thing over and over again,—and the Monk is down upon him with history. Who can resist history? "Quand la Toison Comme lison Fust conquestie, Par son blason, O la journée, Mal fortunée, Que de douleur rendit foison ! Mist tous ses enfans à l'espée, Ceux que Venus A detenus En son domaine : De vieillesse sont tous chenus. Quoiqu'ils n'aient force ou haleine, Coustume envoie les ramene Aux vices qu'ils ont maintenus." As for women, they care about nothing in the world but dress and money: "Soit ung amaħt Frois et plaisant Et diligent: Soit plus luysant Qu'ung diamant Jolys et gent: Que Buridant, Parlant aussi beau qu'un Rommant, * Il faut ceintures, Il faut serrures, Telz cornificques; Rebras, chaperons et bordures: Et Dieu sçait par quelles pratiques Et comment bien trouvent leurs heurs." The gentleman, who must have been easily open to conviction, is converted by the arguments of the Monk. "Je croy que vices Plaisirs, délices, Lasches et nices Comme l'on dict. Dont maint beau dict Il a prédict, Blasonnant d' Amours les malices, Et hors franchise nous rendit, He wrote, besides, the "Passetemps de tout homme et de toute femme." I have not seen this work, for which there has been, of late years, small demand. The title would appear to have been a sort of practical joke of the M author, in order to seduce light-minded youth into buying it, as holding forth promise of amusement. It is a translation of a book by Pope Innocent the Third, explaining to mankind how everything from youth to age should act as a deterrent from vice. Guillaume Alexis went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was a time when pilgrimages were gone out of fashion, except in allegories. He went however, and, according to some, did not come back. While there, he wrote "Le Dialogue du Crucifix et du Pelerin." In this work, the author interrogates Christ on the Cross, and receives answers on all sorts of moral topics. There are other works attributed to him. "Le Miroir des Moines"-"Le Loyer des folles Amours"-"Le Passetemps du Prieur de Bussy," etc. But the only poem undoubtedly his, that I have seen, is his Grand Blason, which I have described. CHAPTER VII. GUILLAUME COQUILLART. A COMPLETE edition with a most careful étude on the man and his time has been published by M. Charles d' Héricault, from whose work I extract almost all the information I have been able to collect of this poet. Coquillart was essentially the poet of the bourgeoisie. He represents their patriotism, their morality, their prejudices. He is gross in his ideas, being a bourgeois, and gross in his expression. His editor calls it the grossness of cynicism; it seems to me the grossness of nature. The few facts of his life are these. He was born at Rheims in 1421; studied at Paris, and became a lawyer; returned to his native town, practised there; late in life took orders, and died canon of the Cathedral. His first work was written, or at least published, when he was fiftyseven years of age, a time of life which leaves not the smallest excuse for licentious writing. He died about the end of the fifteenth century—exact date unknown. Out of these few details, M. d' Héricault has constructed a life of the most interesting nature. He takes us to the country town, surrounded by walls, and guarded by stouthearted burghers ever ready to turn out on a sudden alarm and protect their homes from wandering bands of robbers. He shews us the home life, where by the fire-side sat every evening the grandfather in the seat of honour, prosing over the good old days that France knew before Charles the Sixth; the mother careful of her little ones and busy with household duties, the maids with the spinning-wheel, the nurse with her songs and her old-wife tales, the children clustered round her knees, and the father returning late from a sitting of the councillors, pondering the chances and dangers of the town. He shews us Rheims on its great day when the new king rode in to be anointed with the sacred oil; and on its fête days when the town turned out, spite of evil times and national disgrace, to do its periodical pleasuring. Of what sort this popular pleasuring was, Coquillart furnishes us with abundant examples. Briefly, it was gross. The bourgeois mind, unable to comprehend the chivalrous honour and respect with which the noblesse loved, in words at least, to surround their ladies, could conceive of nothing more respectable in woman than good housewifery. For the things we call love, honour, virtue, nobleness, tenderness, grace, were to them words without meaning, or simply beneath contempt. In Coquillart's pages we see exactly what the popular belief on this subject actually was. A hard-handed and practical race of artisans, without culture, ignorant of any virtues but industry and courage, acting chiefly on the law of self-preservation, which prompted them to live together in walled cities, and to unite for purposes of defence, and having little patriotism but for their native |