The manuscript Bibliothèques de Nancy, ms. 194 is the only known witness of the first recension of an universal French chronicle, composed in the last years of the thirteenth century. The present study analyzes for the first time the author's project and the sources he used. Reading this chronicle reveals that it was composed by a cleric, probably in Valenciennes, when the aldermen, in conflict with their lord John II d’Avesnes, strove to demonstrate to King Philip the Fair that their city had long belonged to the kingdom of France from a long time.