Little John of Saintré

Brunhamel says that La Sale had delighted to write honorable histories from the time of his "florie jeunesse", which confirms a reasonable inference from the style of Petit Jehan le Saintré that its author was no novice in the art of romance-writing.

Petit Jehan de Saintré gives, at the point when the traditions of chivalry were fast disappearing, an account of the education of an "ideal knight" and rules for his conduct under many different circumstances.

When Petit Jehan, aged thirteen, is persuaded by the Dame des Belles-Cousines to accept her as his lady, she gives him systematic instruction in religion, courtesy, chivalry and the arts of success.

One of La Sale's commentators, Joseph Neve, ingeniously maintains that the last section is simply to show how the hero, after passing through the other grades of education, learns at last by experience to arm himself against coquetry.

The contention that the fabliau-like ending of a romance begun in idyllic fashion was due to the corrupt influences of the Dauphin's exiled court is inadmissible, for the last page was written when the prince arrived in Brabant in 1456.

Jehan de Saintré flourished in the Hundred Years' War, was taken prisoner after the 1356 Battle of Poitiers, with the elder Jean II Le Maingre, called Boucicaut, and was employed in negotiating the Treaty of Brétigny.