Different though they were in life and character, there is a certain resemblance between Monluc and Brantôme. Both have the same air of perfect satisfaction with themselves, and both pour out the fruits of their varied experience with the same appearance of colloquial confidence.[111] Pierre de Bourdeilles, called Brantôme from the name of an abbey of which he was lay abbot--that is to say, of which he drew the abbot’s portion by favour of the king, without taking the vows--was a younger son of a distinguished family of Perigord. He was born about 1540, and died in 1614. During many years he travelled much, fought more or less, and lived at Court in the intervals of journeys or campaigns. Being disappointed of a place which the king had promised him, he was preparing to revenge himself by treason, when his horse fell with him, and crippled him for life. Brantôme now betook himself to writing his reminiscences as a consolation. Though he professed a certain contempt for letters, he spent great pains on his work, and its bulk is considerable. In addition to some minor treatises--the so-called _Discours des Duels_, the _Rodomontades Espaignolles_, and a few others--he made two great collections, which he named _Des Hommes_ and _Des Femmes_. These he rewrote and revised not a little. It was his wish that they should be published as he left them, but his heirs neglected his directions. His manuscripts were copied, handed about, and finally straggled into print by fragments, to which the booksellers gave fancy names, such as _Les Grandes Dames_, _Les Dames Galantes_, and so forth. The admiration which Monluc felt for his own business of soldiering, Brantôme extended to every manifestation of energetic character by deed or word, moral or immoral, with a marked, but mainly artistic, preference for good sayings and immorality. He is not to be trusted in details, but he is in himself an invaluable witness to the time which produced him. Nowhere else can we see so fully the combination of the French love of showy action, and indifference to what we call morality, with the cruel wickedness of Italy, which distinguished the Court of the later Valois. He does not seem to have been in himself a bad man, and yet it does not appear that he saw any difference between right and wrong. Murders, and breaches of the seventh commandment, committed by ladies and gentlemen in a spirited way, have his admiration quite as easily as the most honourable actions. He tells all in the same brightly coloured, rapid, gossipping style, and stops to rejoice over every striking story which runs from his pen, whether it be a trait of magnanimity on the part of the Duke of Guise, or the brutal murder of three unarmed traders by one of his own friends, who was angry, and relieved his feelings by a butchery.