Background
Alain Chartier was born in Bayeux, France about 1385 to a family marked by considerable ability.
Alain Chartier was born in Bayeux, France about 1385 to a family marked by considerable ability.
He was educated at the University of Paris.
He was in the service of Charles VII and took part in various missions for the King, one to Scotland to arrange for the marriage of the future Louis XI, then aged five, with the three-year-old Princess Margaret of Scotland. His most characteristic works are the poem, La belle Dame sans merci ("The Beautiful Merciless Lady") and the prose work, Quadrilogue invectif. The former started a genre which remained popular for over a century. The Quadrilogue is a colloquy between four personages: France, Nobility, Clergy, and People. Each pictures his great suffering and resolves to remedy its causes for the good of all, a theme that the author preached with great vigor. It was written in 1422, and it is remarkable for its patriotic spirit and its Ciceronian style. Chartier died at Avignon about 1433.