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Preface

An attempt to present to students a succinct history of the course of French literature compiled from an examination of that literature itself, and not merely from previous accounts of it is, I believe, a new one in English. There will be observed in the parts of this Short History a considerable difference of method; and as such a difference is not usual in works of the kind, it may be well to state the reasons which have induced me to adopt it. Early French literature is to a great extent anonymous. Moreover, even where it is not, the authors were usually more influenced by certain prevalent styles or forms than by anything else. Into these forms they threw without considerations of congruity whatever they had to say. Nothing, for instance, can be less suitable for historical or scientific disquisition than the octosyllabic metre of a satiric poem. But Jean de Meung and one at least of the authors of Renart le Contrefait[1] do not think of composing prose diatribes. At one moment and place the form of the Chanson de Geste is all-absorbing, at another the form of the Roman d'Aventures, at another the form of the Fabliau. In Book I. I shall therefore proceed by these forms, giving an account of each separately.

After Villon the case changes. Instead of classes of chroniclers, trouveres, jongleurs, we get individual authors of eminence and individuality striking out their own way and saying their own say in the manner not that is fashionable but that seems best to them. During this time, therefore, and especially during that brilliant age of French literature, the sixteenth century, I shall proceed by authors, taking the most remarkable individually, and grouping their followers around them.

From the time of Malherbe the system of schools begins, divided according to subjects. The poet, the dramatist, the historian, have their predecessors, and either intentionally copy them or intentionally innovate upon them. Malherbe and Delille, Corneille and Lemercier, Sarrasin and Rulhiere, whatever the difference of merit, stand to one another in a definite relation, and the later writers represent more or less the accepted traditions each of his school. In this part, therefore, I shall proceed by subjects, taking historians, poets, dramatists, etc., together. One difference will be noticed between the third and fourth Books, dealing respectively with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It has seemed unnecessary to allot a special chapter to theological and ecclesiastical writing in the latter, or to scientific writing in the former.

Almost all writers who have attempted literary histories in a small compass have recognised the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of treating contemporary or recent work on the same scale as older authors. In treating, therefore, of literature subsequent to the appearance of the Romantic movement, I shall content myself with giving a rapid sketch of the principal literary developments and their exponents.

There are doubtless objections to this quadripartite arrangement; but it appears to me better suited for the purpose of laying the foundations of an acquaintance with French literature than a more uniform plan.

The space at my disposal does not admit of combining full information as to the literature with elaborate literary comment upon its characteristics, and there can be no doubt that in such a book as this, destined for purposes of education chiefly, the latter must be sacrificed to the former. As an instance of the sacrifice I may refer to Bk. I. Ch. II. There are some forty or fifty Chansons de Gestes in print, all of which save two or three I have read, and almost every one of which presents points on which it would be most interesting to me to comment. But to do this in the limits would be impossible. Nor is it easy to enter upon disputed literary questions, however tempting they may be. On such points as the relations of Northern to Provencal poetry, the origin of the Chansons and the Arthurian romances, the successive versions of Froissart, the authenticity of the last book of Rabelais, it is only possible here to indicate the most probable conclusions. Generally speaking, the scale of treatment will be found to be adjusted to the system of division already stated. In the middle ages, where the importance of the general form surpasses that of the individual practitioners, comparatively small space is given to these individuals, and little attempt is made to follow up the scanty and often conjectural particulars of their lives. In the later books I have endeavoured (departing in this respect from the system of my two former sketches of the subject, the article on 'French Literature' in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Primer which has preceded this work in the Clarendon Press Series) to deal more fully with the greater names whose work is most instructive, and as to whom most curiosity is likely to be felt.

If, as seems very likely, these explanations should not content some of my critics, I can only say that the passages which they may miss here would have been far easier and far pleasanter for me to write than the passages which they will here find. This volume attempts to be, not a series of causeries on the literary history of France, but a Short History of French Literature. Two things only I have uniformly aimed at, accuracy as absolute as I could secure, and completeness as thorough as space would allow. In the pursuit of the former object I have thought it well to take no fact or opinion at second-hand where the originals were accessible to me. Manuscript sources I do not pretend to have consulted; but any judgment which is passed in this book may be taken as founded on personal acquaintance with the book or author unless the contrary be stated. Some familiarity with the subject has convinced me that nowhere are opinions of doubtful accuracy more frequently adopted and handed on without enquiry than in the history of literature.

Those who read this book for purposes of study will, it is hoped, be already acquainted with the Primer, which is, in effect, an introduction to it, and which contains what may be called a bird's-eye view of the subject. But, lest the wood should be lost sight of for the trees, notes or interchapters have been inserted between the several books, indicating the general lines of development followed by the great literature which I have attempted to survey. To these I have for the most part confined generalisations as distinct from facts.

I have, I believe, given in the notes a sufficient list of authorities which those who desire to follow up the subject may consult. I have not been indiscriminately lavish in indicating editions of authors, though I believe that full information will be found as to those necessary for a scholarly working knowledge of French literature. I had originally hoped to illustrate the whole book with extracts; but I discovered that such a course would either swell it to an undesirable bulk, or else would provide passages too short and too few to be of much use. I have therefore confined the extracts to the mediaeval period, which can be illustrated by selections of moderate length, and in which such illustration, from the general resemblance between the individuals of each class, and the comparative rarity of the original texts, is specially desirable. To avoid the serious drawback of the difference of principle on which old French reprints have been constructed, as many of these extracts as possible have been printed from Herr Karl Bartsch's admirable Chrestomathie. But in cases where extracts were either not to be found there, or were not, in my judgment, sufficiently characteristic, I have departed from this plan. The illustration, by extracts, of the later literature, which requires more space, has been reserved for a separate volume.

I had also intended to subjoin some tabular views of the chief literary forms, authors, and books of the successive centuries. But when I formed this intention I was not aware that such tables already existed in a book very likely to be in the hands of those who use this work, M. Gustave Masson's French Dictionary. Although the plan I had formed was not quite identical with his, and though the execution might have differed in detail, it seemed both unnecessary and to a certain extent ungracious to trespass on the same field. With regard to dates the Index will, it is believed, be found to contain the date of the birth and death, or, if these be not obtainable, the floruit of every deceased author of any importance who is mentioned in the book. It has not seemed necessary invariably to duplicate this information in the text. I have also availed myself of this Index (for the compilation of which I owe many thanks to Miss S. A. Ingham) to insert a very few particulars, which seemed to find a better place there than in the body of the volume, as being not strictly literary.

In conclusion, I think it well to say that the composition of this book has, owing to the constant pressure of unavoidable occupations, been spread over a considerable period, and has sometimes been interrupted for many weeks or even months. This being the case, I fear that there may be some omissions, perhaps some inconsistencies, not improbably some downright errors. I do not ask indulgence for these, because that no author who voluntarily publishes a book has a right to ask, nor, perhaps, have critics a right to give it. But if any critic will point out to me any errors of fact, I can promise repentance, as speedy amendment as may be, and what is more, gratitude.

(1882.)

Preface to the Second Edition.--In the second edition the text has been very carefully revised. All corrections of fact indicated by critics and private correspondents, both English and French (among whom I owe especial thanks to M. A. Beljame), have, after verification, been made. A considerable number of additional dates of the publication of important books have been inserted in the text, and the Index has undergone a strict examination, resulting in the correction of some faults which were due not to the original compiler but to myself. On the suggestion of several competent authorities a Conclusion, following the lines of the Interchapters, is now added. If less deference is shown to some strictures which have been passed on the plan of the work and the author's literary views, it is due merely to the conviction that a writer must write his own book in his own way if it is to be of any good to anybody. But in a few places modifications of phrases which seemed to have been misconceived or to be capable of misconception have been made. I have only to add sincere thanks to my critics for the very general and, I fear, scarcely deserved approval with which this Short History of a long subject has been received, and to my readers for the promptness with which a second edition of it has been demanded.

(1884.)

Preface to the Third Edition.--In making, once more, an examination of this book for the purposes of a third edition I have again done my best to correct such mistakes as must (I think I may say inevitably) occur in a very large number of compressed statements about matter often in itself of great minuteness and complexity. I have found some such mistakes, and I make no doubt that I have left some.

In the process of examination I have had the assistance of two detailed reviews of parts of the book by two French critics, each of very high repute in his way. The first of these, by M. Gaston Paris, in Romania (XII, 602 sqq.), devoted to the mediaeval section only, actually appeared before my second edition: but accident prevented my availing myself of it fully, though some important corrections suggested by it were made on a slip inserted in most of the copies of that issue. The assistance thus given by M. Paris (whose forbearance in using his great learning as a specialist I have most cordially to acknowledge) has been supplemented by the appearance, quite recently, of an admirable condensed sketch of his own[2], which, compact as it is, is a very storehouse of information on the subject. If in this book I have not invariably accepted M. Paris' views or embodied his corrections, it is merely because in points of opinion and inference as opposed to ascertained fact, the use of independent judgment seems to me always advisable.

The other criticism (in this case of the later part of my book), by M. Edmond Scherer, would not seem to have been written in the same spirit. M. Scherer holds very different views from mine on literature in general and French literature in particular; he seems (which is perhaps natural) not to be able to forgive me the difference, and to imagine (which if not unnatural is perhaps a little unreasonable, a little uncharitable, and even, considering an express statement in my preface, a little impolite) that I cannot have read the works on which we differ. I am however grateful to him for showing that a decidedly hostile examination, conducted with great minuteness and carefully confined to those parts of the subject with which the critic is best acquainted, resulted in nothing but the discovery of about half a dozen or a dozen misprints and slips of fact[3]. One only of these (the very unpardonable blunder of letting Madame de Stael's Considerations appear as an early work, which I do not know how I came either to commit or to overlook) is of real importance. Such slips I have corrected with due gratitude. But I have not altered passages where M. Scherer mistakes facts or mistakes me. I need hardly say that I have made no alterations in criticism, and that the passage referring to M. Scherer himself (with the exception of a superfluous accent) stands precisely as it did.

Some additions have been made to the latter part of the book, but not very many: for the attempt to 'write up' such a history to date every few years can only lead to confusion and disproportion. I have had, during the decade which has passed since the book was first planned, rather unusual opportunities of acquainting myself with all new French books of any importance, but a history is not a periodical, and I have thought it best to give rather grudging than free admittance to new-comers. On the other hand, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to obliterate chronological references which the effluxion of time has rendered, or may render, misleading. The notes to which it seemed most important to attract attention, as modifying or enlarging some statement in the text, are specially headed 'Notes to Third Edition': but they represent only a small part of the labour which has been expended on the text. I have also again overhauled and very considerably enlarged the index; while the amplification of the 'Contents' by subjoining to each chapter-heading a list of the side-headings of the paragraphs it contains, will, I think, be found an advantage. And so I commend the book once more to readers and to students[4].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Note to Third Edition.--M. Gaston Paris expresses some surprise at my saying 'one of the authors,' and attributes both versions to the Troyes clerk (see pp. 52, 53). I can only say that so long as Renart le Contrefait is unpublished, if not longer, such a question is difficult to decide: and that the accepted monograph on the subject (that of Wolf) left on my mind the impression of plural authorship as probable.

[2] La Litterature Francaise du Moyen Age (Paris, 1888).

[3] A preface is but an ill place for controversy. As however M. Scherer, thanks chiefly to the late Mr. Matthew Arnold, enjoys some repute in England, I may give an example of his censure. He accuses me roundly of giving in my thirty dates of Corneille's plays 'une dizaine de fausses,' and he quotes (as I do) M. Marty-Laveaux. As since the beginning, years ago, of my Cornelian studies, I have constantly used that excellent edition, though, now as always, reserving my own judgment on points of opinion, I verified M. Scherer's appeal with some alarm at first, and more amusement afterwards. The eminent critic of the Temps had apparently contented himself with turning to the half-titles of the plays and noting the dates given, which in ten instances do differ from mine. Had his patience been equal to consulting the learned editor's Notices, he would have found in every case but one the reasons which prevailed and prevail with me given by M. Marty-Laveaux himself. The one exception I admit. I was guilty of the iniquity of confusing the date of the publication of Othon with the date of its production, and printing 1665 instead of 1664. So dangerous is it to digest and weigh an editor's arguments, instead of simply copying his dates. Had I done the latter, I had 'scaped M. Scherer's tooth.

[4] The remarks on M. Scherer in this preface (and I need hardly say still more those which occur in the body of the book with reference to a few others of his criticisms) were written long before his fatal illness, and had been sent finally to press some time before the announcement of his death. I had at first thought of endeavouring to suppress those which could be recalled. But it seemed to me on reflection that the best compliment to the memory of a man who was himself nothing if not uncompromising, and towards whom, whether alive or dead, I am not conscious of having entertained any ill-feeling, would be to print them exactly as they stood, with the brief addition that I have not known a critic more acute within his range, or more honest according to what he saw, than M. Edmond Scherer. (March 20, 1889.)

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I. MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE

CHAP. I. THE ORIGINS 1

Relation of French to Latin. Influence of Latin Literature. Early Monuments. Dialects and Provincial Literatures. Beginning of Literature proper. Cantilenae. Trouveres and Jongleurs.

II. CHANSONS DE GESTES 10

Origin of Chansons de Gestes. Definition. Period of Composition. Chanson de Roland. Amis et Amiles. Other principal Chansons. Social and Literary Characteristics. Authorship. Style and Language. Later History.

III. PROVENCAL LITERATURE 26

Langue d'Oc. Range and characteristics. Periods of Provencal Literature. First Period. Second Period. Forms of Troubadour Poetry. Third Period. Literary Relation of Provencal and French. Defects of Provencal Literature.

IV. ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY 34

The Tale of Arthur. Its Origin. Order of French Arthurian Cycle. Chrestien de Troyes. Spirit and Literary value of Arthurian Romances. Romances of Antiquity. Chanson d'Alixandre. Roman de Troie. Other Romances on Classical subjects.

V. FABLIAUX. THE ROMAN DU RENART 47

Foreign Elements in Early French Literature. The Esprit Gaulois makes its appearance. Definition of Fabliaux. Subjects and character of Fabliaux. Sources of Fabliaux. The Roman du Renart. The Ancien Renart. Le Couronnement Renart. Renart le Nouvel. Renart le Contrefait. Fauvel.

VI. EARLY LYRICS 62

Early and Later Lyrics. Origins of Lyric. Romances and Pastourelles. Thirteenth Century. Changes in Lyric. Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century. Quesnes de Bethune. Thibaut de Champagne. Minor Singers. Adam de la Halle. Ruteboeuf. Lais. Marie de France.

VII. SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY 75

Verse Chronicles. Miscellaneous Satirical Verse. Didactic verse. Philippe de Thaun. Moral and Theological verse. Allegorical verse. The Roman de la Rose. Popularity of the Roman de la Rose. Imitations.

VIII. ROMANS D'AVENTURES 91

Distinguishing features of Romans d'Aventures. Looser application of the term. Classes of Romans d'Aventures. Adenes le Roi. Raoul de Houdenc. Chief Romans d'Aventures. General Character. Last Chansons. Baudouin de Sebourc.

IX. LATER SONGS AND POEMS 100

The Artificial Forms of Northern France. General Character. Varieties. Jehannot de Lescurel. Guillaume de Machault. Eustache Deschamps. Froissart. Christine de Pisan. Alain Chartier.

X. THE DRAMA 110

Origins of the Drama. Earliest Vernacular Dramatic Forms. Mysteries and Miracles. Miracles de la Vierge. Heterogeneous Character of Mysteries. Argument of a Miracle Play. Profane Drama. Adam de la Halle. Monologues. Farces. Moralities. Soties. Profane Mysteries. Societies of Actors.

XI. PROSE CHRONICLES 127

Beginning of Prose Chronicles. Grandes Chroniques de France. Villehardouin. Minor Chroniclers between Villehardouin and Joinville. Joinville. Froissart. Fifteenth-Century Chroniclers.

XII. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 140

General use of Prose. Prose Sermons. St. Bernard. Maurice de Sully. Later Preachers. Gerson. Moral and Devotional Treatises. Translators. Political and Polemical Works. Codes and Legal Treatises. Miscellanies and Didactic Works. Fiction. Antoine de la Salle.

INTERCHAPTER I. SUMMARY OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 151

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II. THE RENAISSANCE

CHAP. I. VILLON, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY 155

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Characteristics of Fifteenth-century Literature. Villon. Comines. Coquillart. Baude. Martial d'Auvergne. The Rhetoriqueurs. Chansons du xv'eme Siecle. Preachers.

II. MAROT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 168

Hybrid School of Poetry. Jean le Maire. Jehan du Pontalais. Roger de Collerye. Minor Predecessors of Marot. Clement Marot. The School of Marot. Mellin de Saint-Gelais. Miscellaneous Verse. Anciennes Poesies Francaises.

III. RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 183

Fiction at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. Rabelais. Bonaventure des Periers. The Heptameron. Noel du Fail. G. Bouchet. Cholieres. Apologie pour Herodote. Moyen de Parvenir.

IV. THE PLEIADE 196

Character and Effects of the Pleiade Movement. Ronsard. The Defense et Illustration de la Langue Francaise. Du Bellay. Belleau. Baif. Daurat, Jodelle, Pontus de Tyard. Magny. Tahureau. Minor Ronsardists. Du Bartas. D'Aubigne. Desportes. Bertaut.

V. THE THEATRE FROM GRINGORE TO GARNIER 216

Gringore. The last Age of the Mediaeval Theatre. Beginnings of the Classical Drama. Jodelle. Minor Pleiade Dramatists. Garnier. Defects of the Pleiade Tragedy. Pleiade Comedy. Larivey.

VI. CALVIN AND AMYOT 228

Prose Writers of the Renaissance. Calvin. Minor Reformers and Controversialists. Preachers of the League. Amyot. Minor Translators. Dolet. Fauchet. Pasquier. Henri Estienne. Herberay. Palissy. Pare. Olivier de Serres.

VII. MONTAIGNE AND BRANTOME 241

Disenchantment of the late Renaissance. Montaigne. Charron. Du Vair. Bodin and other Political Writers. Brantome. Montluc. La Noue. Agrippa d'Aubigne. Marguerite de Valois. Vieilleville. Palma-Cayet. Pierre de l'Estoile. D'Ossat. Sully. Jeannin. Minor Memoir-writers. General Historians.

VIII. THE SATYRE MENIPPEE. REGNIER 259

Satyre Menippee. Regnier.

INTERCHAPTER II. SUMMARY OF RENAISSANCE LITERATURE 270

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III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

CHAP. I. POETS 274

Malherbe. The School of Malherbe. Vers de Societe. Voiture. Epic School. Chapelain. Bacchanalian School. Saint Amant. La Fontaine. Boileau. Minor Poets of the Seventeenth Century.

II. DRAMATISTS 290

Montchrestien. Hardy. Minor predecessors of Corneille. Rotrou. Corneille. Racine. Minor Tragedians. Development of Comedy. Moliere. Contemporaries of Moliere. The School of Moliere. Regnard. Characteristics of Molieresque Comedy.

III. NOVELISTS 319

D'Urfe. The Heroic Romances. Scarron. Cyrano de Bergerac. Furetiere. Madame de la Fayette. Fairy Tales. Perrault.

IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS 332

General Historians. Mezeray. Historical Essayists. St. Real. Memoir-writers. Rohan. Bassompierre. Madame de Motteville. Cardinal de Retz. Mademoiselle. La Rochefoucauld. Saint Simon. Madame de Sevigne. Tallemant des Reaux. Historical Antiquaries. Du Cange.

V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS 354

Balzac. Pascal. La Rochefoucauld. La Bruyere.

VI. PHILOSOPHERS 368

Descartes. Port Royal. Bayle. Malebranche.

VII. THEOLOGIANS AND PREACHERS 379

St. Francois de Sales. Bossuet. Fenelon. Massillon. Bourdaloue. Minor Preachers.

INTERCHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 391

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IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

CHAP. I. POETS 395

Literary Degeneracy of the Eighteenth Century, especially manifest in Poetry. J. B. Rousseau. Voltaire. Descriptive Poets. Delille. Lebrun. Parny. Chenier. Minor Poets. Light Verse. Piron. Desaugiers.

CHAP. II. DRAMATISTS 406

Divisions of Drama. La Motte. Crebillon the Elder. Voltaire and his followers. Lesage. Comedie Larmoyante. La Chaussee. Diderot. Marivaux. Beaumarchais. Characteristics of Eighteenth-century Drama.

III. NOVELISTS 416

Lesage. Marivaux. Prevost. Voltaire. Diderot. Rousseau. Crebillon the Younger. Bernardin de St. Pierre. Restif de la Bretonne. Chateaubriand. Madame de Stael. Xavier de Maistre. Benjamin Constant.

IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS 436

Characteristics and Divisions of Eighteenth-century History. Rollin. Dubos. Boulainvilliers. Voltaire. Mably. Rulhiere. Memoirs. Mme. de Staal-Delaunay. Duclos. Besenval. Madame d'Epinay. Minor Memoirs. Memoirs of the Revolutionary Period. Abundance of Letter-writers. Mademoiselle Aisse. Madame du Deffand. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Voltaire. Diderot. Galiani.

V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS 452

Occasional Writing in the Eighteenth-century. Periodicals. Fontenelle. La Motte. Vauvenargues. D'Aguesseau. Duclos. Marmontel. La Harpe. Thomas. Orthodox Apologists. Freron. Philosophe Criticism. D'Alembert. Diderot. Les Feuilles de Grimm. Diderot's Salons. His General Criticism. Newspapers of the Revolution. The Influence of Journalism. Chamfort. Rivarol. Joubert. Courier. Senancour.

VI. PHILOSOPHERS 473

The philosophe movement. Montesquieu. Lettres Persanes. Grandeur et Decadence des Romains. Esprit des Lois. Voltaire. The Encyclopaedia. Diderot. D'Alembert. Rousseau. Political Economists. Vauban, Quesnay, etc. Turgot. Condorcet. Volney. La Mettrie. Helvetius. Systeme de la Nature. Condillac. Joseph de Maistre. Bonald.

VII. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS 499

Buffon. Lesser Scientific Writers. Voyages and Travels. Linguistic and Literary Study.

INTERCHAPTER IV. SUMMARY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 504

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Book V

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 510

The Romantic Movement. Writers of the later Transition. Beranger. Lamartine. Lamennais. Victor Cousin. Beyle. Nodier. Delavigne. Soumet. The Romantic Propaganda in Periodicals. Victor Hugo. Sainte-Beuve. His Method. Dangers of the Method. Dumas the Elder. Honore de Balzac. George Sand. Merimee. Theophile Gautier. Alfred de Musset. Influence of the Romantic Leaders. Minor Poets of 1830. Alfred de Vigny. Auguste Barbier. Gerard de Nerval. Curiosites Romantiques. Petrus Borel. Louis Bertrand. Second Group of Romantic Poets. Theodore de Banville. Leconte de Lisle. Charles Baudelaire. Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group. Dupont. The Parnasse. Minor and later Dramatists. Scribe. Ponsard. Emile Augier. Eugene Labiche. Dumas the Younger. Victorien Sardou. Classes of Nineteenth-century Fiction. Minor and later Novelists. Jules Janin. Charles de Bernard. Jules Sandeau. Octave Feuillet. Murger. Edmond About. Feydeau. Gustave Droz. Flaubert. The Naturalists. Emile Zola. Journalists and Critics. Paul de St. Victor. Hippolyte Taine. Academic Critics. Linguistic and Literary Study of French. Philosophical Writers. Comte. Theological Writers. Montalembert. Ozanam. Lacordaire. Ernest Renan. Historians. Thierry. Thiers. Guizot. Mignet. Michelet. Quinet. Tocqueville. Minor Historians.

CONCLUSION 579

INDEX 591

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I. THE ORIGINS

[Sidenote: Relation of French to Latin.]

Of all European literatures the French is, by general consent, that which possesses the most uniformly fertile, brilliant, and unbroken history. In actual age it may possibly yield to others, but the connection between the language of the oldest and the language of the newest French literature is far closer than in these other cases, and the fecundity of mediaeval writers in France far exceeds that of their rivals elsewhere. For something like three centuries England, Germany, Italy, and more doubtfully and to a smaller extent, Spain, were content for the most part to borrow the matter and the manner of their literary work from France. This brilliant literature was however long before it assumed a regularly organized form, and in order that it might do so a previous literature and a previous language had to be dissolved and precipitated anew. With a few exceptions, to be presently noticed, French literature is not to be found till after the year 1000, that is to say until a greater lapse of time had passed since Caesar's campaigns than has passed from the later date to the present day. Taking the earliest of all monuments, the Strasburg Oaths, as starting-point, we may say that French language and French literature were nine hundred years in process of formation. The result was a remarkable one in linguistic history. French is unquestionably a daughter of Latin, yet it is not such a daughter as Italian or Spanish. A knowledge of the older language would enable a reader who knew no other to spell out, more or less painfully, the meaning of most pages of the two Peninsular languages; it would hardly enable him to do more than guess at the meaning of a page of French. The long process of gestation transformed the appearance of the new tongue completely, though its grammatical forms and the bulk of its vocabulary are beyond all question Latin. The history of this process belongs to the head of language, not of literature, and must be sought elsewhere. It is sufficient to say that the first mention of a lingua romana rustica is found in the seventh century, while allusions in Latin documents show us its gradual use in pulpit and market-place, and even as a vehicle for the rude songs of the minstrel, long before any trace of written French can be found.

[Sidenote: Influence of Latin Literature.]

Meanwhile, however, Latin was doing more than merely furnishing the materials of the new language. The literary faculty of the Gauls was early noticed, and before their subjection had long been completed they were adepts at using the language of the conquerors. It does not fall within our plan to notice in detail the Latin literature of Gaul and early France, but the later varieties of that literature deserve some little attention, because of the influence which they undoubtedly exercised on the literary forms of the new language. In early French there is little trace of the influence of the Latin forms which we call classical. It was the forms of the language which has been said to have 'dived under ground with Naevius and come up again with Prudentius' that really influenced the youthful tongue. Ecclesiastical Latin, and especially the wonderful melody of the early Latin hymn-writers, had by far the greatest effect upon it. Ingenious and not wholly groundless efforts have been made to trace the principal forms of early French writing to the services and service-books of the church, the chronicle to the sacred histories, the lyric to the psalm and the hymn, the mystery to the elaborate and dramatic ritual of the church. The Chanson de Geste, indeed, displays in its matter and style many traces of Germanic origin, but the metre with its regular iambic cadence and its rigid caesura testifies to Latin influence. The service thus performed to the literature was not unlike the service performed to the language. In the one case the scaffolding, or rather the skeleton, was furnished in the shape of grammar; in the other a similar skeleton, in the shape of prosody, was supplied. Important additions were indeed made by the fresh elements introduced. Rhyme Latin had itself acquired. But of the musical refrains which are among the most charming features of early French lyric poetry we find no vestige in the older tongue.

[Sidenote: Early Monuments.]

The history of the French language, as far as concerns literature, from the seventh to the eleventh century, can be rapidly given. The earliest mention of the Romance tongue as distinguished from Latin and from German dialect refers to 659, and occurs in the life of St. Mummolinus or Momolenus, bishop of Noyon, who was chosen for that office because of his knowledge of the two languages, Teutonic and Romanic[5]. We may therefore assume that Mummolinus preached in the lingua Romana. To the same century is referred the song of St. Faron, bishop of Meaux[6], but this only exists in Latin, and a Romance original is inferred rather than proved. In the eighth century the Romance eloquence of St. Adalbert is commended[7], and to the same period are referred the glossaries of Reichenau and Cassel, lists containing in the first case Latin and Romance equivalents, in the second Teutonic and Romance[8]. By the beginning of the ninth century it was compulsory for bishops to preach in Romance, and to translate such Latin homilies as they read[9]; and to this same era has been referred a fragmentary commentary on the Book of Jonah[10], included in the latest collection of 'Monuments[11].' In 842 we have the Strasburg Oaths, celebrated alike in French history and French literature. The text of the MS. of Nithard which contains them is of the tenth century.

We now come to documents less shapeless. The tenth century itself gives us the song of St. Eulalie, a poem on the Passion, a life of St. Leger, and perhaps a poem on Boethius. These four documents are of the highest interest. Not merely has the language assumed a tolerably regular form, but its great division into Langue d'Oc and Langue d'Oil is already made, and grammar, prosody, and other necessities or ornaments of bookwriting, are present. The following extracts will illustrate this part of French literature. The Romance oaths and the 'St. Eulalie' are given in full, the 'Passion' and the 'St. Leger' in extract; it will be observed that the interval between the first and the others is of very considerable width. This interval probably represents a century of active change, and of this unfortunately we have no monuments to mark the progress accurately.

LES SERMENTS DE STRASBOURG DE 842.

Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum on per dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunqua prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.

Si Lodhuvigs sagrament, quae son fradre Karlo jurat, conservat, et Karlus meos sendra de sua part nun los tanit, si io returnar nun l'int pois, ne io ne neuls, cui eo returnar int pois, in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuwig nun li iv er.

CANTILENE DE SAINTE EULALIE.

Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, bel auret corps, bellezour anima. Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi, voldrent la faire diaule servir. Elle non eskoltet les mals conselliers, qu'elle deo raneiet, chi maent sus en ciel, Ne por or ned argent ne paramenz, por manatce regiel ne preiement. Niule cose non la pouret omque pleier, la polle sempre non amast lo deo menestier. E poro fut presentede Maximiien, chi rex eret a cels dis sovre pagiens El li enortet, dont lei nonque chielt. qued elle fuiet lo nom christiien. Ell' ent adunet lo suon element, melz sostendreiet les empedementz, Qu'elle perdesse sa virginitet: poros furet morte a grand honestet. Enz enl fou la getterent, com arde tost. elle colpes non auret, poro nos coist. A ezo nos voldret concreidre li rex pagiens; ad une spede li roveret tolir lo chief. La domnizelle celle kose non contredist, volt lo seule lazsier, si ruovet Krist. In figure de colomb volat a ciel. tuit orem, que por nos deguet preier, Qued auuisset de nos Christus mercit post la mort et a lui nos laist venir Par souue clementia.

LA PASSION DU CHRIST.

Christus Jhesus den s'en leved, Gehsesmani vil' es n'anez. toz sos fidels seder rovet, avan orar sols en anet. Grant fu li dois, fort marrimenz. si condormirent tuit ades. Jhesus cum veg los esveled, trestoz orar ben los manded. E dunc orar cum el anned, si fort sudor dunques suded, que cum lo sangs a terra curren de sa sudor las sanctas gutas. Als sos fidels cum repadred, tam benlement los conforted li fel Judas ja s'aproismed ab gran cumpannie dels judeus. Jhesus cum vidra los judeus, zo lor demandet que querent. il li respondent tuit adun 'Jhesum querem Nazarenum.' 'Eu soi aquel,' zo dis Jhesus. tuit li felun cadegren jos. terce ves lor o demanded, a totas treis chedent envers.

VIE DE SAINT LEGER.

Domine deu devemps lauder et a sus sancz honor porter; in su' amor cantomps dels sanz quae por lui augrent granz aanz; et or es temps et si est biens quae nos cantumps de sant Lethgier. Primos didrai vos dels honors quie il auuret ab duos seniors; apres ditrai vos dels aanz que li suos corps susting si granz, et Evvruins, cil deumentiz, qui lui a grand torment occist. Quant infans fud, donc a ciels temps al rei lo duistrent soi parent, qui donc regnevet a ciel di: cio fud Lothiers fils Baldequi. il le amat; deu lo covit; rovat que litteras apresist.

[Sidenote: Dialects and Provincial Literatures.]

Considering the great extent and the political divisions of the country called France, it is not surprising that the language which was so slowly formed should have shown considerable dialectic variations. The characteristics of these dialects, Norman, Picard, Walloon, Champenois, Angevin, and so forth, have been much debated by philologists. But it so happens that the different provinces displayed in point of literature considerable idiosyncrasy, which it is scarcely possible to dispute. Hardly a district of France but contributed something special to her wide and varied literature. The South, though its direct influence was not great, undoubtedly set the example of attention to lyrical form and cadence. Britanny contributed the wonderfully suggestive Arthurian legends, and the peculiar music and style of the lai. The border districts of Flanders seem to deserve the credit of originating the great beast-epic of Reynard the Fox; Picardy, Eastern Normandy, and the Isle of France were peculiarly rich in the fabliau; Champagne was the special home of the lighter lyric poetry, while almost all northern France had a share in the Chansons de Gestes, many districts, such as Lorraine and the Cambresis, having a special geste of their own.

[Sidenote: Beginning of Literature proper.]

It is however with the eleventh century that the history of French literature properly so called begins. We have indeed few Romance manuscripts so early as this, the date of most of them not being earlier than the twelfth. But by the eleventh century not merely were laws written in French (charters and other formal documents were somewhat later), not merely were sermons constantly composed and preached in that tongue, but also works of definite literature were produced in it. The Chanson de Roland is our only instance of its epic literature, but is not likely to have stood alone: the mystery of The Ten Virgins, a medley of French and Latin, has been (but perhaps falsely) ascribed to the same date; and lyric poetry, even putting aside the obscure and doubtful Cantilenes, was certainly indulged in to a considerable extent. From this date it is therefore possible to abandon generalities, and taking the successive forms and developments of literature, to deal with them in detail.

Before however we attempt a systematic account of French literature as it has been actually handed down to us, it is necessary to deal very briefly with two questions, one of which concerns the antecedence of possible ballad literature to the existing Chansons de Gestes, the other the machinery of diffusion to which this and all the early historical developments of the written French language owed much.

[Sidenote: Cantilenae.]

It has been held by many scholars, whose opinions deserve respect, that an extensive literature of Cantilenae[12], or short historical ballads, preceded the lengthy epics which we now possess, and was to a certain extent worked up in these compositions. It is hardly necessary to say that this depends in part upon a much larger question--the question, namely, of the general origins of epic poetry. There are indeed certain references[13] to these Cantilenae upon which the theories alluded to have been built. But the Cantilenae themselves have, as one of the best of French literary historians, the late M. Paulin Paris, remarks of another debated product, the Provencal epic, only one defect, 'le defaut d'etre perdu,' and investigation on the subject is therefore more curious than profitable. No remnant of them survives save the already-mentioned Latin prose canticle of St. Faron, in which vestiges of a French and versified original are thought to be visible, and the ballad of Saucourt, a rough song in a Teutonic dialect[14]. In default of direct evidence an argument has been sought to be founded on the constant transitions, repetitions, and other peculiarities of the Chansons, some of which (and especially Roland, the most famous of all) present traces of repeated handlings of the same subject, such as might be expected in work which was merely that of a diaskeuast[15] of existing lays.

[Sidenote: Trouveres and Jongleurs.]

It is however probable that the explanation of this phenomenon need not be sought further than in the circumstances of the composition and publication of these poems, circumstances which also had a very considerable influence on the whole course and character of early French literature. We know nothing of the rise or origin of the two classes of Trouveurs and Jongleurs. The former (which it is needless to say is the same word as Troubadour, and Trobador, and Trovatore) is the term for the composing class, the latter for the performing one. But the separation was not sharp or absolute, and there are abundant instances of Trouveres[16] who performed their own works, and of Jongleurs who aspired to the glories if not of original authorship, at any rate of alteration and revision of the legends they sang or recited. The natural consequence of this irregular form of publication was a good deal of repetition in the works published. Different versions of the legends easily enough got mixed together by the copyist, who it must be remembered was frequently a mere mechanical reproducer, and neither Trouvere nor Jongleur; nor should it be forgotten that, so long as recitation was general, repetitions of this kind were almost inevitable as a rest to the reciter's memory, and were scarcely likely to attract unfavourable remark or criticism from the audience. We may therefore conclude, without entering further into the details of a debate unsuitable to the plan of this history, that, while but scanty evidence has been shown of the existence previous to the Chansons de Gestes of a ballad literature identical in subject with those compositions, at the same time the existence of such a literature is neither impossible nor improbable. It is otherwise with the hypothesis of the existence of prose chronicles, from which the early epics (and Roland in particular) are also held to have derived their origin. But this subject will be better handled when we come to treat of the beginnings of French prose. For the present it is sufficient to say that, with the exception of the scattered fragments already commented upon, there is no department of French literature before the eleventh century and the Chansons de Gestes, which possesses historical existence proved by actual monuments, and thus demands or deserves treatment here.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] 'Fama bonorum operum, quia praevalebat non tantum in Teutonica sed in Romana lingua, Lotharii regis ad aures usque perveniente,' says his life. The chronicler Sigebert confirms the statement that he was made bishop 'quod Romanam non minus quam Teutonicam calleret linguam.' Lingua Latina and Lingua Romana are from this time distinguished.

[6] The Latin form of the song is given by Helgaire, Bishop of Meaux, who wrote a life of St. Faron, his predecessor, towards the end of the ninth century. Helgaire uses the words 'juxta rusticitatem,' 'carmen rusticum;' and Lingua Rustica is usually if not universally synonymous with Lingua Romana.

[7] 'Si vulgari id est romana lingua loqueretur omnium aliarum putares inscium.'

[8] The Reichenau Glossary is at Carlsruhe. It was published in 1863 by Holtzmann. The Cassel Glossary, which came from Fulda, was published in the last century (1729).

[9] Ordered by the Councils of Tours, Rheims, and Arles (813-851).

[10] In the Library at Valenciennes.

[11] Les plus anciens Monuments de la Langue Francaise. Paris, 1875.

[12] The subject of the Cantilenae is discussed at great length by M. Leon Gautier, Les Epopees Francaises, Ed. 2, vol. i. caps. 8-13. Paris, 1878.

[13] These, which are for the most part very vague and not very early, will be found fully quoted and discussed in Gautier, l. c.

[14] Published by Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1837).

[15] This word (= arranger or putter-in-order) is familiar in Homeric discussion, and therefore seems appropriate. M. Gaston Paris speaks with apparent confidence of the pre-existing chants, and, in matter of authority, no one speaks with more than he: but it can hardly be said that there is proof of the fact.

[16] The older and in this case more usual form.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

II. THE CHANSONS DE GESTES

The earliest form which finished literature took in France was that of epic or narrative poetry. Towards the middle of the eleventh century certainly, and probably some half-century earlier, poems of regular construction and considerable length began to be written. These are the Chansons de Gestes, so called from their dealing with the Gestes[17], or heroic families of legendary or historical France. It is remarkable that this class of composition, notwithstanding its age, its merits, and the abundant examples of it which have been preserved, was one of the latest to receive recognition in modern times. The matter of many of the Chansons, under their later form of verse or prose romances of chivalry, was indeed more or less known in the eighteenth century. But an appreciation of their real age, value, and interest has been the reward of the literary investigations of our own time. It was not till 1837 that the oldest and the most remarkable of them was first edited from the manuscript found in the Bodleian Library[18]. Since that time investigation has been constant and fruitful, and there are now more than one hundred of these interesting poems known.

[Sidenote: Origin of Chansons de Gestes.]

The origin and sources of the Chansons de Gestes have been made a matter of much controversy. We have already seen how, from the testimony of historians and the existence of a few fragments, it appears that rude lays or ballads in the different vernacular tongues of the country were composed and sung if not written down at very early dates. According to one theory, we are to look for the origin of the long and regular epics of the eleventh and subsequent centuries in these rude compositions, first produced independently, then strung together, and lastly subjected to some process of editing and union. It has been sought to find proof of this in the frequent repetitions which take place in the Chansons, and which sometimes amount to the telling of the same incident over and over again in slightly varying words. Others have seen in this peculiarity only a result of improvisation in the first place, and unskilful or at least uncritical copying in the second. This, however, is a question rather interesting than important. What is certain is that no literary source of the Chansons is now actually in existence, and that we have no authentic information as to any such originals. At a certain period--approximately given above--the fashion of narrative poems on the great scale seems to have arisen in France. It spread rapidly, and was eagerly copied by other nations.

[Sidenote: Definition.]

The definition of a Chanson de Geste is as follows. It is a narrative poem, dealing with a subject connected with French history, written in verses of ten or twelve syllables, which verses are arranged in stanzas of arbitrary length, each stanza possessing a distinguishing assonance or rhyme in the last syllable of each line. The assonance, which is characteristic of the earlier Chansons, is an imperfect rhyme, in which identity of vowel sound is all that is necessary. Thus traitor, felon, compaingnons, manons, noz, the first, fourth, and fifth of which have no character of rhyme whatever in modern poetry, are sufficient terminations for an assonanced poem, because the last vowel sound, o, is identical. There is moreover in this versification a regular caesura, sometimes after the fourth, sometimes after the sixth syllable; and in a few of the older examples the stanzas, or as they are sometimes called laisses, terminate in a shorter line than usual, which is not assonanced. This metrical system, it will be observed, is of a fairly elaborate character, a character which has been used as an argument by those who insist on the existence of a body of ballad literature anterior to the Chansons. We shall see in the following chapters how this double definition of a Chanson de Geste, by matter and by form, serves to exclude from the title other important and interesting classes of compositions slightly later in date.

[Sidenote: Period of Composition.]

The period of composition of these poems extended, speaking roughly, over three centuries. In the eleventh they began, but the beginnings are represented only by Roland, the Voyage de Charlemagne, and perhaps Le Roi Louis. Most and nearly all the best date from the twelfth. The thirteenth century also produces them in great numbers, but by this time a sensible change has come over their manner, and after the beginning of the fourteenth only a few pieces deserving the title are written. They then undergo transformation rather than neglect, and we shall meet them at a later period in other forms. Before dealing with other general characteristics of the early epics of France it will be well to give some notion of them by actual selection and narrative. For this purpose we shall take two Chansons typical of two out of the three stages through which they passed. Roland will serve as a sample of the earliest, Amis et Amiles of the second. Of the third, as less characteristic in itself and less marked by uniform features, it will be sufficient to give some account when we come to the compositions which chiefly influenced it, namely the romances of Arthur and of antiquity.

[Sidenote: Chanson de Roland.]

The Chanson de Roland, the most ancient and characteristic of these poems, though extremely popular in the middle ages[19], passed with them into obscurity. The earliest allusion to the Oxford MS., which alone represents its earliest form, was made by Tyrwhitt a century ago. Conybeare forty years later dealt with it in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1817, and by degrees the reviving interest of France in her older literature attracted French scholars to this most important monument of the oldest French. It was first published as a whole by M. F. Michel in 1837, and since that time it has been the subject of a very great amount of study. Its length is 4001 decasyllabic lines, and it concludes with an obscure assertion of authorship, publication or transcription by a certain Turoldus[20]. The date of the Oxford MS. is probably the middle of the twelfth century, but its text is attributed by the best authorities to the end of the eleventh. There are other MSS., but they are all either mutilated or of much later date. The argument of the poem is as follows:--

Charlemagne has warred seven years in Spain, but king Marsile of Saragossa still resists the Christian conqueror. Unable however to meet Charlemagne in the field, he sends an embassy with presents and a feigned submission, requesting that prince to return to France, whither he will follow him and do homage. Roland opposes the reception of these offers, Ganelon speaks in their favour, and so does Duke Naimes. Then the question is who shall go to Saragossa to settle the terms. Roland offers to go himself, but being rejected as too impetuous, suggests Ganelon--a suggestion which bitterly annoys that knight and by irritating him against Roland sows the seeds of his future treachery. Ganelon goes to Marsile, and at first bears himself truthfully and gallantly. The heathen king however undermines his faith, and a treacherous assault on the French rearguard when Charlemagne shall be too far off to succour it is resolved on and planned. Then the traitor returns to Charles with hostages and mighty gifts. The return to France begins; Roland is stationed to his great wrath in the fatal place, the rest of the army marches through the Pyrenees, and meanwhile Marsile gathers an enormous host to fall upon the isolated rearguard. There is a long catalogue of the felon and miscreant knights and princes that follow the Spanish king. The pagan host, travelling by cross paths of the mountains, soon reaches and surrounds Roland and the peers. Oliver entreats Roland to sound his horn that Charles may hear it and come to the rescue, but the eager and inflexible hero refuses. Archbishop Turpin blesses the doomed host, and bids them as the price of his absolution strike hard. The battle begins and all its incidents are told. The French kill thousands, but thousands more succeed. Peer after peer falls, and when at last Roland blows the horn it is too late. Charlemagne hears it and turns back in an agony of sorrow and haste. But long before he reaches Roncevaux Roland has died last of his host, and alone, for all the Pagans have fallen or fled before him.

The arrival of Charlemagne, his grief, and his vengeance on the Pagans, should perhaps conclude the poem. There is however a sort of afterpiece, in which the traitor Ganelon is tried, his fate being decided by a single combat between his kinsman Pinabel and a champion named Thierry, and is ruthlessly put to death with all his clansmen who have stood surety for him. Episodes properly so called the poem has none, though the character of Oliver is finely brought out as contrasted with Roland's somewhat unreasoning valour, and there is one touching incident when the poet tells how the Lady Aude, Oliver's sister and Roland's betrothed, falls dead without a word when the king tells her of the fatal fight at Roncevaux. The following passage will give an idea of the style of this famous poem. It may be noticed that the curious refrain Aoi has puzzled all commentators, though in calling it a refrain we have given the most probable explanation:--

Rollanz s'en turnet, par le camp vait tut suls cercet les vals e si cercet les munz; iloec truvat Ivorie et Ivun, truvat Gerin, Gerer sun cumpaignun, iloec truvat Engeler le Gascun e si truvat Berenger e Orun, iloec truvat Anseis e Sansun, truvat Gerard le veill de Russillun: par un e un les ad pris le barun, al arcevesque en est venuz atut, sis mist en reng dedevant ses genuilz. li arcevesque ne poet muer n'en plurt; lievet sa main, fait sa beneicun; apres ad dit 'mare fustes, seignurs! tutes voz anmes ait deus li glorius! en pareis les mete en seintes flurs! la meie mort me rent si anguissus, ja ne verrai le riche empereur.' Rollanz s'en turnet, le camp vait recercer; desoz un pin e folut e ramer sun cumpaignun ad truved Oliver, cuntre sun piz estreit l'ad enbracet. si cum il poet al arcevesque en vent, sur un escut l'ad as altres culchet; e l'arcevesque l'ad asols e seignet. idonc agreget le doel e la pitet. co dit Rollanz 'bels cumpainz Oliver, vos fustes filz al bon cunte Reiner, ki tint la marche de Genes desur mer; pur hanste freindre e pur escuz pecier e pur osberc e rompre e desmailler, [pur orgoillos veintre e esmaier] e pur prozdomes tenir e conseiller e pur glutuns e veintre e esmaier en nule terre n'ot meillor chevaler.' Li quens Rollanz, quant il veit morz ses pers e Oliver, qu'il tant poeit amer, tendrur en out, cumencet a plurer, en sun visage fut mult desculurez. si grant doel out que mais ne pout ester, voeillet o nun, a terre chet pasmet. dist l'arcevesques 'tant mare fustes, ber.' Li arcevesques quant vit pasmer Rollant, dunc out tel doel, unkes mais n'out si grant; tendit sa main, si ad pris l'olifan. en Rencesvals ad une ewe curant; aler i volt, si'n durrat a Rollant. tant s'esforcat qu'il se mist en estant, sun petit pas s'en turnet cancelant, il est si fieble qu'il ne poet en avant, nen ad vertut, trop ad perdut del sanc. einz que om alast un sul arpent de camp, fait li le coer, si est chaeit avant: la sue mort li vait mult angoissant. Li quenz Rollanz revient de pasmeisuns, sur piez se drecet, mais il ad grant dulur; guardet aval e si guardet amunt: sur l'erbe verte, ultre ses cumpaignuns, la veit gesir le nobilie barun, co est l'arcevesque que deus mist en sun num; cleimet sa culpe, si reguardet amunt, cuntre le ciel amsdous ses mains ad juinz, si priet deu que pareis li duinst. morz est Turpin le guerreier Charlun. par granz batailles e par mult bels sermons cuntre paiens fut tuz tens campiuns. deus li otreit seinte beneicun! Aoi. Quant Rollanz vit l'arcevesque qu'est morz, senz Oliver une mais n'out si grant dol, e dist un mot que destrenche le cor: 'Carles de France chevalce cum il pot; en Rencesvals damage i ad des noz; li reis Marsilie ad sa gent perdut tot, cuntre un des noz ad ben quarante morz.' Li quenz Rollanz veit l'arcevesque a terre, defors sun cors veit gesir la buelle, desuz le frunt li buillit la cervelle. desur sun piz, entre les dous furcelles, cruisiedes ad ses blanches mains, les belles. forment le pleint a la lei de sa terre. 'e, gentilz hom, chevaler de bon aire, hoi te cumant al glorius celeste: ja mais n'ert hume plus volenters le serve. des les apostles ne fut honc tel prophete pur lei tenir e pur humes atraire. ja la vostre anme nen ait doel ne sufraite! de pareis li seit la porte uverte!'

[Sidenote: Amis et Amiles.]

As Roland is by far the most interesting of those Chansons which describe the wars with the Saracens, so Amis et Amiles[21] may be taken as representing those where the interest is mainly domestic. Amis et Amiles is the earliest vernacular form of a story which attained extraordinary popularity in the middle ages, being found in every language and in most literary forms, prose and verse, narrative and dramatic. This popularity may partly be assigned to the religious and marvellous elements which it contains, but is due also to the intrinsic merits of the story. The Chanson contains 3500 lines, dates probably from the twelfth century, and is written, like Roland, in decasyllabic verse, but, unlike Roland, has a shorter line of six syllables and not assonanced at the end of each stanza. Its story is as follows:--

Amis and Amiles were two noble knights, born and baptized on the same day, who had the Pope for sponsor, and whose comradeship was specially sanctioned by a divine message, and by the miraculous likeness which existed between them. They were however brought up, the one in Berri, the other in Auvergne, and did not meet till both had received knighthood. As soon as they had joined company, they resolved to offer their services to Charles, and did him great service against rebels. Here the action proper begins. The friends arouse the jealousy of Hardre, a felon knight, of Ganelon's lineage and likeness. Hardre engages Gombaud of Lorraine, an enemy of the Emperor, to attack the two friends; but the treason does not succeed, and the traitor, to escape unpleasant enquiries, recommends Charles to bestow his own niece Lubias on Amiles. The latter declares that Amis deserves her better, and to Amis she is married, bearing however no good-will to Amiles for his resignation of her and for his firm hold on her husband's affection. Meanwhile, the daughter of Charles, Bellicent, conceives a violent passion for Amiles, and the traitor Hardre unfortunately becomes aware of the matter. He at once accuses Amiles of treason, and the knight is too conscious of the dubiousness of his cause to be very willing to accept the wager of battle. From this difficulty he is saved by Amis, who comes to Paris from his distant seignory of Blaivies (Blaye), and fights the battle in the name and armour of his friend, while the latter goes to Blaye and plays the part of his preserver. Both ventures are made easier by the extraordinary resemblance of the pair. Amis is successful; he slays Hardre, and then has no little difficulty in saving himself from a forced marriage with Bellicent. This embroglio is smoothed out, and Amiles and Bellicent are happily united. The generous Amis however has not been able to avoid forswearing himself while playing the part of Amiles; and this sin is punished, according to a divine warning, by an attack of leprosy. His wife Lubias seizes the opportunity, procures a separation from him, and almost starves him, or would do so but for two faithful servants and his little son. At last a means of cure is revealed to him. If Amiles and Bellicent will allow their two sons to be slain the blood will recover Amis of his leprosy. The stricken knight journeys painfully to his friend and tells him the hard condition. Amiles does not hesitate, and the following passage tells his deed:--

Li cuens Amiles un petit s'atarja, vers les anfans pas por pas en ala, dormans les treuve, moult par les resgarda, s'espee lieve, ocirre les voldra; mais de ferir un petit se tarja. li ainznes freres de l'effroi s'esveilla que li cuens mainne qui en la chambre entra, l'anfes se torne, son pere ravisa, s'espee voit, moult grant paor en a, son pere apelle, si l'en arraisonna: 'biax sire peres, por deu qui tout forma, que volez faire? nel me celez vos ja. ainz mais nus peres tel chose ne pensa.' 'biaux sire fiuls, ocirre vos voil ja et le tien frere qui delez toi esta; car mes compains Amis qui moult m'ama, dou sanc de vos li siens cors garistra, que gietez est dou siecle.' 'Biax tres douz peres,' dist l'anfes erramment, 'quant vos compains avra garissement, se de nos sans a sor soi lavement, nos sommes vostre de vostre engenrement, faire en poez del tout a vo talent. or nos copez les chies isnellement; car dex de glorie nos avra en present, en paradis en irommes chantant et proierommes Jhesu cui tout apent que dou pechie vos face tensement, vos et Ami, vostre compaingnon gent; mais nostre mere, la bele Belissant, nos saluez por deu omnipotent.' li cuens l'oit, moult grans pities l'en prent que touz pasmez a la terre s'estent. quant se redresce, si reprinst hardement. or orroiz ja merveilles, bonne gent, que tex n'oistes en tout vostre vivant. li cuens Amiles vint vers le lit esrant, hauce l'espee, li fiuls le col estent. or est merveilles se li cuers ne li ment. la teste cope li peres son anfant, le sanc reciut et cler bacin d'argent: a poi ne chiet a terre.

No sooner has the blood touched Amis than he is cured, and the knights solemnly visit the church where Bellicent and the people are assembled. The story is told and the mother, in despair, rushes to the chamber where her dead children are lying. But she finds them living and in full health, for a miracle has been wrought to reward the faithfulness of the friends now that suffering has purged them of their sin.

This story, touching in itself, is most touchingly told in the Chanson. No poem of the kind is more vivid in description, or fuller of details of the manners of the time, than Amis et Amiles. Bellicent and Lubias, the former passionate and impulsive but loving and faithful, the latter treacherous, revengeful, and cold-hearted, give perhaps the earliest finished portraits of feminine character to be found in French literature. Amis and Amiles themselves are presented to us under so many more aspects than Roland and Oliver that they dwell better in the memory. The undercurrent of savagery which distinguished mediaeval times, and the rapid changes of fortune which were possible therein, are also well brought out. Not even the immolation of Ganelon's hostages is so striking as the calm ferocity with which Charlemagne dooms his wife and son as well as his daughter to pay with their lives the penalty of Bellicent's fault; while the sudden lapse of Amis from his position of feudal lordship at Blaye to that of a miserable outcast, smitten and marked out for public scorn and ill-treatment by the visitation of God, is unusually dramatic. Amis et Amiles bears to Roland something not at all unlike the relation of the Odyssey to the Iliad. Its continuation, Jourdains de Blaivies, adds the element of foreign travel and adventure; but that element is perhaps more characteristically represented, and the representation has certainly been more generally popular, in Huon de Bordeaux.

[Sidenote: Other principal Chansons.]

Of the remaining Chansons, the following are the most remarkable. Aliscans (twelfth century) deals with the contest between William of Orange, the great Christian hero of the south of France, and the Saracens. This poem forms, according to custom, the centre of a whole group of Chansons dealing with the earlier and later adventures of the hero, his ancestors, and descendants. Such are Le Couronnement Loys, La Prise d'Orange, Le Charroi de Nimes, Le Moniage Guillaume. The series formed by these and others[22] is among the most interesting of these groups. Le Chevalier au Cygne is a title applied directly to a somewhat late version of an old folk-tale, and more generally to a series of poems connected with the House of Bouillon and the Crusades. The members of this bear the separate headings Antioche[23], Les Chetifs, Les Enfances Godefroy, etc. Antioche, the first of these, which describes the exploits of the Christian host, first in attacking and then in defending that city, is one of the finest of the Chansons, and is probably in its original form not much later than the events it describes, being written by an eye-witness. The variety of its personages, the vivid picture of the alternations of fortune, the vigour of the verse, are all remarkable. This group is terminated by Baudouin de Sebourc[24], a very late but very important Chanson, which falls in with the poetry of the fourteenth century, and the Bastart de Bouillon[25]. La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche[26] is the oldest form in which the adventures of one of the most popular and romantic of Charlemagne's heroes are related. Fierabras had also a very wide popularity, and contains some of the liveliest pictures of manners to be found in these poems, in its description of the rough horse-play of the knights and the unfilial behaviour of the converted Saracen princess. This poem is also of much interest philologically[27]. Garin le Loherain[28] is the centre of a remarkable group dealing not directly with Charlemagne, but with the provincial disputes and feuds of the nobility of Lorraine. Raoul de Cambrai[29] is another of the Chansons which deal with 'minor houses,' as they are called, in contradistinction to the main Carlovingian cycle. Gerard de Roussillon[30] ranks as a poem with the best of all the Chansons. Hugues Capet[31], though very late, is attractive by reason of the glimpses it gives us of a new spirit supplanting that of chivalry proper. In it the heroic distinctly gives place to the burlesque. Macaire[32], besides being written in a singular dialect, in which French is mingled with Italian, supplies the original of the well-known dog of Montargis. Huon de Bordeaux[33], already mentioned, was not only more than usually popular at the time of its appearance, but has supplied Shakespeare with some of the dramatis personae of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Wieland and Weber with the plot of a well-known poem and opera. Jourdains de Blaivies, the sequel to Amis et Amiles, contains, besides much other interesting matter, the incident which forms the centre of the plot of Pericles. Les Quatre Fils Aymon or Renaut de Montauban[34] is the foundation of one of the most popular French chap-books. Les Saisnes[35] deals with Charlemagne's wars with Witekind. Berte aus grans Pies[36] is a very graceful story of womanly innocence. Doon de Mayence[37], though not early, includes a charming love-episode. Gerard de Viane[38] contains the famous battle of Roland and Oliver. The Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople[39] is semi-burlesque in tone and one of the earliest in which that tone is perceptible.

[Sidenote: Social and Literary Characteristics.]

In these numerous poems there is recognisable in the first place a distinct family likeness which is common to the earliest and latest, and in the second, the natural difference of manners which the lapse of three hundred years might be expected to occasion. There is a sameness which almost amounts to monotony in the plot of most Chansons de Gestes: the hero is almost always either falsely accused of some crime, or else treacherously exposed to the attacks of Saracens, or of his own countrymen. The agents of this treachery are commonly of the blood of the arch-traitor Ganelon, and are almost invariably discomfited by the good knight or his friends and avengers. The part[40] which Charlemagne plays in these poems is not usually dignified: he is represented as easily gulled, capricious, and almost ferocious in temper, ungrateful, and ready to accept bribes and gifts. His good angel is always Duke Naimes of Bavaria, the Nestor of the Carlovingian epic. In the earliest Chansons the part played by women is not so conspicuous as in the later, but in all except Roland it has considerable prominence. Sometimes the heroine is the wife, daughter, or niece of Charlemagne, sometimes a Saracen princess. But in either case she is apt to respond without much delay to the hero's advances, which, indeed, she sometimes anticipates. The conduct of knights to their ladies is also far from being what we now consider chivalrous. Blows are very common, and seem to be taken by the weaker sex as matters of course. The prevailing legal forms are simple and rather sanguinary. The judgment of God, as shown by ordeal of battle, settles all disputes; but battle is not permitted unless several nobles of weight and substance come forward as sponsors for each champion; and sponsors as well as principal risk their lives in case of the principal's defeat, unless they can tempt the king's cupidity. These common features are necessarily in the case of so large a number of poems mixed with much individual difference, nor are the Chansons by any means monotonous reading. Their versification is pleasing to the ear, and their language, considering its age, is of surprising strength, expressiveness, and even wealth. Though they lack the variety, the pathos, the romantic chivalry, and the mystical attractions of the Arthurian romances, there is little doubt that they paint, far more accurately than their successors, an actually existing state of society, that which prevailed in the palmy time of the feudal system, when war and religion were deemed the sole subjects worthy to occupy seriously men of station and birth. In giving utterance to this warlike and religious sentiment, few periods and classes of literature have been more strikingly successful. Nowhere is the mere fury of battle better rendered than in Roland and Fierabras. Nowhere is the valiant indignation of the beaten warrior, and, at the same time, his humble submission to providence, better given than in Aliscans. Nowhere do we find the mediaeval spirit of feudal enmity and private war more strikingly depicted than in the cycle of the Lorrainers, and in Raoul de Cambrai. Nowhere is the devout sentiment and belief of the same time more fully drawn than in Amis et Amiles.

[Sidenote: Authorship.]

The method of composition and publication of these poems was peculiar. Ordinarily, though not always, they were composed by the Trouvere, and performed by the Jongleur. Sometimes the Trouvere condescended to performance, and sometimes the Jongleur aspired to composition, but not usually. The poet was commonly a man of priestly or knightly rank, the performer (who might be of either sex) was probably of no particular station. The Jongleur, or Jongleresse, wandered from castle to castle, reciting the poems, and interpolating in them recommendations of the quality of the wares, requests to the audience to be silent, and often appeals to their generosity. Some of the manuscripts which we now possess were originally used by Jongleurs, and it was only in this way that the early Chanson de Geste was intended to be read. The process of hawking about naturally interfered with the preservation of the poems in their original purity, and even with the preservation of the author's name. In very few cases[41] is the latter known to us.

The question whether the Chansons de Gestes were originally written in northern or southern French has often been hotly debated. The facts are these. Only three Chansons exist in Provencal. Two of these[42] are admitted translations or imitations of Northern originals. The third, Girartz de Rossilho, is undoubtedly original, but is written in the northernmost dialect of the Southern tongue. The inference appears to be clear that the Chanson de Geste is properly a product of northern France. The opposite conclusion necessitates the supposition that either in the Albigensian war, or by some inexplicable concatenation of accidents, a body of original Provencal Chansons has been totally destroyed, with all allusions to, and traditions of, these poems. Such a hypothesis is evidently unreasonable, and would probably never have been started had not some of the earliest students of Old French been committed by local feeling to the championship of the language of the Troubadours. On the other hand, almost all the dialects of Northern French are represented, Norman and Picard being perhaps the commonest[43].

[Sidenote: Style and Language.]

The language of these poems, as the extracts given will partly show, is neither poor in vocabulary, nor lacking in harmony of sound. It is indeed, more sonorous and stately than classical French language was from the seventeenth century to the days of Victor Hugo, and abounds in picturesque terms which have since dropped out of use. The massive castles of the baronage, with their ranges of marble steps leading up to the hall, where feasting is held by day and where the knights sleep at night, are often described. Dress is mentioned with peculiar lavishness. Pelisses of ermine, ornaments of gold and silver, silken underclothing, seem to give the poets special pleasure in recording them. In no language are what have been called 'perpetual' epithets more usual, though the abundance of the recurring phrases prevents monotony. The 'clear countenances' of the ladies, the 'steely brands' of the knights, their 'marble palaces,' the 'flowing beard' of Charlemagne, the 'guileful tongue' of the traitors, are constant features of the verbal landscape. From so great a mass of poetry it would be vain in any space here available to attempt to arrange specimen 'jewels five words long.' But those who actually read the Chansons will be surprised at the abundance of fresh striking and poetic phrase.

[Sidenote: Later History.]

Before quitting the subject of the Chansons de Gestes, it may be well to give briefly their subsequent literary history. They were at first frequently re-edited, the tendency always being to increase their length, so that in some cases the latest versions extant run to thirty or forty thousand lines. As soon as this limit was reached, they began to be turned into prose, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries being the special period of this change. The art of printing came in time to assist the spread of these prose versions, and for some centuries they were almost the only form in which the Chansons de Gestes, under the general title of romances of chivalry, were known. The verse originals remained for the most part in manuscript, but the prose romances gained an enduring circulation among the peasantry in France. From the seventeenth century their vogue was mainly restricted to this class. But in the middle of the eighteenth the Comte de Tressan was induced to attempt their revival for the Bibliotheque des Romans. His versions were executed entirely in the spirit of the day, and did not render any of the characteristic features of the old Epics. But they drew attention to them, and by the end of the century, University Professors began to lecture on old French poetry. The exertions of M. Paulin Paris, of M. Francisque Michel, and of some German scholars first brought about the re-editing of the Chansons in their original form about half a century ago; and since that time they have received steady attention, and a large number have been published--a number to which additions are yearly being made. Rather more than half the known total are now in print.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Gesta or Geste has three senses: (a) the deeds of a hero; (b) the chronicle of those deeds; and (c) the family which that chronicle illustrates. The three chief gestes are those of the King, of Doon de Mayence, and of Garin de Montglane. Each of these is composed of many poems. Contrasted with these are the 'petites gestes,' which include only a few Chansons.

[18] La Chanson de Roland, ed. Fr. Michel, Paris, 1837. The MS. is in the Bodleian Library (Digby 23). Another, of much later date in point of writing but representing the same text, exists at Venice. Of later versions there are six manuscripts extant. The Chanson de Roland has since its editio princeps been repeatedly re-edited, translated, and commented. The most exact edition is that of Prof. Stengel, Heilbronn, 1878, who has given the Bodleian Manuscript both in print and in photographic facsimile. The best for general use is that of Leon Gautier (seventh edition), 1877.

[19] Wace (Roman de Rou, iii. 8038 Andresen) speaks of the Norman Taillefer as singing at Hastings 'De Karlemaigne et de Rollant.' It has been sought, but perhaps fancifully, to identify this song with the existing chanson.

[20] 'Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet.' The sense of the word declinet is quite uncertain, and the attempts made to identify Turoldus are futile.

[21] Amis et Amiles, ed. Hoffmann. Erlangen, 1852.

[22] This series is given, sometimes in whole, sometimes in extracts, by Dr. Jonckbloet, Guillaume d'Orange. The Hague, 1854.

[23] Ed. P. Paris. Paris, 1848.

[24] Ed. Boca. Valenciennes, 1841.

[25] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1877.

[26] Ed. Barrois. Paris, 1842.

[27] There exists a Provencal version of it, evidently translated from the French. The most convenient edition is that of Kroeber and Servois, Paris, 1860. There is an English fourteenth-century version published by Mr. Herrtage for the Early English Text Society, 1879.

[28] Published partially by MM. P. Paris and E. du Meril and by Herr Stengel.

[29] Ed. Le Glay. Paris, 1840.

[30] Ed. Michel. Paris, 1856.

[31] Ed. La Grange. Paris, 1864.

[32] Ed. Guessard. Paris, 1866.

[33] Ed. Guessard et Grandmaison. Paris, 1860.

[34] Ed. Michelant. Stuttgart, 1862.

[35] Ed. Michel. Paris, 1839.

[36] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1874.

[37] Ed. Pey. Paris, 1859.

[38] Ed. Tarbe. Rheims, 1850.

[39] Ed. Michel. London, 1836.

[40] It is very commonly said that this feature is confined to the later Chansons. This is scarcely the fact, unless by 'later' we are to understand all except Roland. In Roland itself the presentment is by no means wholly complimentary.

[41] The Turoldus of Roland has been already noticed. Of certain or tolerably certain authors, Graindor de Douai (revisions of the early crusading Chansons of 'Richard the Pilgrim,' Antioche, &c.), Jean de Flagy (Garin), Bodel (Les Saisnes), and Adenes le Roi, a fertile author or adapter of the thirteenth century, are the most noted.

[42] Ferabras and Betonnet d'Hanstone. M. Paul Meyer has recently edited this latter poem under the title of Daurel et Beton (Paris, 1880). To these should be added a fragment, Aigar et Maurin, which seems to rank with Girartz.

[43] There has been some reaction of late years against the scepticism which questioned the 'Provencal Epic.' I cannot however say, though I admit a certain disqualification for judgment (see note at beginning of next chapter), that I see any valid reason for this reaction.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

III. PROVENCAL LITERATURE

[Sidenote: Langue d'Oc.]

The Romance language, spoken in the country now called France, has two great divisions, the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil[44], which stand to one another in hardly more intimate relationship than the first of them does to Spanish or Italian. In strictness, the Langue d'Oc ought not to be called French at all, inasmuch as those who spoke it applied that term exclusively to Northern speech, calling their own Limousin, or Provencal, or Auvergnat. At the time, moreover, when Provencal literature flourished, the districts which contributed to it were in very loose relationship with the kingdom of France; and when that relationship was drawn tighter, Provencal literature began to wither and die. Yet it is not possible to avoid giving some sketch of the literary developments of Southern France in any history of French literature, as well because of the connection which subsisted between the two branches, as because of the altogether mistaken views which have been not unfrequently held as to that connection. Lord Macaulay[45] speaks of Provencal in the twelfth century as 'the only one of the vernacular languages of Europe which had yet been extensively employed for literary purposes;' and the ignorance of their older literature which, until a very recent period, distinguished Frenchmen has made it common for writers in France to speak of the Troubadours as their own literary ancestors. We have already seen that this supposition as applied to Epic poetry is entirely false; we shall see hereafter that, except as regards some lyrical developments, and those not the most characteristic, it is equally ill-grounded as to other kinds of composition. But the literature of the South is quite interesting enough in itself without borrowing what does not belong to it, and it exhibits not a few characteristics which were afterwards blended with those of the literature of the kingdom at large.

[Sidenote: Range and characteristics.]

The domain of the Langue d'Oc is included between two lines, the northernmost of which starts from the Atlantic coast at or about the Charente, follows the northern boundaries of the old provinces of Perigord, Limousin, Auvergne, and Dauphine, and overlaps Savoy and a small portion of Switzerland. The southern limit is formed by the Pyrenees, the Gulf of Lyons, and the Alps, while Catalonia is overlapped to the south-west just as Savoy is taken in on the north-east. This wide district gives room for not a few dialectic varieties with which we need not here busy ourselves. The general language is distinguished from northern French by the survival to a greater degree of the vowel character of Latin. The vocabulary is less dissolved and corroded by foreign influence, and the inflections remain more distinct. The result, as in Spanish and Italian, is a language more harmonious, softer, and more cunningly cadenced than northern French, but endowed with far less vigour, variety, and freshness. The separate development of the two tongues must have begun at a very early period. A few early monuments, such as the Passion of Christ[46] and the Mystery of the Ten Virgins[47], contain mixed dialects. But the earliest piece of literature in pure Provencal is assigned in its original form to the tenth century, and is entirely different from northern French[48]. It is arranged in laisses and assonanced. The uniformity, however, of the terminations of Provencal makes the assonances more closely approach rhyme than is the case in northern poetry. Of the eleventh century the principal monuments are a few charters, a translation of part of St. John's Gospel, and several religious pieces in prose and verse. Not till the extreme end of this century does the Troubadour begin to make himself heard. The earliest of these minstrels whose songs we possess is William IX, Count of Poitiers. With him Provencal literature, properly so called, begins.

[Sidenote: Periods of Provencal Literature.]

The admirable historian of Provencal literature, Karl Bartsch, divides its products into three periods; the first reaching to the end of the eleventh century, and comprising the beginnings and experiments of the language as a literary medium; the second covering the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the most flourishing time of the Troubadour poetry, and possessing also specimens of many other forms of literary composition; the third, the period of decadence, including the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and remarkable chiefly for some religious literature, and for the contests of the Toulouse school of poets. In a complete history of Provencal literature notice would also have to be taken of the fitful and spasmodic attempts of the last four centuries to restore the dialect to the rank of a literary language, attempts which have never been made with greater energy and success than in our own time[49], but which hardly call for notice here.

[Sidenote: First Period.]

The most remarkable works of the first period have been already alluded to. This period may possibly have produced original epics of the Chanson form, though, as has been pointed out, no indications of any such exist, except in the solitary instance of Girartz de Rossilho. The important poem of Auberi of Besancon on Alexander is lost, except the first hundred verses. It is thought to be the oldest vernacular poem on the subject, and is in a mixed dialect partaking of the forms both of north and south. Hymns, sometimes in mixed Latin and Provencal, sometimes entirely in the latter, are found early. A single prose monument remains in the shape of a fragmentary translation of the Gospel of St. John. But by far the most important example of this period is the Boethius. The poem, as we have it, extends to 238 decasyllabic verses arranged on the fashion of a Chanson de Geste, and dates from the eleventh century, or at latest from the beginning of the twelfth, but is thought to be a rehandling of another poem which may have been written nearly two centuries earlier. The narrative part of the work is a mere introduction, the bulk of it consisting of moral reflections taken from the De Consolatione.

[Sidenote: Second Period.]

It is only in the second period that Provencal literature becomes of real importance. The stimulus which brought it to perfection has been generally taken to be that of the crusades, aided by the great development of peaceful civilisation at home which Provence and Languedoc then saw. The spirit of chivalry rose and was diffused all over Europe at this time, and in some of its aspects it received a greater welcome in Provence than anywhere else. For the mystical, the adventurous, and other sides of the chivalrous character, we must look to the North, and especially to the Arthurian legends, and the Romans d'Aventures which they influenced. But, for what has been well called 'la passion souveraine, aveugle, idolatre, qui eclipse tous les autres sentiments, qui dedaigne tous les devoirs, qui se moque de l'enfer et du ciel, qui absorbe et possede l'ame entiere[50],' we must come to the literature of the south of France. Passion is indeed not the only motive of the Troubadours, but it is their favourite motive, and their most successful. The connection of this predominant instinct with the elaborate and unmatched attention to form which characterises them is a psychological question very interesting to discuss, but hardly suitable to these pages. It is sufficient here to say that these various motives and influences produced the Troubadours and their literature. This literature was chiefly lyrical in form, but also included many other kinds, of which a short account may be given.

Girartz de Rossilho belongs in all probability to the earliest years of the period, though the only Provencal manuscript in existence dates from the end of the thirteenth century. In the third decade of the twelfth Guillem Bechada had written a poem on the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, which, however, has perished, though the northern cycle of the Chevalier au Cygne may represent it in part. Guillem of Poitiers also wrote a historical poem on the Crusades with similar ill fate. But the most famous of historical poems in Provencal has fortunately been preserved to us. This is the chronicle of the Albigensian War, written in Alexandrines by William of Tudela and an anonymous writer. We also possess a rhymed chronicle of the war of 1276-77 in Navarre, by Guillem Anelier. In connection with the Arthurian cycle there exists a Provencal Roman d'Aventures, entitled Jaufre. The testimony of Wolfram von Eschenbach would appear to be decisive as to the existence of a Provencal continuation of Chrestien's Percevale by a certain Kiot or Guyot, but nothing more is known of this. Blandin de Cornoalha is another existing romance, and so is the far more interesting Flamenca, a lively picture of manners dating from the middle of the thirteenth century. In shorter and slighter narrative poems Provencal is still less fruitful, though Raimon Vidal, Arnaut de Zurcasses, and one or two other writers have left work of this kind. A very few narrative poems of a sacred character are also found, and vestiges of drama may be traced. But, as we have said, the real importance of the period consists in its lyrical poetry, the poetry of the Troubadours. The names of 460 separate poets are given, and 251 pieces have come down to us without the names of their writers. We have here no space for dwelling on individual persons; it is sufficient to mention as the most celebrated Arnaut Daniel, Bernart de Ventadorn, Bertran de Born, Cercamon, Folquet de Marseilha, Gaucelm Faidit, Guillem of Poitiers, Guillem de Cabestanh, Guiraut de Borneilh, Guiraut Riquier, Jaufre Rudel, Marcabrun, Peire Cardenal, Peire Vidal, Peirol, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Sordel.

[Sidenote: Forms of Troubadour Poetry.]

The chief forms in which these poets exercised their ingenuity were as follows. The simplest and oldest was called simply vers; it had few artificial rules, was written in octosyllabic lines, and arranged in stanzas. From this was developed the canso, the most usual of Provencal forms. Here the rhymes were interlaced, and the alternation of masculine and feminine by degrees observed. The length of the lines varied. Both these forms were consecrated to love verse; the Sirvente, on the other hand, is panegyrical or satirical, its meaning being literally 'Song of Service.' It consisted for the most part of short stanzas, simply rhyme, and corresponding exactly to one another. The planh or Complaint was a dirge or funeral song written generally in decasyllabics. The tenson or debate is in dialogue form, and when there are more than two disputants is called torneijamens. The narrative Romance existed in Provencal as well as the balada or three-stanza poem, usually with refrain. The retroensa is a longer refrain poem of later date, but in neither is the return of the same rhyme in each stanza necessarily observed, as in the French ballade. The alba is a leave-taking poem at morning, and the serena (if it can be called a form, for scarcely more than a single example exists) a poem of remembrance and longing at eventide. The pastorela, which had numerous sub-divisions, explains itself. The descort is a poem something like the irregular ode, which varies the structure of its stanzas. The sextine, in six stanzas of identical and complicated versification, is the stateliest of all Provencal forms. Not merely the rhymes but the words which rhyme are repeated on a regular scheme. The breu-doble (double-short) is a curious little form on three rhymes, two of which are repeated twice in three four-lined stanzas, and given once in a concluding couplet, while the third finishes each quatrain. Other forms are often mentioned and given, but they are not of much consequence.

The prose of the best period of Provencal literature is of little importance. Its most considerable remains, besides religious works and a few scientific and grammatical treatises, are a prose version of the Chanson des Albigeois, and an interesting collection of contemporary lives of the Troubadours.

[Sidenote: Third Period.]

The productiveness of the last two centuries of Provencal literature proper has been spoken of by the highest living authority as at most an aftermath. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Arnaut Vidal wrote a Roman d'Aventures entitled Guillem de la Barra. This poet, like most of the other literary names of the period, belongs to the school of Toulouse, a somewhat artificial band of writers who flourished throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, held poetical tournaments on the first Sunday in May, invented or adopted the famous phrase gai saber for their pursuits, and received, if they were successful, the equally famous Golden Violet and minor trinkets of the same sort. The brotherhood directed itself by an art of poetry in which the half-forgotten traditions of more spontaneous times were gathered up.

To this period, and to its latter part, the Waldensian writings entitled La Nobla Leyczon, to which ignorance and sectarian enthusiasm had given a much earlier date, are now assigned. There is also a considerable mass of miscellaneous literature, but nothing of great value, or having much to do with the only point which is here of importance, the distinctive character of Provencal literature, and the influence of that literature upon the development of letters in France generally. With a few words on these two points this chapter may be concluded.

[Sidenote: Literary Relation of Provencal and French.]

[Sidenote: Defects of Provencal Literature.]

It may be regarded as not proven that any initial influence was exercised over northern French literature by the literature of the South, and more than this, it may be held to be unlikely that any such influence was exerted. For in the first place all the more important developments of the latter, the Epic, the Drama, the Fabliau, are distinctly of northern birth, and either do not exist in Provencal at all, or exist for the most part as imitations of northern originals. With regard to lyric poetry the case is rather different. The earliest existing lyrics of the North are somewhat later than the earliest songs of the Troubadours, and no great lyrical variety or elegance is reached until the Troubadours' work had, by means of Thibaut de Champagne and others, had an opportunity of penetrating into northern France. On the other hand, the forms which finished lyric adopted in the North are by no means identical with those of the Troubadours. The scientific and melodious figures of the Ballade, the Rondeau, the Chant-royal, the Rondel, and the Villanelle, cannot by any ingenuity be deduced from Canso or Balada, Retroensa or Breu-Doble. The Alba and the Pastorela agree in subject with the Aubade and the Pastourelle, but have no necessary or obvious connection of form. It would, however, be almost as great a mistake to deny the influence of the spirit of Provencal literature over French, as to regard the two as standing in the position of mother and daughter. The Troubadours undoubtedly preceded their Northern brethren in scrupulous attention to poetical form, and in elaborate devices for ensuring such attention. They preceded them too in recognising that quality in poetry for which there is perhaps no other word than elegance. There can be little doubt that they sacrificed to these two divinities, elegance and the formal limitation of verse, matters almost equally if not more important. The motives of their poems are few, and the treatment of those motives monotonous. Love, war, and personal enmity, with a certain amount of more or less frigid didactics, almost complete the list. In dealing with the first and the most fruitful, they fell into the deadly error of stereotyping their manner of expression. Objection has sometimes been taken to the 'eternal hawthorn and nightingale' of Provencal poetry. The objection would hardly be fatal, if this eternity did not extend to a great many things besides hawthorn and nightingales. In the later Troubadours especially, the fault which has been urged against French dramatic literature just before the Romantic movement was conspicuously anticipated. Every mood, every situation of passion, was catalogued and analysed, and the proper method of treatment, with similes and metaphors complete, was assigned. There was no freshness and no variety, and in the absence of variety and freshness, that of vigour was necessarily implied. It may even be doubted whether the influence of this hot-house verse on the more natural literature of the North was not injurious rather than beneficial. Certain it is that the artificial poetry of the Trouveres went (in the persons of the Rondeau and Ballade-writing Rhetoriqueurs of the fifteenth century) the same way and came to the same end, that its elder sister had already trodden and reached with the competitors for the Violet, the Eglantine, and the Marigold of Toulouse.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Oc and oil (hoc and hoc illud), the respective terms indicating affirmation. In this chapter the information given is based on a smaller acquaintance at first hand with the subject than is the case in the chapters on French proper. Herr Karl Bartsch has been the guide chiefly followed.

[45] Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes.

[46] See chap. i.

[47] See chap. x.

[48] The poem on Boethius. See chap. i.

[49] By the school of the so-called Felibres, of whom Mistral and Aubanel are the chief.

[50] Moland and Hericault's Introduction to Aucassin et Nicolette. Paris, 1856.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

IV. ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY

[Sidenote: The Tale of Arthur. Its Origins.]

The passion for narrative poetry, which at first contented itself with stories drawn from the history or tradition of France, took before very long a wider range. The origin of the Legend of King Arthur, of the Round Table, of the Holy Graal, and of all the adventures and traditions connected with these centres, is one of the most intricate questions in the history of mediaeval literature. It would be beyond the scope of this book to attempt to deal with it at length. It is sufficient for our purpose, in the first place, to point out that the question of the actual existence and acts of Arthur has very little to do with the question of the origin of the Arthurian cycle. The history of mediaeval literature, as distinguished from the history of the Middle Ages, need not concern itself with any conflict between the invaders and the older inhabitants of England. The question which is of historical literary interest is, whether the traditions which Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter Map, Chrestien de Troyes, and their followers, wrought into a fabric of such astounding extent and complexity, are due to Breton originals, or whether their authority is nothing but the ingenuity of Geoffrey working upon the meagre data of Nennius[51]. As far as this question concerns French literature, the chief champions of these rival opinions were till lately M. de la Villemarque and M. Paulin Paris. In no instance was the former able to produce Breton or Celtic originals of early date. On the other hand, M. Paris showed that Nennius is sufficient to account for Geoffrey, and that Geoffrey is sufficient to account for the purely Arthurian part of subsequent romances and chronicles. The religious element of the cycle has a different origin, and may possibly not be Celtic at all. Lastly, we must take into account a large body of Breton and Welsh poetry from which, especially in the parts of the legend which deal with Tristram, with King Mark, &c., amplifications have been devised. It must, however, still be admitted that the extraordinary rapidity with which so vast a growth of literature was produced, apparently from the slenderest stock, is one of the most surprising things in literary history. Before the middle of the twelfth century little or nothing is heard of Arthur. Before that century closed at least a dozen poems and romances in prose, many of them of great length, had elaborated the whole legend as it was thenceforward received, and as we have it condensed and Englished in Malory's well-known book two centuries and a half later.

[Sidenote: Order of French Arthurian Cycle.]

The probable genesis of the Arthurian legend, in so far as it concerns French literature, appears to be as follows. First in order of composition, and also in order of thought, comes the Legend of Joseph of Arimathea, sometimes called the 'Little St. Graal.' This we have both in verse and prose, and one or both of these versions is the work of Robert de Borron, a knight and trouvere possessed of lands in the Gatinais[52]. There is nothing in this work which is directly connected with Arthur. By some it has been attributed to a Latin, but not now producible, 'Book of the Graal,' by others to Byzantine originals. Anyhow it fell into the hands of the well-known Walter Map[53], and his exhaustless energy and invention at once seized upon it. He produced the 'Great St. Graal,' a very much extended version of the early history of the sacred vase, still keeping clear of definite connection with Arthur, though tending in that direction. From this, in its turn, sprang the original form of Percevale, which represents a quest for the vessel by a knight who has not originally anything to do with the Round Table. The link of connection between the two stories is to be found in the Merlin, attributed also to Robert de Borron, wherein the Welsh legends begin to have more definite influence. This, in its turn, leads to Artus, which gives the early history of the great king. Then comes the most famous, most extensive, and finest of all the romances, that of Lancelot du Lac, which is pretty certainly in part, and perhaps in great part, the work of Map; as is also the mystical and melancholy but highly poetical Quest of the Saint Graal, a quest of which Galahad and Lancelot, not, as in the earlier legends, Percival, are the heroes. To this succeeds the Mort Artus, which forms the conclusion of the whole, properly speaking. This, however, does not entirely complete the cycle. Later than Borron, Map, and their unknown fellow-workers (if such they had), arose one or more trouveres, who worked up the ancient Celtic legends and lays of Tristram into the Romance of Tristan, connecting this, more or less clumsily, with the main legend of the Round Table. Other legends were worked up into the omnium gatherum of Giron le Courtois, and with this the cycle proper ceases. The later poems are attributed to two persons, called Luce de Gast and Helie de Borron. But not the slightest testimony can be adduced to show that any such persons ever had existence[54].

These prose romances form for the most part the original literature of the Arthurian story. But the vogue of this story was very largely increased by a trouvere who used not prose but octosyllabic verse for his medium.

[Sidenote: Chrestien de Troyes.]

As is the case with most of these early writers, little or nothing is known of Chrestien de Troyes but his name. He lived in the last half of the twelfth century, he was attached to the courts of Flanders, Hainault, and Champagne, and he wrote most of his works for the lords of these fiefs. Besides his Arthurian work he translated Ovid, and wrote some short poems. Chrestien de Troyes deserves a higher place in literature than has sometimes been given to him. His versification is so exceedingly easy and fluent as to appear almost pedestrian at times; and his Chevalier a la Charrette, by which he is perhaps most generally known, contrasts unfavourably in its prolixity with the nervous and picturesque prose to which it corresponds. But Percevale and the Chevalier au Lyon are very charming poems, deeply imbued with the peculiar characteristics of the cycle--religious mysticism, passionate gallantry, and refined courtesy of manners. Chrestien de Troyes undoubtedly contributed not a little to the popularity of the Arthurian legends. Although, by a singular chance, which has not yet been fully explained, the originals appear to have been for the most part in prose, the times were by no means ripe for the general enjoyment of work in such a form. The reciter was still the general if not the only publisher, and recitation almost of necessity implied poetical form. Chrestien did not throw the whole of the work of his contemporaries into verse, but he did so throw a considerable portion of it. His Arthurian works consist of Le Chevalier a la Charrette, a very close rendering of an episode of Map's Lancelot; Le Chevalier au Lyon, resting probably upon some previous work not now in existence; Erec et Enide, the legend which every English reader knows in Mr. Tennyson's Enid, and which seems to be purely Welsh; Cliges, which may be called the first Roman d'Aventures; and lastly, Percevale, a work of vast extent, continued by successive versifiers to the extent of some fifty thousand lines, and probably representing in part a work of Robert de Borron, which has only recently been printed by M. Hucher. Percevale is, perhaps, the best example of Chrestien's fashion of composition. The work of Borron is very short, amounting in all to some ninety pages in the reprint. The Percevale le Gallois of Chrestien and his continuators, on the other hand, contains, as has been said, more than forty-five thousand verses. This amplification is produced partly by the importation of incidents and episodes from other works, but still more by indulging in constant diffuseness and what we must perhaps call commonplaces.

[Sidenote: Spirit and Literary value of Arthurian Romances.]

From a literary point of view the prose romances rank far higher, especially those in which Map is known or suspected to have had a hand. The peculiarity of what may be called their atmosphere is marked. An elaborate and romantic system of mystical religious sentiment, finding vent in imaginative and allegorical narrative, a remarkable refinement of manners, and a combination of delight in battle with devotion to ladies, distinguish them. This is, in short, the romantic spirit, or, as it is sometimes called, the spirit of chivalry; and it cannot be too positively asserted that the Arthurian romances communicate it to literature for the first time, and that nothing like it is found in the classics. In the work of Map and his contemporaries it is clearly perceivable. The most important element in this--courtesy--is, as we have already noticed, almost entirely absent from the Chansons de Gestes, and where it is present at all it is between persons who are connected by some natural or artificial relation of comradeship or kin. Nor are there many traces of it in such fragments and indications as we possess of the Celtic originals, which may have helped in the production of the Arthurian romances. No Carlovingian knight would have felt the horror of Sir Bors when the Lady of Hungerford exercises her undoubted right by flinging the body of her captive enemy on the camp of his uncle. Even the chiefs who are presented in the Chanson d'Antioche as joking over the cannibal banquet of the Roi des Tafurs, and permitting the dead bodies of Saracens to be torn from the cemeteries and flung into the beleaguered city, would have very much applauded the deed. Gallantry, again, is as much absent from the Chansons as clemency and courtesy. The scene in Lancelot, where Galahault first introduces the Queen and Lancelot to one another, contrasts in the strongest manner with the downright courtship by which the Bellicents and Nicolettes of the Carlovingian cycle are won. No doubt Map represents to a great extent the sentiments of the polished court of England. But he deserves the credit of having been the first, or almost the first, to express such manners and sentiments, perhaps also of having being among the first to conceive them.

These originals are not all equally represented in Malory's English compilation. Of Robert de Borron's work little survives except by allusion. Lancelot du Lac itself, the most popular of all the romances, is very disproportionately drawn upon. Of the youth of Lancelot, of the winning of Dolorous Gard, of the war with the Saxons, and of the very curious episode of the false Guinevere, there is nothing; while the most charming story of Lancelot's relations with Galahault of Sorelois disappears, except in a few passing allusions to the 'haughty prince.' On the other hand, the Quest of the Saint Graal, the Mort Artus, some episodes of Lancelot (such as the Chevalier a la Charrette), and many parts of Tristan and Giron le Courtois, are given almost in full.

It seems also probable that considerable portions of the original form of the Arthurian legends are as yet unknown, and have altogether perished. The very interesting discovery in the Brussels Library, of a prose Percevale not impossibly older than Chrestien, and quite different from that of Borron, is an indication of this fact. So also is the discovery by Dr. Jonckbloet in the Flemish Lancelot, which he has edited, of passages not to be found in the existing and recognised French originals. The truth would appear to be that the fascination of the subject, the unusual genius of those who first treated it, and the tendency of the middle ages to favour imitation, produced in a very short space of time (the last quarter or half of the twelfth century) an immense amount of original handling of Geoffrey's theme. To this original period succeeded one of greater length, in which the legends were developed not merely by French followers and imitators of Chrestien, but by his great German adapters, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried of Strasburg, Hartmann von der Aue, and by other imitators at home and abroad. Lastly, as we shall see in a future chapter, come Romans d'Aventures, connecting themselves by links more or less immediate with the Round Table cycle, but independent and often quite separate in their main incidents and catastrophes.

The great number, length, and diversity of the Arthurian romances make it impossible in the space at our command to abstract all of them, and useless to select any one, inasmuch as no single poem is (as in the case of the Chansons) typical of the group. The style, however, of the prose and verse divisions may be seen in the following extracts from the Chevalier a la Charrette of Map, and the verse of Chrestien:--

Atant sont venu li chevalier jusqu'au pont: lors commencent a plorer top durement tuit ensamble. Et Lanceloz lor demande porquoi il plorent et font tel duel? Et il dient que c'est por l'amor de lui, que trop est perillox li ponz. Atant esgarde Lanceloz l'eve de ca et de la: si voit que ele est noire et coranz. Si avint que sa veue torna devers la cite, si vit la tor ou la raine estoit as fenestres. Lanceloz demande quel vile c'est la?--'Sire, font-il, c'est le leus ou la raine est.' Si li noment la cite. Et il lor dit: 'Or n'aiez garde de moi, que ge dont mains le pont que ge onques mes ne fis, ne il n'est pas si perilleux d'assez comme ge cuidoie. Mes moult a de la outre bele tor, et s'il m'i voloient hebergier il m'i auroient encor ennuit a hoste.' Lors descent et les conforte toz moult durement, et lor dit que il soient ausinc tout asseur comme il est. Il li lacent les pans de son hauberc ensenble et li cousent a gros fil de fer qu'il avoient aporte, et ses manches meesmes li cousent dedenz ses mains, et les piez desoz; et a bone poiz chaude li ont peez les manicles et tant d'espes comme il ot entre les cuisses. Et ce fu por miauz tenir contre le trenchant de l'espee.

Quant il orent Lancelot atorne et bien et bel si lor prie que il s'en aillent. Et il s'en vont, et le font naigier outre l'eve, et il enmainent son cheval. Et il vient a la planche droit: puis esgarde vers la tor ou la raine estoit en prison, si li encline. Apres fet le signe de la verroie croiz enmi son vis, et met son escu derriers son dos, qu'il ne li nuise. Lors se met desor la planche en chevauchons, si se traine par desus si armez comme il estoit, car il ne li faut ne hauberc ne espee ne chauces ne heaume ne escu. Et cil de la tor qui le veoient en sont tuit esbahi, ne il n'i a nul ne nule qui saiche veroiement qui il est; mes qu'il voient qu'il traine pardesus l'espee trenchant a la force des braz et a l'enpaignement des genouz; si ne remaint pas por les filz de fer que des piez et des mains et des genous ne saille li sanz. Mes por cel peril de l'espee qui trenche et por l'eve noire et bruiant et parfonde ne remaint que plus ne resgart vers la tor que vers l'eve, ne plaie ne angoisse qu'il ait ne prise naient; car se il a cele tor pooit venir il garroit tot maintenant de ses max. Tant s'est hertiez et trainez qu'il est venuz jusqu'a terre.

This becomes in the poem a passage more than 100 lines long, of which the beginning and end may be given:--

Le droit chemin vont cheminant, Tant que li jors vet declinant, Et vienent au pon de l'espee Apres none, vers la vespree. Au pie del' pont, qui molt est max, Sont descendu de lor chevax, Et voient l'eve felenesse Noire et bruiant, roide et espesse, Tant leide et tant espoantable Com se fust li fluns au deable; Et tant perilleuse et parfonde Qu'il n'est riens nule an tot le monde S'ele i cheoit, ne fust alee Ausi com an la mer betee. Et li ponz qui est an travers Estoit de toz autres divers, Qu'ainz tex ne fu ne james n'iert. Einz ne fu, qui voir m'an requiert, Si max pont ne si male planche: D'une espee forbie et blanche Estoit li ponz sor l'eve froide. Mes l'espee estoit forz et roide, Et avoit deus lances de lonc. De chasque part ot uns grant tronc Ou l'espee estoit cloffichiee. Ja nus ne dot que il i chiee. Porce que ele brist ne ploit. Si ne sanble-il pas qui la voit Qu'ele puisse grant fes porter. Ce feisoit molt desconforter Les deus chevaliers qui estoient Avoec le tierz, que il cuidoient Que dui lyon ou dui liepart Au chief del' pont de l'autre part Fussent lie a un perron. L'eve et li ponz et li lyon Les metent an itel freor Que il tranblent tuit de peor.

* * * * * *

Cil ne li sevent plus que dire, Mes de pitie plore et sopire Li uns et li autres molt fort. Et cil de trespasser le gort Au mialz que il set s'aparoille, Et fet molt estrange mervoille, Que ses piez desire et ses mains. N'iert mie toz antiers ne sains Quant de l'autre part iert venuz. Bien s'iert sor l'espee tenuz, Qui plus estoit tranchanz que fauz, As mains nues et si deschauz Que il ne s'est lessiez an pie Souler ne chauce n'avanpie. De ce gueres ne s'esmaioit S'es mains et es piez se plaioit; Mialz se voloit-il mahaignier Que cheoir el pont et baignier An l'eve dont james n'issist. A la grant dolor con li sist S'an passe outre et a grant destrece: Mains et genolz et piez se blece. Mes tot le rasoage et sainne Amors qui le conduist et mainne: Si li estoit a sofrir dolz. A mains, a piez et a genolz Fet tant que de l'autre part vient.

[Sidenote: Romances of Antiquity. Chanson d'Alixandre.]

About the same time as the flourishing of the Arthurian cycle there began to be written the third great division of Jean Bodel, 'la matiere de Rome la grant[55].' The most important beyond all question of the poems which go to make up this cycle (as it is sometimes called, though in reality its members are quite independent one of the other) is the Romance of Alixandre. Of the earliest French poem on this subject only a few fragments exist. This is supposed to have been a work of the eleventh or very early twelfth century, composed in octosyllabic verses, and in the mixed dialect common at the time in the south-east, by Alberic or Auberi of Besancon or Briancon. The Chanson d'Alixandre is, however, in all probability a much more important work than Alberic's. It is in form a regular Chanson de Geste, written in twelve-syllabled verse, of such strength and grace that the term Alexandrine has cleaved ever since to the metre. Its length, as we have it[56], is 22,606 verses, and it is assigned to two authors, Lambert the Short[57] and Alexander of Bernay, though doubt has been expressed whether any of the present poem is due to Lambert; if we have any of his work, it is not later than the ninth decade of the twelfth century. Lambert, Alexander, and perhaps others, are thought to have known not Alberic, but a later ten-syllabled version into Northern French by Simon of Poitiers. The remoter sources are various. Foremost among them may undoubtedly be placed the Pseudo-Callisthenes, an unknown Alexandrian writer translated into Latin about the fourth century by Julius Valerius, who fathered upon the philosopher a collection of stories partly gathered from Plutarch, Quintus Curtius, and a hundred other authorities, partly elaborated according to the fashion of Greek romancers. Some oriental traditions of Alexander were also in the possession of western Europe. Out of all these, and with a considerable admixture of the floating fables of the time, Lambert and Alexander wove their work. There is, of course, not the slightest attempt at antiquity of colour. Alexander has twelve peers, he learns the favourite studies of the middle ages, he is dubbed knight, and so forth. Many interesting legends, such as that of the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, make their first appearance in the poem, and it is altogether one of extraordinary merit. A specimen laisse may be given:--

En icele forest, dont vos m'oez conter, nesune male choze ne puet laianz entrer. li home ne les bestes n'i ozent converser, onques en nesun tans ne vit hon yverner ne trop froit ne trop chaut ne neger ne geler. ce conte l'escripture que hom n'i doit entrer, se il nen at talent de conquerre ou d'amer. les deuesses d'amors i doivent habiter, car c'est lor paradix ou el doivent entrer, li rois de Macedoine en a oi parler, qui cercha les merveilles dou mont et de la mer, et ce fist il meismes enz ou fons avaler en un vessel de voirre, ce ne puet n'on fausser, qu'il fist faire il meismes fort et reont et cler et enclorre de fer qu'il ne peust quasser, s'il l'esteust a roche ou aillors ahurter, et si que il poet bien par mi outre esgarder, por veoir les poissons tornoier et joster et faire lor agaiz et sovent cembeler. et quant il vint a terre, nou mist a oublier: la prist la sapience dou mont a conquester et faire ses agaiz et sa gent ordener et conduire les oz et sagement mener, car ce fust toz li mieudres qui ainz peust monter en cheval por conquerre ne de lance joster, li gentiz et li larges et ii prex por doner. la forest des puceles ot oi deviser, cil qui tot volt conquerre i ot talent d'aler: souz ciel n'a home en terre qui l'en peust torner.

While the figure of Alexander served as centre to one group of fictions, most of which were composed in Chanson form, the octosyllabic metre, which had made the Arthurian romances its own, was used for the versification of another numerous class, most of which dealt with the tale of Troy divine.

[Sidenote: Roman de Troie.]

Here also the poems were neither entirely fictitious, nor on the other hand based upon the best authorities. Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis, with some epitomes of Homer, were the chief sources of information. The principal poem of this class is the Roman de Troie of Benoist de Sainte More (c. 1160). This work[58], which extends to more than thirty thousand verses, has the redundancy and the long-windedness which characterise many, if not most, early French poems written in its metre. But it has one merit which ought to conciliate English readers to Benoist. It contains the undoubted original of Shakespeare's Cressida. The fortunes of Cressid (or Briseida, as the French trouvere names her) have been carefully traced out by MM. Moland, Hericault[59], and Joly, and form a very curious chapter of literary history. Nor is this episode the only one of merit in Benoist. His verse is always fluent and facile, and not seldom picturesque, as the following extract (Andromache's remonstrance with Hector) will show:--

Quant elle voit qe neant iert, o ses dous poinz granz cous se fiert, fier duel demaine e fier martire, ses cheveus trait e ront e tire. bien resemble feme desvee: tote enragiee, eschevelee, e trestote fors de son sen court pour son fil Asternaten. des eux plore molt tendrement, entre ses braz l'encharge e prent. vint el pales atot arieres, o il chaucoit ses genoillieres. as piez li met e si li dit 'sire, por cest enfant petit qe tu engendras de ta char te pri nel tiegnes a eschar ce qe je t'ai dit e nuncie. aies de cest enfant pitie: james des euz ne te verra. s'ui assembles a ceux de la, hui est ta mort, hui est ta fins. de toi remandra orfenins. cruelz de cuer, lous enragiez, par qoi ne vos en prent pitiez? par qoi volez si tost morir? par qoi volez si tost guerpir et moi e li e vostre pere e voz serors e vostre mere? par qoi nos laisseroiz perir? coment porrons sens vos gerir? lasse, com male destinee!' a icest not chai pasmee a cas desus le paviment. celle l'en lieve isnelement qi estrange duel en demeine: c'est sa seroge, dame Heleine.

[Sidenote: Other Romances on Classical subjects.]

The poems of the Cycle of Antiquity have hitherto been less diligently studied and reprinted than those of the other two. Few of them, with the exception of Alixandre and Troie, are to be read even in fragments, save in manuscript. Le Roman d'Eneas, which is attributed to Benoist, is much shorter than the Roman de Troie, and, with some omissions, follows Virgil pretty closely. Like many other French poems, it was adapted in German by a Minnesinger, Heinrich von Veldeke. Le Roman de Thebes, of which there is some chance of an edition, stands to Statius in the same relation as Eneas to Virgil. And Le Roman de Jules Cesar paraphrases, though not directly, Lucan. To these must be added Athis et Prophilias (Porphyrias), or the Siege of Athens, a work which has been assigned to many authors, and the origin of which is not clear, though it enjoyed great popularity in the middle ages. The Protesilaus of Hugues de Rotelande is the only other poem of this series worth the mentioning.

Neither of these two classes of poems possesses the value of the Chansons as documents for social history. The picture of manners in them is much more artificial. But the Arthurian romances disclose partially and at intervals a state of society decidedly more advanced than that of the Chansons. The bourgeois, the country gentleman who is not of full baronial rank, and other novel personages appear.

* * * * *

Note to Third Edition.--Since the second edition was published M. Gaston Paris has sketched in Romania and summarised in his Manuel, but has not developed in book form, a view of the Arthurian romances different from his father's and from that given in the text. In this view the importance of 'Celtic' originals is much increased, and that of Geoffrey diminished, Walter Map disappears almost entirely to make room for divers unknown French trouveres, the order of composition is altered, and on the whole a lower estimate is formed of the literary value of the cycle. The 'Celtic' view has also been maintained in a book of much learning and value, Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London, 1888), by Mr. Alfred Nutt. I have not attempted to incorporate or to combat these views in the text for two reasons, partly because they will most probably be superseded by others, and partly because the evidence does not seem to me sufficient to establish any of them certainly. But having given some years to comparative literary criticism in different languages and periods, I think I may be entitled to give a somewhat decided opinion against the 'Celtic' theory, and in favour of that which assigns the special characteristics of the Arthurian cycle and all but a very small part of its structure of incident to the literary imagination of the trouveres, French and English, of the twelfth century. And I may add that as a whole it seems to me quite the greatest literary creation of the Middle Ages, except the Divina Commedia, though of course it has the necessary inferiority of a collection by a great number of different hands to a work of individual genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Nennius, a Breton monk of the ninth century, has left a brief Latin Chronicle in which is the earliest authentic account of the Legend of Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth, circa 1140, produced a Historia Britonum, avowedly based on a book brought from Britanny by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. No trace of this book, unless it be Nennius, can be found. See note at end of chapter.

[52] Department of Seine-et-Marne, near Fontainebleau.

[53] Map as a person belongs rather to English than to French history. He lived in the last three quarters of the twelfth century.

[54] These various Romances are not by any means equally open to study in satisfactory critical editions. To take them chronologically, M. Hucher has published Robert de Borron's Little Saint Graal in prose, his Percevale, and the Great Saint Graal, with full and valuable if not incontestable notes, 3 vols.; Le Mans, 1875-1878. The verse form of the Little Saint Graal was published by M. F. Michel in 1841. An edition of Artus was promised by M. Paulin Paris, but interrupted or prevented by his death. The great works of Map, Lancelot and the Quest, as well as the Mort Artus, have never been critically edited in full; and the sixteenth-century editions being rare and exceedingly costly, as well as uncritical, they are not easily accessible, except in M. Paris' Abstract and Commentary, Les Romans de la Table Ronde, 5 vols., 1869-1877. Tristan was published partially forty years ago by M. F. Michel. Merlin was edited in 1886 by M. G. Paris and M. Ulrich. A complete edition of Chrestien de Troyes has been undertaken by Dr. Wendelin Foerster and has preceded to its second volume (Yvain). This under its second title of Le Chevalier au Lyon has also been edited by Dr. Holland (third edition 1886). Besides this there is the great Romance of Percevale (continued by others, especially a certain Manessier), of which M. Potvin has given an excellent edition, 6 vols., Mons, 1867-1872, including in it a previously unknown prose version of the Romance of very early date; Le Chevalier a la Charrette, continued by Godefroy de Lagny, and edited, with the original prose from Lancelot du Lac, by Dr. Jonckbloet (The Hague, 1850); and Erec et Enide, by M. Haupt (Berlin, 1860). This piecemeal condition of the texts, and the practical inaccessibility of many of them, make independent judgment in the matter very difficult. What is wanted first of all is a book on the plan of M. Leon Gautier's Epopees Francaises, giving a complete account of all the existing texts--for the entire editing of these latter must necessarily take a very long time. The statements made above represent the opinions which appear most probable to the writer, not merely from the comparison of authorities on the subject, but from the actual study of the texts as far as they are open to him. (See note at end of Chapter.)

[55] This expression occurs in the Chanson des Saisnes, i. 6. 7: 'Ne sont que iij matieres a nul home atandant, De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant.'

[56] Ed. Michelant. Stuttgart, 1846.

[57] Li Cors, otherwise li tors 'the crooked.' Since this book was first written M. Paul Meyer has treated the whole subject of the paragraph in an admirable monograph, Alexandre le Grand dans la Litterature Francaise du Moyen Age, 2 vols. Paris, 1886.

[58] Ed. Joly. Rouen, 1870.

[59] Moland and Hericault's Nouvelles du XIV'eme Siecle. Paris, 1857. Joly, Op. cit. See also P. Stapfer, Shakespeare et l'Antiquite. 2 vols. Paris, 1880.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

V. FABLIAUX. THE ROMAN DU RENART

[Sidenote: Foreign Elements in Early French Literature.]

Singular as the statement may appear, no one of the branches of literature hitherto discussed represents what may be called a specially French spirit. Despite the astonishing popularity and extent of the Chansons de Gestes, they are, as is admitted by the most patriotic French students, Teutonic in origin probably, and certainly in genius. The Arthurian legends have at least a tinge both of Celtic and Oriental character; while the greater number of them were probably written by Englishmen, and their distinguishing spirit is pretty clearly Anglo-Norman rather than French. On the other hand, Provencal poetry represents a temperament and a disposition which find their full development rather in Spanish and Italian literature and character than in the literature and character of France. All these divisions, moreover, have this of artificial about them, that they are obviously class literature--the literature of courtly and knightly society, not that of the nation at large. Provencal literature gives but scanty social information; from the earlier Chansons at least it would be hard to tell that there were any classes but those of nobles, priests, and fighting men; and though, as has been said, a more complicated state of society appears in the Arthurian legends, what may be called their atmosphere is even more artificial.

[Sidenote: The Esprit Gaulois makes its appearance.]

It is far otherwise with the division of literature which we are now about to handle. The Fabliaux[60], or short verse tales of old France, take in the whole of its society from king to peasant with all the intervening classes, and represent for the most part the view taken of those classes by each other. Perhaps the bourgeois standpoint is most prominent in them, but it is by no means the only one. Their tone too is of the kind which has ever since been specially associated with the French genius. What is called by French authors the esprit gaulois--a spirit of mischievous and free-spoken jocularity--does not make its appearance at once, or in all kinds of work. In most of the early departments of French literature there is a remarkable deficiency of the comic element, or rather that element is very much kept under. The comedy of the Chansons consists almost entirely in the roughest horse-play; while the knightly notion of gabz or jests is exemplified in the Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople, where it seems to be limited to extravagant, and not always decent, boasts and gasconnades. More comic, but still farcical in its comedy, is the curious running fire of exaggerated expressions of poltroonery which the Red Lion keeps up in Antioche, while the names and virtues of the Christian leaders are being catalogued to Corbaran. In the Arthurian Romances also the comic element is scantily represented, and still takes the same form of exaggeration and horse-play. At the same time it is proper to say that both these classes of compositions are distinguished, at least in their earlier examples, by a very strict and remarkable decency of language.

In the Fabliaux the state of things is quite different. The attitude is always a mocking one, not often going the length of serious satire or moral indignation, but contenting itself with the peculiar ludicrous presentation of life and humanity of which the French have ever since been the masters. In the Fabliaux begins that long course of scoffing at the weaknesses of the feminine sex which has never been interrupted since. In the Fabliaux is to be found for the first time satirical delineation of the frailties of churchmen instead of adoring celebration of the mysteries of the Church. All classes come in by turns for ridicule--knights, burghers, peasants. Unfortunately this freedom in choice of subject is accompanied by a still greater freedom in the choice of language. The coarseness of expression in many of the Fabliaux equals, if it does not exceed, that to be found in any other branch of Western literature.

[Sidenote: Definition of Fabliaux.]

The interest of the Fabliaux as a literary study is increased by the precision with which they can be defined, and the well-marked period of their composition. According to the excellent definition of its latest editor, the Fabliau[61] is 'le recit, le plus souvent comique, d'une aventure reelle ou possible, qui se passe dans les donnees moyennes de la vie humaine,' the recital, for the most part comic, of a real or possible event occurring in the ordinary conditions of human life. M. de Montaiglon, to be rigidly accurate, should have added that it must be in verse, and, with very rare, if any, exceptions, in octosyllabic couplets. Of such Fabliaux, properly so called, we possess perhaps two hundred. They are of the most various length, sometimes not extending to more than a score or so of lines, sometimes containing several hundreds. They are, like most contemporary literature, chiefly anonymous, or attributed to persons of whom nothing is known, though some famous names, especially that of the Trouvere Ruteboeuf, appear among their authors. Their period of composition seems to have extended from the latter half of the twelfth century to the latter half of the fourteenth, no manuscript that we have of them being earlier than the beginning of the thirteenth century, and none later than the beginning of the fifteenth. If, however, their popularity in their original form ceased at the latter period, their course was by no means run. They had passed early from France into Italy (as indeed all the oldest French literature did), and the stock-in-trade of all the Italian Novellieri from Boccaccio downwards was supplied by them. In England they found an illustrious copyist in Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales are perfect Fabliaux, informed by greater art and more poetical spirit than were possessed by their original authors. In France itself the Fabliaux simply became farces or prose tales, as the wandering reciter of verse gave way to the actor and the bookseller. They appear again (sometimes after a roundabout journey through Italian versions) in the pages of the French tale-tellers of the Renaissance, and finally, as far as collected appearance is concerned, receive their last but not their least brilliant transformation in the Contes of La Fontaine. In these the cycle is curiously concluded by a return to the form of the original.

[Sidenote: Subjects and character of Fabliaux.]

Until MM. de Montaiglon and Raynaud undertook their edition, which has been slowly completed, the study of the Fabliaux was complicated by the somewhat chaotic conditions of the earlier collections. Barbazan and his followers printed as Fabliaux almost everything that they found in verse which was tolerably short. Thus, not merely the mediaeval poems called dits and debats, descriptions of objects either in monologue or dialogue, which come sometimes very close to the Fabliau proper, but moral discourses, short romances, legends like the Lai d'Aristote, and such-like things, were included. This interferes with a comprehension of the remarkably characteristic and clearly marked peculiarities of the Fabliau indicated in the definition given above. As according to this the Fabliau is a short comic verse tale of ordinary life, it will be evident that the attempts which have been made to classify Fabliaux according to their subjects were not very happy. It is of course possible to take such headings as Priests, Women, Villeins, Knights, etc., and arrange the existing Fabliaux under them. But it is not obvious what is gained thereby. A better notion of the genre may perhaps be obtained from a short view of the subjects of some of the principal of those Fabliaux whose subjects are capable of description. Les deux Bordeors Ribaux is a dispute between two Jongleurs who boast their skill. It is remarkable for a very curious list of Chansons de Gestes which the clumsy reciter quotes all wrong, and for a great number of the sly hits at chivalry and the chivalrous romances which are characteristic of all this literature. Thus one Jongleur, going through the list of his knightly patrons, tells of Monseignor Augier Poupee--

'Qui a un seul coup de s'espee Coupe bien a un chat l'oreille;'

and of Monseignor Rogier Ertaut, whose soundness in wind and limb is not due to enchanted armour or skill in fight, but is accounted for thus--

'Quar onques ne ot cop feru' (for that never has he struck a blow).

Le Vair Palefroi contains the story of a lover who carries off his beloved on a palfrey grey from an aged wooer. La Housse Partie, a great favourite, which appears in more than one form, tells the tale of an unnatural son who turns his father out of doors, but is brought to a better mind by his own child, who innocently gives him warning that he in turn will copy his example. Sire Hain et Dame Anieuse is one of the innumerable stories of rough correction of scolding wives. Brunain la Vache au Prestre recounts a trick played on a covetous priest. In Le Dit des Perdrix, a greedy wife eats a brace of partridges which her husband has destined for his own dinner, and escapes his wrath by one of the endless stratagems which these tales delight in assigning to womankind. Le sot Chevalier, though extremely indecorous, deserves notice for the Chaucerian breadth of its farce, at which it is impossible to help laughing. The two Englishmen and the Lamb is perhaps the earliest example of English-French, and turns upon the mistake which results in an ass's foal being bought instead of the required animal. Le Mantel Mautaillie is the famous Arthurian story known in English as 'The Boy and the Mantle.' Le Vilain Mire is the original of Moliere's Medecin malgre lui. Le Vilain qui conquist Paradis par Plaist is characteristic of the curious irreverence which accompanied mediaeval devotion. A villein comes to heaven's gate, is refused admission, and successively silences St. Peter, St. Thomas, and St. Paul, by very pointed references to their earthly weaknesses. As a last specimen may be mentioned the curiously simple word-play of Estula. This is the name of a little dog which, being pronounced, certain thieves take for 'Es tu la?'

[Sidenote: Sources of Fabliaux.]

Such are a very few, selected as well as may be for their typical character, of these stories. It is not unimportant to consider briefly the question of their origin. Many of them belong no doubt to that strange common fund of fiction which all nations of the earth indiscriminately possess. A considerable number seem to be of purely original and indigenous growth: but an actual literary source is not wanting in many cases. The classics supplied some part of them, the Scriptures and the lives of the saints another part; while not a little was due to the importation of Eastern collections of stories resulting from the Crusades. The chief of these collections were the fables of Bidpai or Pilpai, in the form known as the romance of 'Calila and Dimna,' and the story of Sendabar (in its Greek form Syntipas). This was immensely popular in France under the verse form of Dolopathos, and the prose form of Les sept Sages de Rome. The remarkable collection of stories called the Gesta Romanorum is apparently of later date than most of the Fabliaux; but the tales of which it was composed no doubt floated for some time in the mouths of Jongleurs before the unknown and probably English author put them together in Latin.

[Sidenote: The Roman du Renart.]

Closely connected with the Fabliaux is one of the most singular works of mediaeval imagination, the Roman du Renart[62]. This is no place to examine the origin or antiquity of the custom of making animals the mouthpieces of moral and satirical utterance on human affairs. It is sufficient that the practice is an ancient one, and that the middle ages were early acquainted with Aesop and his followers, as well as with Oriental examples of the same sort. The original author, whoever he was, of the epic (for it is no less) of 'Reynard the Fox,' had therefore examples of a certain sort before his eyes. But these examples contented themselves for the most part with work of small dimension, and had not attempted connected or continuous story. A fierce battle has been fought as to the nationality of Reynard. The facts are these. The oldest form of the story now extant is in Latin. It is succeeded at no very great interval by German, Flemish, and French versions. Of these the German as it stands is apparently the oldest, the Latin version being probably of the second half of the twelfth century, and the German a little later. But (and this is a capital point) the names of the more important beasts are in all the versions French. From this and some minute local indications, it seems likely that the original language of the epic is French, but French of the Walloon or Picard dialect, and that it was written somewhere in the district between the Seine and the Rhine. This, however, is a matter of the very smallest literary importance. What is of great literary importance is the fact that it is in France that the story receives its principal development, and that it makes its home. The Latin, Flemish, and German Reynards, though they all cover nearly the same ground, do not together amount to more than five-and-twenty thousand lines. The French in its successive developments amounts to more than ninety thousand in the texts already published or abstracted; and this does not include the variants in the Vienna manuscript of Renart le Contrefait, or the different developments of the Ancien Renart, recently published by M. Ernest Martin.

[Sidenote: The Ancien Renart.]

The order and history of the building up of this vast composition are as follows. The oldest known 'branches,' as the separate portions of the story are called, date from the beginning of the thirteenth century. These are due to a named author, Pierre de Saint Cloud. But it is impossible to say that they were actually the first written in French: indeed it is extremely improbable that they were so. However this may be, during the thirteenth century a very large number of poets wrote pieces independent of each other in composition, but possessing the same general design, and putting the same personages into play. In what has hitherto been the standard edition of Renart, Meon published thirty-two such poems, amounting in the aggregate to more than thirty thousand verses. Chabaille added five more in his supplement, and M. Ernest Martin has found yet another in an Italianised version. This last editor thinks that eleven branches, which he has printed together, constitute an 'ancient collection' within the Ancien Renart, and have a certain connection and interdependence. However this may be, the general plan is extremely loose, or rather non-existent. Everybody knows the outline of the story of Reynard; how he is among the animals (Noble the lion, who is king, Chanticleer the cock, Firapel the leopard, Grimbart the badger, Isengrin the wolf, and the rest) the special representative of cunning and valour tempered by discretion, while his enemy Isengrin is in the same way the type of stupid headlong force, and many of the others have moral character less strongly marked but tolerably well sustained. How this general idea is illustrated the titles of the branches show better than the most elaborate description. 'How Reynard ate the carrier's fish;' 'how Reynard made Isengrin fish for eels;' 'how Reynard cut the tail of Tybert the cat;' 'how Reynard made Isengrin go down the well;' 'of Isengrin and the mare;' 'how Reynard and Tybert sang vespers and matins;' 'the pilgrimage of Reynard,' and so forth. Written by different persons, and at different times, these branches are of course by no means uniform in literary value. But the uniformity of spirit in most, if not in all of them, is extremely remarkable. What is most noticeable in this spirit is the perpetual undertone of satirical comment on human life and its affairs which distinguishes it. The moral is never obtrusively put forward, and it is especially noteworthy that in this Ancien Renart, as contrasted with the later development of the poem, there is no mere allegorising, and no attempt to make the animals men in disguise. They are quite natural and distinct foxes, wolves, cats, and so forth, acting after their kind, with the exception of their possession of reason and language.

[Sidenote: Le Couronnement Renart.]

The next stage of the composition shows an alteration and a degradation. Renart le Couronne, or Le Couronnement Renart[63], is a poem of some 3400 lines, which was once attributed to Marie de France, for no other reason than that the manuscript which contains it subjoins her Ysopet or fables. It is, however, certainly not hers, and is in all probability a little later than her time. The main subject of it is the cunning of the fox, who first reconciles the great preaching orders Franciscans and Dominicans; then himself becomes a monk, and inculcates on them the art of Renardie; then repairs to court as a confessor to the lion king Noble who is ill, and contrives to be appointed his successor, after which he holds tournaments, journeys to Palestine, and so forth. It is characteristic of the decline of taste that in the list of his army a whole bestiary (or list of the real and fictitious beasts of mediaeval zoology) is thrust in; and the very introduction of the abstract term Renardie, or foxiness, is an evil sign of the abstracting and allegorising which was about to spoil poetry for a time, and to make much of the literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tedious and heavy. The poem is of little value or interest. The only chronological indication as to its composition is the eulogy of William of Flanders, killed ('jadis,' says the author) in 1251.

[Sidenote: Renart le Nouvel.]

The next poem of the cycle is of much greater length, and of at least proportionately greater value, though it has not the freshness and verve of the earlier branches. Renart le Nouvel was written in 1288 by Jacquemart Gielee, a Fleming. This poem is in many ways interesting, though not much can be said for its general conception, and though it suffers terribly from the allegorising already alluded to. In its first book (it consists of more than 8000 lines, divided into two books and many branches) Renart, in consequence of one of his usual quarrels with Isengrin, gets into trouble with the king, and is besieged in Maupertuis. But the sense of verisimilitude is now so far lost, that Maupertuis, instead of being a fox's earth, is an actual feudal castle; and more than this, the animals which attack and defend it are armed in panoply, ride horses, and fight like knights of the period. Besides this the old familiar and homely personages are mixed up with a very strange set of abstractions in the shape of the seven deadly sins. All this is curiously blended with reminiscences and rehandlings of the older and simpler adventures. Another remarkable feature about Renart le Nouvel is that it is full of songs, chiefly love songs, which are given with the music. Its descriptions, though prolix, and injured by allegorical phrases, are sometimes vigorous.

[Sidenote: Renart le Contrefait.]

The cycle was finally completed in the second quarter of the fourteenth century by the singular work or works called Renart le Contrefait. This has, unfortunately, never been printed in full, nor in any but the most meagre extracts and abstracts. Its length is enormous; though, in the absence of opportunity for examining it, it is not easy to tell how much is common to the three manuscripts which contain it. Two of these are in Paris and one in Vienna, the latter being apparently identical with one which Menage saw and read in the seventeenth century. One of the Parisian manuscripts contains about 32,000 verses, the other about 19,000; and the Vienna version seems to consist of from 20,000 to 25,000 lines of verse, and about half that number of prose. The author (who, in so far as he was a single person, appears to have been a clerk of Troyes, in Champagne) wrote it, as he says, to avoid idleness, and seems to have regarded it as a vast commonplace book, in which to insert the result not merely of his satirical reflection, but of his miscellaneous reading. A noteworthy point about this poem is that in one place the writer expressly disowns any concealment of his satirical intention. His book, he says, has nothing to do with the kind of fox that kills pullets, has a big brush, and wears a red skin, but with the fox that has two hands and, what is more, two faces under one hood[64]. Notwithstanding this, however, there are many passages where the old 'common form' of the epic is observed, and where the old personages make their appearance. Indeed their former adventures are sometimes served up again with slight alterations. Besides this there is a certain number of amusing stories and fabliaux, the most frequently quoted of which is the tale of an ugly but wise knight who married a silly but beautiful girl in hopes of having children uniting the advantages of both parents, whereas the actual offspring of the union were as ugly as the father and as silly as the mother. Combined with these things are numerous allusions to the grievances of the peasants and burghers of the time against the upper classes, with some striking legends illustrative thereof, such as the story of a noble dame, who, hearing that a vassal's wife had been buried in a large shroud of good stuff, had the body taken up and seized the shroud to make horsecloths of. This original matter, however, is drowned in a deluge not merely of moralising but of didactic verse of all kinds. The history of Alexander is told in one version by Reynard to the lion king in 7000 verses, and is preluded and followed by an account of the history of the world on a scarcely smaller scale. This proceeding, at least in the Vienna version, seems to be burdensome even to Noble himself, who, at the reign of Augustus, suggests that Reynard should exchange verse for prose, and 'compress.' The warning cannot be said to be unnecessary: but works as long as Renart le Contrefait, and, as far as it is possible to judge, not more interesting, have been printed of late years; and it is very much to be wished that the publication of it might be undertaken by some competent scholar.

[Sidenote: Fauvel.]

Renart is not the only bestial personage who was made at this time a vehicle of satire. In the days of Philippe le Bel a certain Francois de Rues composed a poem entitled Fauvel, from the name of the hero, a kind of Centaur, who represents vice of all kinds. The direct object of the poem was to attack the pope and the clergy.

Some extracts from the Fabliau of the Partridges and from Renart may appropriately now be given:--

Por ce que fabliaus dire sueil, en lieu de fable dire vueil une aventure qui est vraie, d'un vilain qui deles sa haie prist deus pertris par aventure. en l'atorner mist moult sa cure; sa fame les fist au feu metre. ele s'en sot bien entremetre: le feu a fait, la haste atorne. et li vilains tantost s'en torne, por le prestre s'en va corant. mais au revenir targa tant que cuites furent les pertris. la dame a le haste jus mis, s'en pinca une peleure, quar molt ama la lecheure, quant diex li dona a avoir. ne beoit pas a grant avoir, mais a tos ses bons acomplir. l'une pertris cort envair: andeus les eles en menjue. puis est alee en mi la rue savoir se ses sires venoit. quant ele venir ne le voit, tantost arriere s'en retorne, et le remanant tel atorne mal du morsel qui remainsist. adonc s'apenssa et si dist que l'autre encore mengera. moult tres bien set qu'ele dira, s'on li demande que devindrent: ele dira que li chat vindrent, quant ele les ot arrier traites; tost li orent des mains retraites, et chascuns la seue en porta.

* * * * * *

Tant dura cele demoree que la dame fu saoulee, et li vilains ne targa mie: a l'ostel vint, en haut s'escrie 'diva, sont cuites les pertris?' 'sire,' dist ele. 'aincois va pis, quar mengies les a li chas.' li vilains saut isnel le pas, seure li cort comme enragies. ja li eust les iex sachies, quant el crie 'c'est gas, c'est gas. fuiies,' fet ele, 'Sathanas! couvertes sont por tenir chaudes.'

(He accepts the excuse; bids her lay the table, and goes to sharpen his knife. The priest arrives. She tells him that her husband is plotting outrage against him, and as a proof shows him sharpening his knife. The priest flies, and she tells her husband that he has run off with the partridges. The husband pursues, but in vain, and the Fabliau thus concludes:--)

A l'ostel li vilains retorne, et lors sa feme en araisone: 'diva,' fait il, 'et quar me dis coment tu perdis les pertris?' cele li dist 'se diex m'ait, tantost que li prestres me vit, si me pria, se tant l'amasse, que je les pertris li moustrasse, quar moult volentiers les verroit et je le menai la tout droit ou je les avoie couvertes. il ot tantost les mains ouvertes, si les prist et si s'en fui. mes je gueres ne le sivi, ains le vous fis moult tost savoir.' cil respont 'bien pues dire voir or le laissons a itant estre.' ainsi fu engingnies le prestre et Gombaus qui les pertris prist. par example cis fabliaus dist: fame est faite por decevoir. menconge fait devenir voir et voir fait devenir menconge. cil n'i vout metre plus d'alonge qui fist cest fablel et ces dis. ci faut li fabliaus des pertris.

(Reynard and Isengrin go a-fishing.)

Ce fu un poi devant Noel que l'en metoit bacons en sel, li ciex fu clers et estelez, et li vivier fu si gelez, ou Ysengrin devoit peschier, qu'on pooit par desus treschier, fors tant c'un pertuis i avoit, qui des vilains faiz i estoit, ou il menoient lor atoivre chascune nuit juer et boivre: un seel i estoit laissiez. la vint Renarz toz eslaissiez et son compere apela. 'sire,' fait il, 'traiiez vos ca: ci est la plente des poissons et li engins ou nos peschons les anguiles et les barbiaus et autres poissons bons et biaus.' dist Ysengrins 'sire Renart, or le prenez de l'une part, sel me laciez bien a la qeue.' Renarz le prent et si li neue entor la qeue au miex qu'il puet. 'frere,' fait il, 'or vos estuet moult sagement a maintenir por les poissons avant venir.' lors s'est en un buisson fichiez: si mist son groing entre ses piez tant que il voie que il face. et Ysengrins est seur la glace et li seaus en la fontaine plains de glacons a bone estraine. l'aive conmence a englacier et li seaus a enlacier qui a la qeue fu noez: de glacons fu bien serondez. la qeue est en l'aive gelee et en la glace seelee.

This chapter would be incomplete without a reference to the Ysopet of Marie de France[65], which may be said to be a link of juncture between the Fabliau and the Roman du Renart. Ysopet (diminutive of Aesop) became a common term in the middle ages for a collection of fables. There is one known as the Ysopet of Lyons, which was published not long ago[66]; but that of Marie is by far the most important. It consists of 103 pieces, written in octosyllabic couplets, with moralities, and a conclusion which informs us that the author wrote it 'for the love of Count William' (supposed to be Long-Sword), translating it from an English version of a Latin translation of the Greek. Marie's graceful style and her easy versification are very noticeable here, while her morals are often well deduced and sharply put. The famous 'Wolf and Lamb' will serve as a specimen.

Ce dist dou leu e dou aignel, qui beveient a un rossel: li lox a lo sorse beveit e li aigniaus aval esteit. irieement parla li lus ki mult esteit cuntralius; par mautalent palla a lui: 'tu m'as,' dist il, 'fet grant anui.' li aignez li ad respundu 'sire, eh quei?' 'dunc ne veis tu? tu m'as ci ceste aigue tourblee: n'en puis beivre ma saolee. autresi m'en irai, ce crei, cum jeo ving, tut murant de sei.' li aignelez adunc respunt 'sire, ja bevez vus amunt: de vus me vient kankes j'ai beu.' 'qoi,' fist li lox, 'maldis me tu?' l'aigneus respunt 'n'en ai voleir.' lous li dit 'jeo sai de veir: ce meisme me fist tes pere a ceste surce u od lui ere, or ad sis meis, si cum jeo crei.' 'qu'en retraiez,' feit il, 'sor mei? n'ere pas nez, si cum jeo cuit.' 'e cei pur ce,' li lus a dit: 'ja me fais tu ore cuntraire e chose ke tu ne deiz faire.' dunc prist li lox l'engnel petit, as denz l'estrangle, si l'ocit.

Moralite.

Ci funt li riche robeur, li vesconte e li jugeur, de ceus k'il unt en lur justise. fausse aqoison par cuveitise truevent assez pur eus cunfundre. suvent les funt as plaiz semundre, la char lur tolent e la pel, si cum li lox fist a l'aingnel.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] The first collection of Fabliaux was published by Barbazan in 1756. This was re-edited by Meon in 1808, and reinforced by the same author with a fresh collection in 1823. Meanwhile Le Grand d'Aussy had (1774-1781) given extracts, abstracts, and translations into modern French of many of them. Jubinal, Robert, and others enriched the collection further, and in vol. xxiii. of the Histoire Litteraire M. V. Le Clerc published an excellent study of the subject. A complete collection of Fabliaux has, however, only recently been attempted, by M. M. A. de Montaiglon and G. Raynaud (6 vols., Paris, 1872-1888).

[61] Fabliau is, of course, the Latin fabula. The genealogy of the word is fabula, fabella, fabel, fable, fablel, fableau, fabliau. All these last five forms exist.

[62] It should be noticed that this title, though consecrated by usage, is a misnomer. It should be Roman de Renart, for this latter is a proper name. The class name is goupil (vulpes). The standard edition is that of Meon (4 vols., Paris, 1826) with the supplement of Chabaille, 1835. This includes not merely the Ancien Renart, but the Couronnement and Renart le Nouvel. Renart le Contrefait has never been printed. Rothe (Paris, 1845) and Wolf (Vienna, 1861) have given the best accounts of it. Recently M. Ernest Martin has given a new critical edition of the Ancien Renart (3 vols., Strasburg and Paris, 1882-1887).

[63] The necessary expression of the genitive by de is later than this. Mediaeval French retained the inflection of nouns, though in a dilapidated condition. Properly speaking Renars is the nominative, Renart the general inflected case.

[64] This is a free translation of the last line of the original, which is as follows:--

Pour renard qui gelines tue, Qui a la rousse peau vestue, Qui a grand queue et quatre pies, N'est pas ce livre communies; Mais pour cellui qui a deux mains Dont il sont en ce siecle mains, Qui ont sous la chappe Faulx Semblant.

Wolf, Op. cit. p. 5.

The final allusion is to a personage of the Roman de la Rose.

[65] Ed. Roquefort, vol. ii. See next chapter.

[66] By Dr. W. Foerster. Heilbronn, 1882.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VI. EARLY LYRICS

[Sidenote: Early and Later Lyrics.]

The lyric poetry of the middle ages in France divides itself naturally into two periods, distinguished by very strongly marked characteristics. The end of the thirteenth century is the dividing point in this as in many other branches of literature. After that we get the extremely interesting, if artificial, forms of the Rondeau and Ballade, with their many varieties and congeners. With these we shall not busy ourselves in the present chapter. But the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are provided with a lyric growth, less perfect indeed in form than that which occupied French singers from Machault to Marot, but more spontaneous, fuller of individuality, variety, and vigour, and scarcely less abundant in amount.

[Sidenote: Origins of Lyric.]

[Sidenote: Romances and Pastourelles.]

Before the twelfth century we find no traces of genuine lyrical work in France. The ubiquitous Cantilenae indeed again make their appearance in the speculations of literary historians, but here as elsewhere they have no demonstrable historical existence. Except a few sacred songs, sometimes, as in the case of Saint Eulalie, in early Romance language, sometimes in what the French call langue farcie, that is to say, a mixture of French and Latin, nothing regularly lyrical is found up to the end of the eleventh century. But soon afterwards lyric work becomes exceedingly abundant. This is what forms the contents of Herr Karl Bartsch's delightful volume of Romanzen und Pastourellen[67]. These are the two earliest forms of French lyric poetry. They are recognised by the Troubadour Raimon Vidal as the special property of the Northern tongue, and no reasonable pretence has been put forward to show that they are other than indigenous. The tendency of both is towards iambic rhythm, but it is not exclusively manifested as in later verse. It is one of the most interesting things in French literary history to see how early the estrangement of the language from the anapaestic and dactylic measures natural to Teutonic speech began to declare itself[68]. These early poems bubble over with natural gaiety, their refrains, musical though semi-articulate as they are, are sweet and manifold in cadence, but the main body of the versification is either iambic or trochaic (it was long before the latter measure became infrequent), and the freedom of the ballad-metres of England and Germany is seldom present. The Romance differs in form and still more in subject from the Pastourelle, and both differ very remarkably from the form and manner of Provencal poetry. It has been observed by nearly all students, that the love-poems of the latter language are almost always at once personal and abstract in subject. The Romance and the Pastourelle, on the contrary, are almost always dramatic. They tell a story, and often (though not always in the case of the Pastourelle) they tell it of some one other than the singer. The most common form of the Romance is that of a poem varying from twenty lines long to ten times that length and divided into stanzas. These stanzas consist of a certain number (not usually less than three or more than eight) of lines of equal length capped with a refrain in a different metre. By far the best, though by no means the earliest, of them are those of Audefroy le Bastard, who, according to the late M. Paulin Paris, may be fixed at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Audefroy's poems are very much alike in plan, telling for the most part how the course of some impeded true love at last ran smooth. They rank with the very best mediaeval poetry in colour, in lively painting of manners and feelings, and in grace of versification. Unfortunately they are one and all rather too long for quotation here. The anonymous Romance of 'Bele Erembors' will represent the class well enough. The rhyme still bears traces of assonance, which is thought to have prevailed till Audefroy's time:--

Quant vient en mai, que l'on dit as lons jors, Que Frans en France repairent de roi cort, Reynauz repaire devant el premier front Si s'en passa lez lo mes Arembor, Ainz n'en designa le chief drecier a mont. E Raynaut amis!

Bele Erembors a la fenestre au jor Sor ses genolz tient paile de color; Voit Frans de France qui repairent de cort, E voit Raynaut devant el premier front: En haut parole, si a dit sa raison. E Raynaut amis!

'Amis Raynaut, j'ai ja veu cel jor Se passisoiz selon mon pere tor, Dolanz fussiez se ne parlasse a vos.' 'Ja mesfaistes, fille d'Empereor, Autrui amastes, si obliastes nos.' E Raynaut amis!

'Sire Raynaut, je m'en escondirai: A cent puceles sor sainz vos jurerai, A trente dames que avuec moi menrai, C'onques nul hom fors vostre cors n'amai. Prennez l'emmende et je vos baiserai.' E Raynaut amis!

Li cuens Raynauz en monta lo degre, Gros par espaules, greles par lo baudre; Blonde ot lo poil, menu, recercele: En nule terre n'ot so biau bacheler. Voit l'Erembors, so comence a plorer. E Raynaut amis!

Li cuens Raynauz est montez en la tor, Si s'est assis en un lit point a flors, Dejoste lui se siet bele Erembors.

* * * * * *

Lors recomencent lor premieres amors. E Raynaut amis!

The Pastourelle is still more uniform in subject. It invariably represents the knight or the poet riding past and seeing a fair shepherdess by his road-side. He alights and woos her with or without success. In this class of poem the stanzas are usually longer, and consist of shorter lines than is the case with the Romances, while the refrains are more usually meaningless though generally very musical. It is, however, well to add that the very great diversity of metrical arrangement in this class makes it impossible to give a general description of it. There are Pastourelles consisting merely of four-lined stanzas with no refrain at all. The following is a good specimen of the class:--

De Saint Quentin a Cambrai Chevalchoie l'autre jour; Les un boisson esgardai, Touse i vi de bel atour. La colour Ot freche com rose en mai. De cuer gai Chantant la trovai Ceste chansonnete 'En non deu, j'ai bel ami, Cointe et joli, Tant soie je brunete.'

Vers la pastoure tornai Quant la vi en son destour; Hautement la saluai Et di 'deus vos doinst bon jour Et honour. Celle ke ci trove ai, Sens delai Ses amis serai.' Dont dist la doucete 'En non deu, j'ai bel ami, Cointe et joli, Tant soie je brunete.'

Deles li seoir alai Et li priai de s'amour, Celle dist 'Je n'amerai Vos ne autrui par nul tour, Sens pastour, Robin, ke fiencie l'ai. Joie en ai, Si en chanterai Ceste chansonnete: En non deu, j'ai bel ami, Cointe et joli, Tant soie je brunete.'

So various, notwithstanding the simplicity and apparent monotony of their subjects, are these charming poems, that it is difficult to give, by mere citation of any one or even of several, an idea of their beauty. In no part of the literature of the middle ages are its lighter characteristics more pleasantly shown. The childish freedom from care and afterthought, the half unconscious delight in the beauty of flowers and the song of birds, the innocent animal enjoyment of fine weather and the open country, are nowhere so well represented. Chaucer may give English readers some idea of all this, but even Chaucer is sophisticated in comparison with the numerous, and for the most part nameless, singers who preceded him by almost two centuries in France. As a purely formal and literary characteristic, the use of the burden or refrain is perhaps their most noteworthy peculiarity. Herr Bartsch has collected five hundred of these refrains, all different. There is nothing like this to be found in any other literature; and, as readers of Beranger know, the fashion was preserved in France long after it had been given up elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Thirteenth Century.]

[Sidenote: Changes in Lyric.]

After the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases to be anonymous, and individual singers--some of them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very great merit and individuality--make their appearance. In the second place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in form, and exhibits evident marks of the communication between troubadour and trouvere, and of the imitation by the latter of the stricter forms of Provencal poetry. The Romance and the Pastourelle are still cultivated, but by their side grow up French versions, often adapted with considerable independence, of the forms of the South[69]. Such, for instance, is the chanson d'amour, a form less artfully regulated indeed than the corresponding canzon or sestine of the troubadours, but still of some intricacy. It consists of five or six stanzas, each of which has two interlaced rhymes, and concludes with an Envoi, which, however, is often omitted. Chansonnettes on a reduced scale are also found. In these pieces the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, which was ultimately to become the chief distinguishing feature of French prosody, is observable, though it is by no means universal. To the Provencal tenson corresponds the jeu parti or verse dialogue, which is sometimes arranged in the form of a Chanson. The salut d'amour is a kind of epistle, sometimes of very great length and usually in octosyllabic verse, the decasyllable being more commonly used in the Chanson. Of this the complainte is only a variety. Again, the Provencal sirvente is represented by the northern serventois, a poem in Chanson form, but occupied instead of love with war, satire, religion, and miscellaneous matters. It has even been doubted whether the serventois is not the forerunner of the sirvente instead of the reverse being the case. Other forms are motets, rotruenges, aubades. Poems called rondeaux and ballades also make their appearance, but they are loose in construction and undecided in form. The thirteenth century is, moreover, the palmy time of the Pastourelle. Most of those which we possess belong to this period, and exhibit to the full the already indicated characteristics of that graceful form. But the lyric forms of the thirteenth century are to some extent rather imitated than indigenous, and it is no doubt to the fact of this imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priority to the Langue d'Oc, unfounded as it has been sufficiently shown to be, is due in the main. The most courageous defenders of the North have wished to maintain its claims wholly intact even in this instance, but probability, if not evidence, is against them.

[Sidenote: Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century.]

[Sidenote: Quesnes de Bethune.]

[Sidenote: Thibaut de Champagne.]

It has been said that the number of song writers from the end of the twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is extremely large. M. Paulin Paris, whose elaborate chapter in the Histoire Litteraire is still the great authority on the subject, has enumerated nearly two hundred, to whose work have to be added hundreds of anonymous pieces. It would seem indeed that during a considerable period the practice of song writing was almost as incumbent on the French gentleman of the thirteenth century as that of sonnetteering on the English gentleman of the sixteenth. There are, however, not a few names which deserve separate notice. The first of these in point of time, and not the last in point of literary importance, is that of Quesnes de Bethune, the ancestor of Sully, and himself a famous warrior, statesman, and poet. His epitaph by a poet not usually remarkable for eloquence[70] is a very striking one. It gives us approximately the date of his death, 1224; and the word vieux is supposed to show that Quesnes must have been born at least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. He took part in two crusades, that of Philip Augustus and that which Villehardouin has chronicled. His poems[71] are of all classes, historical, satirical, and amorous, some of last being addressed to Marie, Countess of Champagne; and his Chansons are, in the technical sense, some of the earliest we possess. Contemporary with Quesnes apparently was the personage who is known under the title of Chatelain de Coucy, and whose love for the Lady of Fayel resulted in an interchange of very tender and beautiful verse; the poem known as the lady's own is one of the very best of its kind. Long afterwards lover and lady became the hero and heroine of a romance, which has led some persons to throw doubt upon their historical existence, and the Lady of Fayel has even been deprived of her poem by a well-known kind of criticism. Of more importance is Thibaut de Champagne, King of Navarre, who is indeed the most important single figure of early French lyrical poetry. He was born in 1201, and died in 1253. His high position as a feudal prince in both north and south, the minority of St. Louis, and the intimate relations which existed between the King's mother, Blanche of Castille, and Thibaut, made him the mark for a good deal of satirical invective. There is a tradition that he was Blanche's lover, the only objection to which is that the Queen was thirty years his senior. Thibaut's poems have been more than once reprinted, the last edition being that of M. Tarbe[72]; this contains eighty-one pieces, not a few of which, however, are probably the work of others. The majority of them are Chansons d'Amour, of the kind just defined. There are, however, a good many Jeux-Partis, and a certain number of nondescript poems on miscellaneous subjects. There is more reason for the common opinion which attributes to Thibaut the marriage of the poetical qualities of northern and southern France, than the mere fact of his having been both Count of Champagne and King of Navarre. His poems have in reality something of the freshness and the individuality of the Trouveres, mixed with a great deal of the formal grace and elegance of the Troubadours. The following may serve as an example:--

Contre le tens qui desbrise Yvers, et revient este, Et la mauvis se desguise, Qui de lonc tens n'a chante Ferai chanson. Car a gre Me vient que j'aie en pense Amor, qui en moi s'est mise. Bien m'a droit son dart gete.

Douce dame, de franchise, N'ai je point en vos trove: S'ele ne s'i est puis mise Que je ne vos esgarde, Trop avez vers moi fierte. Mais ce fait vostre biaute, Ou il n'i a pas de devise, Tant en i a grand plante.

En moi n'a point d'astenance Que je puisse aillors penser, Pors que la, ou conoissance Ne merci ne puis trover. Bien fui fait por li amer; Car ne m'en puis saoler. Et quant plus aurai cheance, Plus la me convendra douter.

D'une riens sui en doutance, Que je ne puis plus celer, Qu'en li n'ait un po d'enfance. Ce me fait deconforter, Que s'a moi a bon penser Ne l'ose ele desmontrer. Si feist qu'a sa semblance Le poisse deviner.

Des que je li fis priere Et la pris a esgarder, Me fist amors la lumiere Des iels par le cuer passer. Cil conduit me fait grever: Dont je ne me soi garder: Ne ne puet torner arriere Mon cuer; miex voudrait crever.

Dame, a vos m'estuet clamer, Et que merci vos requiere. Diex m'i laist pitie trover!

[Sidenote: Minor Singers.]

[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.]

Besides Thibaut there are not a few other song writers of the thirteenth century, who rise out of the crowd named by M. Paulin Paris. Some of these, as might be expected, are famous for their achievements in other departments of literature. Such are Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel, Guyot de Provins. There are, however, two, Gace Brule and Colin Muset, who survive solely but worthily as song writers. Gace Brule was a knight of Champagne, Colin Muset a professed minstrel. The former chiefly composed sentimental work; the latter, with the proverbial or professional gaiety of his class, drew nearer to the satirical tone of the Fabliau writers. His best-known and most usually quoted work describes the different welcome which he receives from his family on his return from professional tours, according to the success or ill-success with which he has met. Two other poets, Adam de la Halle and Ruteboeuf, are far more prominent in literary history. Adam de la Halle[73] bore the surname 'Le Bossu d'Arras,' from his native town, though the term hunchback seems to have had no literal application to him. His exact date is not known, but it must probably have been from the fourth to the ninth decade of the thirteenth century. His dramatic works, which are of signal importance, will be noticed elsewhere. But besides these he has left some seventy or eighty lyrical pieces of one kind or another. Adam's life was not uneventful; he was at first a monk, but left his convent and married. Then he proved as faithless to his temporal as he had been to his spiritual vows. He lampooned his wife, his family, his townsmen, and, shaking the dust of Arras from his feet, retired first to Douai and then to the court of Robert of Artois, whom he accompanied to Italy. He died in that country about 1288. The style of Adam de la Halle varies from the coarsest satire to the most graceful tenderness. Of the latter the following song is a good specimen:--

Diex! Comment porroie Trouver voie D'aler a chelui Cui amiete je sui? Chainturelle, va-i En lieu de mi; Car tu fus sieue aussi, Si m'en conquerra miex.

Mais comment serai sans ti? Dieus! Chainturelle, mar vous vi; Au deschaindre m'ochies; De mes grietes a vous me confortoie, Quant je vous sentoie, Ai mi! A le saveur de mon ami. Ne pour quant d'autres en ai, A cleus d'argent et de soie, Pour men user. Mais lasse! comment porroie Sans cheli durer Qui me tient en joie?

Canchonnete, chelui proie Qui le m'envoya, Puis que jou ne puis aler la. Qu'il en viengne a moi, Chi droit, A jour failli, Pour faire tous ses boins, Et il m'orra, Quant il ert joins, Canter a haute vois: Par chi va la mignotise, Par chi ou je vois.

[Sidenote: Ruteboeuf]

Ruteboeuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more fortunate than most of the poets of early France in leaving a considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and collectively edited[74]. Little or nothing, however, is known about him, except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230; he was certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject. The first consists of personal and of comic poems; the second of poems sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and events; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division La Pauvrete Ruteboeuf, Le Mariage Ruteboeuf, etc., are complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as Renart le Bestourne, Le Dit des Cordeliers, Frere Denise, Le Dit de l'Erberie, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety, chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Ruteboeuf's sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of thought. Many of these poems are complaintes or elaborate elegies (often composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as Geoffroy de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the Complainte d'Outremer, the Complainte de Constantinople, the Dit de la Voie de Tunes, the Debat du Croise et du Decroise, are comments on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France with their degeneracy. 'Mort sont Ogier et Charlemagne' is an often-quoted exclamation of Ruteboeuf in this sense. The third class includes La Mort Ruteboeuf, otherwise La Repentance Ruteboeuf, La Voie de Paradis, various poems to the Virgin, the lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the miracle play of Theophile. Ruteboeuf's favourite metres are either the continuous octosyllabic couplet, or else a stanza composed of an octosyllabic couplet and a line of four syllables, the termination of the latter being caught up by the succeeding couplet. In this the Mariage is written, of which a specimen may be given:--

En l'an de l'incarnacion, VIII jors apres la nascion Jhesu qui soufri passion, en l'an soissante, qu'arbres n'a foille, oisel ne chante, fis je toute la rien dolante que de cuer m'aime: nis li musarz musart me claime. or puis filer, qu'il me faut traime; mult ai a faire. deus ne fist cuer tant de pute aire, tant li aie fait de contraire ne de martire, s'il en mon martire se mire, qui ne doie de bon cuer dire 'je te claim cuite.' envoier un home en Egypte, ceste dolor est plus petite que n'est la moie; je n'en puis mais se je m'esmoie. l'en dit que fous qui ne foloie pert sa saison: sui je mariez sanz raison? or n'ai ne borde ne maison. encor plus fort: por plus doner de reconfort a ceus qui me heent de mort, tel fame ai prise que nus fors moi n'aime ne prise, et s'estoit povre et entreprise, quant je la pris. a ci mariage de pris, c'or sui povres et entrepris ausi comme ele, et si n'est pas gente ne bele. cinquante anz a en s'escuele, s'est maigre et seche: n'ai pas paor qu'ele me treche. despuis que fu nez en la greche deus de Marie, ne fu mais tele espouserie. je sui toz plains d'envoiserie: bien pert a l'uevre.

Though he has less of the 'lyrical cry' than some others, Ruteboeuf is perhaps the most vigorous poet of his time.

[Sidenote: Lais. Marie de France.]

There is one division of early poetry which may also be noticed under this head, though it is sometimes dealt with as a kind of miniature epic. This is the lai, a term which is used in old French poetry with two different significations. The Trouveres of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made of it a regular lyrical form. But the most famous of its examples, those which now pass under the name of Marie de France, are narrative poems in octosyllabic verse and varying in length considerably. It is agreed that the term and the thing are of Breton origin; and the opinion which seems most probable is that the word originally had reference rather to the style of music with which the harper accompanied his verse, than to the measure, arrangement, or subject of the latter. As to Marie herself[75], nothing is known about her with certainty. She lived in England in the reign of Henry III, and often gives English equivalents for her French words. The lais which we possess, written by her and attributed to her, are fourteen in number. They bear the titles of Gugemer, Equitan, Le Fresne, Le Bisclaveret, Lanval, Les Deux Amants, Ywenec, Le Laustic, Milun, Le Chaitivel, Le Chevrefeuille, Eliduc, Graalent and L'Espine. Mr. O'Shaughnessy has paraphrased several of these in English[76]; they are all narrative in character. Their distinguishing features are fluent and melodious versification, pure and graceful language--among the purest and most graceful, though decidedly Norman in character, of the time--true poetical feeling, and a lively faculty of invention and description. After Marie there was a tendency to approximate the lai to the Provencal descort, and at last, as we have said, it acquired rules and a form quite alien from those of its earlier examples. There is a general though not a universal inclination to melancholy of subject in the early lays, a few of which are anonymous.

* * * * *

Note to Third Edition.--M. Gaston Paris has expressed some surprise at my remarks on metre (p. 63). This from so accomplished a scholar is a curious instance of the difficulty which Frenchmen seem to feel in appreciating quantity. To an English eye and ear which have been trained to classical prosody the trochaic rhythm of, for instance, the Pastourelle quoted on p. 65, is unmistakable, and there are anapaestic metres to be found here and there in early poems of the same kind. Indeed, all French poetry is easily scanned quantitatively, though the usual authorities protest against such scansion. Voltaire, it is said, took Turgot's hexameters for prose, and the significance of this is the same whether the mistake, as is probable, was mischievous or whether it was genuine.

FOOTNOTES:

[67] Leipsic, 1870.

[68] See note at end of chapter.

[69] This miscellaneous lyric for the most part awaits collection and publication. M. G. Raynaud has given a valuable Bibliographie des Chansonniers Francais des XIII'e et XIV'e siecles. 2 vols., Paris, 1884. Also a collection of motets. Paris, 1881.

[70] Philippe Mouskes. This is it:

La terre fut pis en cest an Quar li vieux Quesnes estoit mors.

[71] The best edition is in Scheler's Trouveres Belges. Brussels, 1876.

[72] Rheims, 1851.

[73] The most convenient place to look for Adam's history and work is Le Theatre Francais au Moyen Age. Par Monmerque et Michel. Paris, 1874. There are also separate editions of him by Coussemaker, and more recently by A. Rambeau. Marburg, 1886.

[74] By A. Jubinal. 2nd edition. 3 vols. Paris, 1874.

[75] Ed. Roquefort. 2 vols. Paris, 1820. The first volume contains the lays; the later the fables, which have been noticed in the last chapter. Later edition, Warnke. Halle, 1885. Marie also wrote a poem on the Purgatory of St. Patrick. Three other lays, Tidorel, Gringamor, and Tiolet have been attributed to her, and are printed in Romania, vol. viii.

[76] Lays of France, London, 1872.

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VII. SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY

In consequence of the slowness with which prose was used for any regular literary purpose in France, verse continued to do duty for it until a comparatively late period in almost all departments of literature. By the very earliest years of the twelfth century, and probably much earlier (though we have no certain evidence of this latter fact), documents of all kinds began to be written in verse of various forms. Among the earliest serious verse that was written rank, as we might expect, verse chronicles. It was not till 1200 at soonest that long translations from the Latin in French prose were made, but such translations, and original works as well, were written in French verse long before.

[Sidenote: Verse Chronicles.]

The rhymed Chronicles were numerous, but, with rare exceptions, they cannot be said to be of any very great literary importance. Whether they were imitated directly from the Chansons de Gestes, or vice versa, is a question which, as it happens, can be settled without difficulty. For they are almost all in octosyllabic couplets, a metre certainly later than the assonanced decasyllabics of the earliest Chansons. The latter form and the somewhat later dodecasyllable or Alexandrine are rarely used for Verse Chronicles, the most remarkable exception being the spirited Combat des Trente[77], which is however very late, and the Chronique de du Guesclin of the same date. There are earlier examples of history in Alexandrines (some are found in the twelfth century, such as the account of Henry the Second's Scotch Wars by Jordan Fantome, Chancellor of the diocese of Winchester), but they are not numerous or important. It is not unworthy of notice that the majority of the early Verse Chronicles are English or Anglo-Norman. The first of importance is that of Geoffrey Gaymar, whose Chronicle of English history was written about 1146. Gaymar was followed by a much better known writer, the Jerseyman Wace[78], who not only, as has been mentioned, versified Geoffrey of Monmouth into the Brut[79], but produced the important Roman de Rou[80], giving the history of the Dukes of Normandy and of the Conquest of England. The date of the Brut is 1155, of the Rou 1160. This latter is the better of the two, though Wace was not a great poet. It consists chiefly of octosyllabics, with a curious insertion of Alexandrines in rhymed not assonanced laisses. Wace was followed by Benoist de Sainte-More, who extended his Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy to more than forty thousand verses. The 'Life of St. Thomas' (Becket), by Garnier de Pont St. Maxence, also deserves notice, as does an anonymous poem on the English wars in Ireland. But the most interesting of this group is probably the history[81] of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219 and who during his life played a great part in England. It abounds in passages of historical interest and literary value. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the practice of writing history in verse gradually died out, yet some of the most important examples date from this time. Such are the Chronicles of Philippe Mouskes[82], a Fleming, in more than thirty thousand verses, extending from the Siege of Troy to the year 1243. Mouskes is of some importance in literary history, because of the great extent to which he has drawn on the Chansons de Gestes for his information. In 1304 Guillaume Guiart, a native of Orleans, wrote in twelve thousand verses a Chronicle of the thirteenth century, including a few years earlier and later. There are a large number of other Verse Chronicles, but few of them are of much importance historically, and fewer still of any literary interest.

History, however, was by no means the only serious subject which took this incongruous form in the middle ages. The amount of miscellaneous verse written during the period between the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the fifteenth century is indeed enormous. Only a very small portion of it has ever been printed, and the mere summary description of the manuscripts which contain it is as yet far from complete. If it be said generally that, during the greater part of these three hundred years, the first impulse of any one who wished to write, no matter on what subject, was to write in verse, and that the popular notion of the want of literary tastes in the middle ages is utterly mistaken, some idea may be formed of the vast extent of literature, poetical in form, which was then produced. Much no doubt of this literature is not in the least worthy of detailed notice; much, whether worthy or not, must from mere considerations of space and proportion remain unnoticed here. What is possible, is to indicate briefly the chief forms, authors, and subjects, which fall under the heading of this chapter, and to give a somewhat detailed account of the great serious poem of mediaeval France, the Roman de la Rose. Peculiarities of metre and so forth will be indicated where it is necessary, but it may be said generally that the great mass of this literature is in octosyllabic couplets.

[Sidenote: Miscellaneous Satirical Verse.]

It has already been observed in discussing the Fabliaux that the first enquirers into old French literature were led to include a very miscellaneous assortment of poems under that head; and it may now be added that this miscellaneous assortment with much else constitutes the farrago of the present chapter. The two great poems of the Roman du Renart and the Roman de la Rose stand as representatives of the more or less serious poetry of the time, and everything else may be said to be included between them. Beginning nearest to the Roman du Renart and its kindred Fabliaux, we find a vast number of half-satirical styles of poetry, many, if not most of them, known (according to what has been noted in the preface as characteristic of mediaeval literature) by distinctive form-names. Of these dits and debats have already been noticed, but it is not easy to give a notion of the number of the existing examples, or of the extraordinary diversity of subjects to which both, and especially the dits, extend. Perhaps some estimate may be formed from the fact that the dits of three Flemish poets alone, Baudouin de Conde, Jean de Conde, and Watriquet de Couvin, fill four stout octavo volumes[83]. The subjects of these and of the large number of dits composed by other writers and anonymous are almost innumerable. The earliest are for the most part simple enumerations of the names of streets, of street cries, of guilds, of coins, and such-like things. By degrees they become more definitely didactic, and at last allegorical moralising masters them as it does almost every other kind of poetry in the fourteenth century. The debat, sometimes called dispute, or bataille, is an easily understood variety of the dit. Ruteboeuf's principal debat has been named; another in a less serious spirit is that between Charlot et le Barbier. There is a Bataille des Vins, a Bataille de Careme et de Charnage, a Debat de l'Hiver et l'Ete, etc., etc. Another name much used for half-satirical, half-didactic verse was that of Bible, of which the most famous (probably because it was the first known) is that of Guyot de Provins,--a violent onslaught on the powers that were in Church and State by a discontented monk. An extract from it will illustrate this division of the subject as well as anything else:--

Des fisiciens me merveil: de lor huevre et de lor conseil rai ge certes mont grant merveille, nule vie ne s'apareille a la lor, trop par est diverse et sor totes autres perverse. bien les nomme li communs nons; mais je ne cuit qu'i ne soit hons qui ne les doie mont douter. il ne voudroient ja trover nul home sanz aucun mehaing. maint oingnement font e maint baing ou il n'a ne senz ne raison, cil eschape d'orde prison qui de lor mains puet eschaper. qui bien set mentir et guiler et faire noble contenance, tout ont trove fors la creance que les genz ont lor fait a bien. tiex mil se font fisicien qui n'en sevent voir nes que gie. li plus maistre sont mont changie de grant ennui, n'il n'est mestiers dont il soit tant de mencongiers. il ocient mont de la gent: ja n'ont ne ami ne parent que il volsissent trover sain; de ce resont il trop vilain. mont a d'ordure en ces liens. qui en main a fisiciens, se met par els. il m'ont eu entre lor mains: onques ne fu, ce cuit, nule plus orde vie. je n'aim mie lor compaignie, si m'ait dex, qant je sui sains: honiz est qui chiet en lor mains. par foi, qant je malades fui, moi covint soffrir lor ennui.

Testaments of the satirical kind, chiefly noteworthy for the brilliant use which Villon made of the tradition of composing them, resveries and fatrasies (nonsense poems with a more or less satirical drift), parodies of the offices of the Church, of its sermons, of the miracle plays, are the chief remaining divisions of the poetry which, under a light and scoffing envelope, conceals a serious purpose.

[Sidenote: Didactic verse. Philippe de Thaun.]

Such things have at all times been composed in verse, and the reason is sufficiently obvious. In the first place, the intention of the writers is to a certain extent masked, and in the second, the reader's attention is attracted. But the middle ages by no means confined the use of verse to such cases. Downright instruction was, as often as not, the object of the verse writer in those days. The earliest, and as such the most curious of didactic poems, are those of Philippe de Thaun, an Englishman of Norman extraction, who wrote in the first quarter of the twelfth century. His two works are a Comput, or Chronological Treatise, dedicated to an uncle of his, who was chaplain to Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and a Bestiary, or Zoological Catalogue, dedicated to Adela of Louvain, the wife of Henry the First. Written before the vogue of the versified Arthurian Romances had consecrated the octosyllable, these poems are in couplets of six syllables. Their great age, and to a certain extent their literary merit, deserve an extract:--

Monosceros est beste, un corn ad en la teste, pur ceo ad si a nun. de buc ele ad facun. par pucele eat prise, or oez en quel guise, quant hom le volt cacer et prendre et enginner, si vent horn al orest u sis repaires est; la met une pucele hors de sein sa mamele, e par odurement monosceros la sent; dune vent a la pucele, si baiset sa mamele, en sun devant se dort, issi vent a sa mort; li hom survent atant, ki l'ocit en dormant, u trestut vif le prent, si fait puis sun talent. grant chose signefie, ne larei nel vus die. Monosceros griu est, en franceis un-corn est: beste de tel baillie Jhesu Crist signefie; un deu est e serat e fud e parmaindrat; en la virgine se mist, e pur hom charn i prist, e pur virginited, pur mustrer casteed, a virgine se parut e virgine le conceut. virgine est e serat e tuz jurz parmaindrat. ores oez brefment le signefiement. Ceste beste en verte nus signefie de; la virgine signefie, sacez, sancte Marie; par sa mamele entent sancte eglise ensement; e puis par le baiser ceo deit signefier, que hom quant il se dort en semblance est de mort: des cum home dormi, ki en cruiz mort sufri, ert sa destructiun nostre redemptiun, e sun traveillement nostre reposement. si deceut des diable par semblant cuvenable; anme e cors sunt un, issi fud des et hum, e iceo signefie beste de tel baillie.

Bestiaries and Computs (the French title of the Chronologies) were for some time the favourites with didactic verse writers, but before long the whole encyclopaedia, as it was then understood, was turned into verse. Astrology, hunting, geography, law, medicine, history, the art of war, all had their treatises; and latterly Tresors, or complete popular educators, as they would be called nowadays, were composed, the best-known of which is that of Walter of Metz in 1245.

[Sidenote: Moral and Theological verse.]

All, or almost all, these works, written as they were in an age sincerely pious, if somewhat grotesque in its piety, and theoretically moral, if somewhat loose in its practice, contained not only abundant moralising, but also more or less theology of the mystical kind. It would therefore have been strange if ethics and theology themselves had wanted special exponents in verse. Before the middle of the twelfth century Samson of Nanteuil (again an Englishman by residence) had versified the Proverbs of Solomon, and in the latter half of the same century vernacular lives of the saints begin to be numerous. Perhaps the most popular of these was the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, of which the fullest poetical form has been left us by an English trouvere of the thirteenth century named Chardry, by whom we have also a verse rendering of the 'Seven Sleepers,' and some other poems[84]. Somewhat earlier, Hermann of Valenciennes was a fertile author of this sort of work, composing a great Bible de Sapience or versification of the Old Testament, and a large number of lives of saints. Of books of Eastern origin, one of the most important was the Castoiement d'un Pere a son Fils, which comes from the Panchatantra, though not directly. The translated work had great vogue, and set the example of other Castoiements or warnings. The monk Helinand at the end of the twelfth century composed a poem on 'Death,' and a vast number of similar poems might be mentioned. The commonest perhaps of all is a dialogue Des trois Morts et des trois Vifs, which exists in an astonishing number of variants. Gradually the tone of all this work becomes more and more allegorical. Dreams, Mirrors, Castles, such as the 'Castle of Seven Flowers,' a poem on the virtues, make their appearance.

[Sidenote: Allegorical verse.]

[Sidenote: The Roman de la Rose.]

The question of the origin of this habit of allegorising and personification is one which has been often incidentally discussed by literary historians, but which has never been exhaustively treated. It is certain that, at a very early period in the middle ages, it makes its appearance, though it is not in full flourishing until the thirteenth century. It seems to have been a reflection in light literature of the same attitude of mind which led to the development of the scholastic philosophy, and, as in the case of that philosophy, Byzantine and Eastern influences may have been at work. Certain it is that in some of the later Greek romances[85], something very like the imagery of the Roman de la Rose is discoverable. Perhaps, however, we need not look further than to the natural result of leisure, mental activity, and literary skill, working upon a very small stock of positive knowledge, and restrained by circumstances within a very narrow range of employment. However this may be, the allegorising habit manifests itself recognisably enough in French literature towards the close of the twelfth century. In the Meraugis de Portlesguez of Raoul de Houdenc, the passion for arguing out abstract questions of lovelore is exemplified, and in the Roman des Eles of the same author the knightly virtues are definitely personified, or at least allegorised. At the same time some at all events of the Troubadours, especially Peire Wilhem, carried the practice yet further. Merci, Pudeur, Loyaute, are introduced by that poet as persons whom he met as he rode on his travels. In Thibaut de Champagne a still further advance was made. The representative poem of this allegorical literature, and moreover one of the most remarkable compositions furnished by the mediaeval period in France, is the Roman de la Rose[86]. It is doubtful whether any other poem of such a length has ever attained a popularity so wide and so enduring. The Roman de la Rose extends to more than twenty thousand lines, and is written in a very peculiar style; yet it maintained its vogue, not merely in France but throughout Europe, for nearly three hundred years from the date of its commencement, and for more than two hundred from that of its conclusion. The history of the composition of the poem is singular. It was begun by William of Lorris, of whom little or nothing is known, but whose work must, so far as it is easy to make out, have been done before 1240, and is sometimes fixed at 1237. This portion extends to 4670 lines, and ends quite abruptly. About forty years later, Jean de Meung, or Clopinel, afterwards one of Philippe le Bel's paid men of letters, continued it without preface, taking up William of Lorris' cue, and extended it to 22,817 verses, preserving the metre and some of the personages, but entirely altering the spirit of the treatment. The importance of the poem requires that such brief analysis as space will allow shall be given here. Its general import is sufficiently indicated by the heading,--

Ci est le Rommant de la Rose Ou l'art d'amors est tote enclose;

though the rage for allegory induced its readers to moralise even its allegorical character, and to indulge in various far-fetched explanations of it. In the twentieth year of his age, the author says, he fell asleep and dreamed a dream. He had left the city on a fair May morning, and walked abroad till he came to a garden fenced in with a high wall. On the wall were portrayed figures, Hatred, Felonnie, Villonie, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, Papelardie (Hypocrisy), Poverty--all of which are described at length. He strives to enter in, and at last finds a barred wicket at which he is admitted by Dame Oiseuse (Leisure), who tells him that Deduit (Delight) and his company are within. He finds the company dancing and singing, Dame Liesse (Enjoyment) being the chief songstress, while Courtesy greets him and invites him to take part in the festival. The god of love himself is then described, with many of his suite--Beauty, Riches, etc. A further description of the garden leads to the fountain of Narcissus, whose story is told at length. By this the author, who is thenceforth called the lover, sees and covets a rosebud. But thorns and thistles bar his way to it, and the god of love pierces him with his arrows. He does homage to the god, who accepts his service, and addresses a long discourse to him on his future duties and conduct. The prospect somewhat alarms him, when a new personage, Bel Acueil (Gracious Reception), comes up and tenders his services to the lover, the god having disappeared. Almost immediately, however, Dangier[87] makes his appearance, and drives both the lover and Bel Acueil out of the garden. As the former is bewailing his fate, Reason appears and remonstrates with him. He persists in his desire, and parleys with Dangier, both directly and by ambassadors, so that in the end he is brought back by Bel Acueil into the garden and allowed to see but not to touch the rose. Venus comes to his aid, and he is further allowed to kiss it. At this, however, Shame, Jealousy, and other evil agents reproach Dangier. Bel Acueil is immured in a tower, and the lover is once more driven forth.

Here the portion due to William of Lorris ends. Its main characteristics have been indicated by this sketch, except that the extreme beauty and grace of the lavish descriptions which enclose and adorn the somewhat commonplace allegory perforce escape analysis. It is in these descriptions, and in a certain tenderness and elegance of general thought and expression, that the charm of the poem lies, and this is very considerable. The deficiency of action, however, and the continual allegorising threaten to make it monotonous had it been much longer continued in the same strain.

It is unlikely that it was this consideration which determined Jean de Meung to adopt a different style. In his time literature was already agitated by violent social, political, and religious debates, and the treasures of classical learning were becoming more and more commonly known. But prose had not yet become a common literary vehicle, save for history, oratory, and romance, nor had the duty of treating one thing at a time yet impressed itself strongly upon authors. Jean de Meung was satirically disposed, was accomplished in all the learning of his day, and had strong political opinions. He determined accordingly to make the poem of Lorris, which was in all probability already popular, the vehicle of his thoughts.

In doing this he takes up the story as his predecessor had left it, at the point where the lover, deprived of the support of Bel Acueil, and with the suspicions of Dangier thoroughly aroused against him, lies despairing without the walls of the delightful garden. Reason is once more introduced, and protests as before, but in a different tone and much more lengthily. She preaches the disadvantages of love in a speech nearly four hundred lines long, followed by another double the length, and then by a dialogue in which the lover takes his share. The difference of manner is felt at once. The allegory is kept up after a fashion, but instead of the graceful fantasies of William of Lorris, the staple matter is either sharp and satirical views of actual life, or else examples drawn indifferently from sacred and profane history. One speech of Reason's, a thousand lines in length, consists of a collection of instances of this kind showing the mobility of fortune. At length she leaves the lover as she found him, 'melancolieux et dolant,' but unconvinced. Amis (the friend), who has appeared for a moment previously, now reappears, and comforts him, also at great length, dwelling chiefly on the ways of women, concerning which much scandal is talked. The scene with Reason had occupied nearly two thousand lines; that with Amis extends to double that length, so that Jean de Meung had already excelled his predecessor in this respect. Profiting by the counsel he has received, the lover addresses himself to Riches, who guards the way, but fruitlessly. The god of love, however, takes pity on him (slightly ridiculing him for having listened to Reason), and summons all his folk to attack the tower and free Bel Acueil. Among these Faux Semblant presents himself, and, after some parley, is received. This new personification of hypocrisy gives occasion to some of the author's most satirical touches as he describes his principles and practice. After this, Faux Semblant and his companion, Contrainte Astenance (forced or feigned abstinence), set to work in favour of the lover, and soon win their way into the tower. There they find an old woman who acts as Bel Acueil's keeper. She takes a message from them to Bel Acueil, and then engages in a singular conversation with her prisoner, wherein the somewhat loose morality of the discourses of Amis is still further enforced by historical examples, and by paraphrases of not a few passages from Ovid. She afterward admits the lover, who thus, at nearly the sixteen-thousandth line from the beginning, recovers through the help of False Seeming the 'gracious reception' which is to lead him to the rose. The castle, however, is not taken, and Dangier, with the rest of his allegorical company, makes a stout resistance to 'Les Barons de L'Ost'--the lords of Love's army. The god sends to invoke the aid of his mother, and this introduces a new personage. Nature herself, and her confidant, Genius, are brought on the scene, and nearly five thousand verses serve to convey all manner of thoughts and scraps of learning, mostly devoted to the support, as before, of questionably moral doctrines. In these five thousand lines almost all the current ideas of the middle ages on philosophy and natural science are more or less explicitly contained. Finally, Venus arrives and, with her burning brand, drives out Dangier and his crew, though even at this crisis of the action the writer cannot refrain from telling the story of Pygmalion and the Image at length. The way being clear, the lover proceeds unmolested to gather the longed-for rose.

[Sidenote: Popularity of the Roman de la Rose.]

It is impossible to exaggerate, and not easy to describe, the popularity which this poem enjoyed. Its attacks on womanhood and on morality generally provoked indeed not a few replies, of which the most important came long afterwards from Christine de Pisan and from Gerson. But the general taste was entirely in favour of it. Allegorical already, it was allegorised in fresh senses, even a religious meaning being given to it. The numerous manuscripts which remain of it attest its popularity before the days of printing. It was frequently printed by the earliest typographers of France, and even in the sixteenth century it received a fresh lease of life at the hands of Marot, who re-edited it. Abroad it was praised by Petrarch and translated by Chaucer[88]; and it is on the whole not too much to say that for fully two centuries it was the favourite book in the vernacular literature of Europe. Nor was it unworthy of this popularity. As has been pointed out, the grace of the part due to William of Lorris is remarkable, and the satirical vigour of the part due to Jean de Meung perhaps more remarkable still. The allegorising and the length which repel readers of to-day did not disgust generations whose favourite literary style was the allegorical, and who had abundance of leisure; but the real secret of its vogue, as of all such vogues, is that it faithfully held up the mirror to the later middle ages. In no single book can that period of history be so conveniently studied. Its inherited religion and its nascent free-thought; its thirst for knowledge and its lack of criticism; its sharp social divisions and its indistinct aspirations after liberty and equality; its traditional morality and asceticism, and its half-pagan, half-childish relish for the pleasures of sense; its romance and its coarseness, all its weakness and all its strength, here appear.

[Sidenote: Imitations.]

The imitations of the Roman de la Rose were in proportion to its popularity. Much of this imitation took place in other kinds of poetry, which will be noticed hereafter. Two poems, however, which are almost contemporary with its earliest form, and which have only recently been published, deserve mention. One, which is an obvious imitation of Guillaume de Lorris, but an imitation of considerable merit, is the Roman de la Poire[89], where the lover is besieged by Love in a tower. The other, of a different class, and free from trace of direct imitation, is the short poem called De Venus la Deesse d'Amors[90], written in some three hundred four-lined stanzas, each with one rhyme only. Some passages of this latter are very beautiful.

Three extracts, two from the first part of the Roman de la Rose, and one from the second, will show its style:--

En iceli tens deliteus, Que tote riens d'amer s'esfroie, Sonjai une nuit que j'estoie, Ce m'iert avis en mon dormant, Qu'il estoit matin durement; De mon lit tantost me levai, Chaucai-moi et mes mains lavai. Lors trais une aguille d'argent D'un aguiller mignot et gent, Si pris l'aguille a enfiler. Hors de vile oi talent d'aler, Por oir des oisiaus les sons Qui chantoient par ces boissons En icele saison novele; Cousant mes manches a videle, M'en alai tot seus esbatant, Et les oiseles escoutant, Qui de chanter moult s'engoissoient Par ces vergiers qui florissoient, Jolis, gais et pleins de leesce. Vers une riviere m'adresce Que j'oi pres d'ilecques bruire. Car ne me soi aillors deduire Plus bel que sus cele riviere. D'un tertre qui pres d'iluec iere Descendoit l'iaue grant et roide, Clere, bruiant et aussi froide Comme puiz, ou comme fontaine, Et estoit poi mendre de Saine, Mes qu'ele iere plus espandue. Onques mes n'avoie veue Tele iaue qui si bien coroit: Moult m'abelissoit et seoit A regarder le leu plaisant. De l'iaue clere et reluisant Mon vis rafreschi et lave. Si vi tot covert et pave Le fons de l'iaue de gravele; La praerie grant et bele Tres au pie de l'iaue batoit. Clere et serie et bele estoit La matinee et atempree: Lors m'en alai parmi la pree Contreval l'iaue esbanoiant, Tot le rivage costoiant.

* * * * * *

Une ymage ot empres escrite, Qui sembloit bien estre ypocrite, Papelardie ert apelee. C'est cele qui en recelee, Quant nus ne s'en puet prendre garde, De nul mal faire ne se tarde. El fait dehors le marmiteus, Si a le vis simple et piteus, Et semble sainte creature; Mais sous ciel n'a male aventure Qu'ele ne pense en son corage. Moult la ressembloit bien l'ymage Qui faite fu a sa semblance, Qu'el fu de simple contenance; Et si fu chaucie et vestue Tout ainsinc cum fame rendue. En sa main un sautier tenoit, Et sachies que moult se penoit De faire a Dieu prieres faintes, Et d'appeler et sains et saintes. El ne fu gaie ne jolive, Ains fu par semblant ententive Du tout a bonnes ovres faire; Et si avoit vestu la haire. Et sachies que n'iere pas grasse. De jeuner sembloit estre lasse, S'avoit la color pale et morte. A li et as siens ert la porte Deveee de Paradis; Car icel gent si font lor vis Amegrir, ce dit l'Evangile, Por avoir loz parmi la vile, Et por un poi de gloire vaine, Qui lor toldra Dieu et son raine.

* * * * * *

_Comment le traistre Faulx-Semblant Si va les cueurs des gens emblant, Pour ses vestemens noirs et gris, Et pour son viz pasle amaisgris._ 'Trop sai bien mes habiz changier, Prendre l'un, et l'autre estrangier. Or sui chevaliers, or sui moines, Or sui prelas, or sui chanoines, Or sui clers, autre ore sui prestres, Or sui desciples, or sui mestres, Or chastelains, or forestiers: Briement, ge sui de tous mestiers. Or resui princes, or sui pages, Or sai parler trestous langages; Autre ore sui viex et chenus, Or resui jones devenus. Or sui Robers, or sui Robins, Or cordeliers, or jacobins. Si pren por sivre ma compaigne Qui me solace et acompaigne, (C'est dame Astenance-Contrainte), Autre desguiseure mainte, Si cum il li vient a plesir Por acomplir le sien desir. Autre ore vest robe de fame; Or sui damoisele, or sui dame, Autre ore sui religieuse, Or sui rendue, or sui prieuse, Or sui nonain, or sui abesse, Or sui novice, or sui professe; Et vois par toutes regions Cerchant toutes religions. Mes de religion, sans faille, G'en pren le grain et laiz la paille; Por gens avulger i abit, Ge n'en quier, sans plus, que l'abit. Que vous diroie? en itel guise Cum il me plaist ge me desguise; Moult sunt en moi mue li vers, Moult sunt li faiz aux diz divers. Si fais cheoir dedans mes pieges Le monde par mes privileges; Ge puis confesser et assoldre, (Ce ne me puet nus prelas toldre,) Toutes gens ou que ge les truisse; Ne sai prelat nul qui ce puisse, Fors l'apostole solement Qui fist cest establissement Tout en la faveur de nostre ordre.'

FOOTNOTES:

[77] This is an account of the battle of thirty Englishmen and thirty Bretons in the Edwardian wars.

[78] There is, it appears, no authority for the Christian name of Robert which used to be given to Wace.

[79] Wace's Brut is not the only one. The title seems to have become a common name.

[80] The old edition of the Roman de Rou, by Pluquet, has been entirely superseded by that of Dr. Hugo Andresen. 2 vols. Heilbronn, 1877-1879.

[81] Discovered recently in the Middlehill collection, and known chiefly by an article in Romania (Jan. 1882), giving an abstract and specimens.

[82] Ed. Reiffenberg. Brussels, 1835-1845.

[83] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1866-1868.

[84] Well edited by Koch. Heilbronn, 1879.

[85] See especially Hysminias and Hysmine.

[86] Ed. F. Michel. 2 vols. Paris, 1864.

[87] Dangier is not exactly 'danger.' To be 'en dangier de quelqu'un' is to be 'in somebody's power.' Dangier is supposed to stand for the guardian of the beloved, father, brother, husband, etc. This at least has been the usual interpretation, and seems to me to be much the more probable. M. Gaston Paris, however, and others, see in Dangier the natural coyness and resistance of the beloved object, not any external influence.

[88] Chaucer's authorship of the existing translation has been denied. It is, however, certain that he did translate the poem.

[89] Ed. Stehlich. Halle, 1881.

[90] Ed. Foerster. Berne, 1880.

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