Deschamps, Eustache (1344-1406)

French poet, born in Vertus, Champagne. He studied under the poet Guillaume de Machaut, had some legal training, and held several minor posts under Charles V and Charles VI, kings of France. In addition to many ballades and rondeaux on love, he wrote several long poems, including the satiric Mirror of Marriage, and the treatise Art of Poetry (1392). The posthumous edition of his complete works (11 vol., 1878-1902) provides much information, gained from his own experience in royal service, about the French people and their sufferings in the Hundred Years' War.