it leads. It is virgin ground for one who wishes to build. I find there the freedom to invent while pretending to report. And besides, these tales speak of love as much as combat, which suits better, my lady, a court where ladies listen as much as knights. That is why I have planted my romances in King Arthur's kingdom.
—In the prologue of Cligès, you write that chivalry and learning, once in Greece and then in Rome, have come to us. Is this not great pride?
Pride, or faithfulness, my lady, I do not know. But I believe it sincerely: what Greece knew, Rome gathered, and it was up to us, clerks of France, not to let it die. I learned this first from Ovid. As a young man, I put his precepts and his art of love into romance; those works are now scattered, but they trained my ear and hand. A clerk who has read the Ancients does not tell stories like a fairground jongleur: he knows that words carry a heritage. In Cligès, I wanted to marry this ancient knowledge to Breton adventures. That chivalry and learning may now dwell in France is my wish as much as my pride.
A clerk who has read the Ancients does not tell stories like a fairground jongleur.
—Let us come to Lancelot. It is I who gave you its matter and meaning. Tell me frankly: did this burden weigh on you?
I will not lie to you, to you least of all. When you entrusted me with this subject, I received it as an honor and as a trial. You had given me the matter, Lancelot's love for Queen Guinevere, and the meaning you wanted me to put into it; I was only to bring my labor and application. But to paint a knight so perfect that he mounts the cart of infamy for love, that he hesitates only two steps and repents of it all his life, requires embracing a passion one does not always share. I obeyed, my lady, for your desire was my work. And I made Lancelot the model of the lover who has no law but his lady.
You gave me the matter and the meaning; I was only to bring my labor.
—I have been told that you did not finish this romance yourself, that you entrusted it to another's hands. Why did you let Godefroi finish it?
Godefroi de Leigni is a clerk of good learning, and it was with my consent that he brought Lancelot to its end, from the point where Lancelot is walled up. Should one see weariness there? Let us say that other works pressed upon me, and that this story of a love stolen from a king led me where my pen sometimes hesitated to go. You had asked me for the meaning, my lady, and I served it loyally; but a clerk also has his conscience, and there are conclusions he prefers to leave to another hand. Godefroi followed my design without betraying it. The work is ours, no less than yours. See in this sharing no disavowal, only the measure of a man who knows where to stop.
—This evening again, your verses were read by candlelight before the hall emptied. What do these evening gatherings in my court mean to you?
They are, my lady, the very life of my romances. A book closed on its parchment is worth nothing; it needs a voice, a hall, faces lit by the flame of chandeliers. When the jongleur or I read aloud, I see your knights approve a feat, your ladies smile at a courteous turn, and I know at once which verse has struck home. The vielle punctuates the grave passages, silence falls at moments of anguish. I write in the morning, with a fresh mind, on my parchment; but it is in the evening, in this warmth of hearth and tapestries, that my octosyllables take on their true sound. Without these evening gatherings, I would be but a clerk scribbling for himself alone.
A book closed on its parchment is worth nothing; it needs a voice, a hall, faces.
—You compose in eight-syllable verses with rhyming couplets. Why this form, and not the song that jongleurs sing in the squares?
Because the octosyllable runs like speech, my lady, without the emphasis of the chanson de geste. The laisse that is sung suits great sword-blows and Charlemagne's armies; but I want to follow a knight close to his heart, to voice his doubts, his ruses, his tendernesses. The eight-syllable verse with rhyming couplets never stops, it advances like a horse at a walk, and it leaves room for subtlety as much as action. It is the meter of clerks who tell stories, not of jongleurs who declaim. And it lends itself to evening reading: one can follow it for hours without tiring the ear. It is the exact tool of the conjointure I seek.
—I hear that you are working on a new romance for Count Philip of Flanders. Should I be saddened, I who have given you so much?
Do not be saddened, my lady, for what I owe you is not measured by a single book. Count Philip gave me a writing from which I drew this new matter, and I praise him in my prologue for his largesse, which surpasses, I said, that of the greatest. But it is here, at your court, that I learned my art; no dedication can erase that. A clerk goes where generosity calls him, as water follows the slope; that does not deny the source. This Story of the Grail bears, moreover, the mark of all I have matured at your court: adventure, quest, hidden meaning. See it as a fruit of Troyes offered to Flanders, not a betrayal.
—And this Grail you speak of, what is it? No storyteller before you has sounded this word. Where are you leading your young Perceval?
That, my lady, is what I still keep to myself. The grail appears in the castle of the Fisher King, carried in procession, and the young Perceval, a naive Welshman raised far from the world by his mother, dares not ask the question that would deliver him. Therein lies all the meaning: a knight can accomplish everything by arms and lose everything by silence. I want to lead this simpleton from folly to wisdom, from blood on snow to knowledge of himself. What the grail contains, what it truly means, I will reveal in due time, if God grants me life to finish it. For this matter, I feel, is higher than any I have touched.
A knight can accomplish everything by arms and lose everything by silence.
—At the end of all this, Master Chrétien, what would you like people to remember of what we have built together at this court?
That we gave form to what had none, my lady. Before, there were scattered tales, jongleurs who disfigured them, songs of battle. We have brought forth here a narrative that thinks, where adventure carries meaning, where love and prowess measure each other. I have given my labor and my learning; you have given the place, the matter, and that demanding ear that made me rework a lame verse twenty times. The rest, I do not know: a clerk does not know what the centuries will keep of him. But I believe that these knights of Britain, born by candlelight in Troyes, will ride farther than we. That is enough for a man of the pen.
These knights of Britain, born by candlelight in Troyes, will ride farther than we.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Chrétien de Troyes's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.