INTRODUCTION.

WHEN one considers that at every respectable school, whether for girls or boys, in England, French is a part of the professed course; that a Frenchman is generally specially retained for this branch of instruction, and that a respectable minority of the pupils are really enabled to read French with something like ease and pleasure, it is singular to note the general ignorance on the subject of French literature and literary history. A sort of impression rests on most minds that French literature begins with the “siècle de Louis Quatorze"; that Boileau, Corneille, Racine were the first French poets; that before them was nothing but the crude efforts of genius struggling with an undeveloped and stubborn language. Some few know of Malherbe, some of Ronsard, and a still smaller number of Clément Marot. How many have heard of François Villon, or Mellin de Saint Gelais? and how many know anything of the enormous literary activity that began in the thirteenth century, was carried on by Rutebeuf, Marie de France, Gaston de Foix, Thibault de Champagne, and Lorris; was fostered by Charles

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of Orleans, by Margaret of Valois, by Francis the First; that gave a crowd of versifiers to France, enriched, strengthened, developed, and fixed the French language, and prepared the way for Corneille and for Racine?

The reasons of this ignorance are mainly two; the inefficient and careless way in which French-French, which might be made as useful in education as Latin—is taught, and the lack of English books on the subject. French books, too, are not always easy of access, and our public libraries are generally most deficient in continental literature. And yet the means of acquiring a knowledge of French literature are much more readily got at than those of learning our own. Numberless essays, études, treatises, collections, and histories have been made in France. In no country have writers found so much appreciation; in no country are there more careful editions, more elaborate biographies, and more loving criticism. What the student wants is direction and advice; he has to be told when to read and how; and, in general, he has to be taught that France has a literature independent of the wellknown names, as original and as well worthy of study as that of our own country. In one small field I propose to endeavour to afford him information and direction. Should he wish to study the early efforts of France in poetical literature, I hope that in the following pages he may find matter that may not be wholly waste of time.

For the study of French language and literary history is perhaps more interesting than that of any other nation. It may be traced back farther and more clearly. It lies in one unbroken chain; it grows and spreads like a cone of

light from one point; it flows from one spring, and it is a river with no affluents.

The attempt made with so much learning and ingenuity by Raynouard to prove that all the modern Latin languages spring from one common stock, not Latin, but an intermediate language which he calls "la langue romane," is long since allowed to have been a failure. Every living and dead dialect of this class of languages owes its existence to the fusion of Latin, doubtless the Latin, ungrammatical and vulgar, spoken by the common people and soldiery, with the native tongues of the conquered tribes. And as not only did each tribe speak its own language, but each detached village had its own peculiarities, so there grew up not only great distinctive branches, but for every branch numerous subdivisions. Again, as communication between towns grew up; as song-writers and minstrels went from place to place, these subdivisions would naturally grow fewer and fewer, and towns in different places would become centres of dialect. Thus we have in France two great branches, the Langue d'Oc, and the Langue d'Oil. They grew up side by side, each at first with her family of rustic dependants. The Langue d'Oc was the first to consolidate herself, and by means of a literature unrivalled in its kind to attain to the dignity of one of the languages of the world. But her sister tongue was of slower growth. When we come to the earliest days of her literature, we find three dialects of equal importance; the Norman, the Picard, and the Burgundian. The Norman dialect was spoken and written by the inhabitants of Normandy, a part of Maine, a part of Brittany, Perche, Poitou, and Anjou: the Picard

in Picardy, Artois, Flandre, Bas Maine, Champagne, Lorraine, Hainaut, Namur, Liége, and Brabant: and the Burgundian in Burgundy, Nivernais, Berry, Orléanais, Touraine, Bas Bourbonnais, Anjou, Ile de France, Champagne, Lorraine, Franche Comté, Vaud, Neufchatel, and Berne.1 Gradually these three dialects, only one language throughout, lost their distinctive characteristics, and became for literature at least, one tongue. Meantime the literature of the Langue d'Oc had blossomed, borne fruit, and died, smitten to death by Simon de Montfort. From her moribund rival, the Langue d' Oil stole material to feed her own writers, and gathered into her own garners what her sister had already reaped. Thenceforth, that is from the fourteenth century, the history of the Langue d' Oil is the history of the French language.

The writer of the history of French literature has to consider the effects of many different influences. There is first the esprit Gaulois, a thing much talked about, but little understood. As I understand it, French critics intend by this term to attribute that vein of French wit, so largely intermixed with satire, caustic and malicious, rather than genial, which is found in Villon, Marot, Rabelais, Scarron, Molière, La Fontaine, and others, to the Celtic blood in the national veins. Next comes the influence of Provençal Literature; then the great Italian wave, which had a small precursor in the time of Charles the Sixth; then the Spanish, and lastly the English influence. The short period which our purpose allows us to consider embraces the time immediately

1 This division is taken from Burguy's Grammaire de la Langue d' Oil.