before the Renaissance and its Italian forces; when change was in the air, disquieting men's minds, and when the old spirit collecting all its energy for a final effort gave to the world the last poets of the old school, Charles of Orleans on the one side, and Clément Marot on the other.

As for the growth of the language, curious readers and students will find its story exhaustively treated by Ampère, Chevallet, and Burguy. There is no modern language which offers such an interesting and clearly marked line of investigation. Its development from Latin can be perfectly easily made out from old monuments and writings. Thus the oath pronounced by Louis-le-Germanique and the subjects of Charles-le-Chauve in 8421 is still preserved: a Cantilène in honour of S. Eulalie of the tenth century remains, and from that time every change in the tongue is marked by some literary relic. Further, the language is almost wholly Latin; the words of Teutonic origin are, though extremely important, comparatively small in number (about a thousand), and the Celtic words are still smaller.

But taking the end of the eighth century as our startingpoint, from that day there has been no disturbing force to act on the Langue d' Oil. The occupation of the English in the fifteenth century is no exception, for it lasted less than thirty years, and was, so far as the English soldiers themselves were concerned, an armed encampment in a hostile country. They went away without leaving one trace of their possession in language, literature, or manners, if we except the hatred to the English name that remained behind

1 See note at end of this chapter.

them. In England, on the other hand, beside the dialects of early English, or what, for want of a better name, we call Anglo-Saxon and late Saxon, there was the language of the court and its literature in Norman French. These streams ran together; one did not supplant the other, nor did one disappear; the Saxon literature and the Norman joined their waters. How long it took to thoroughly effect the fusion may be judged by comparing the English of Charles of Orleans and his time with his French; or by remembering that while Mellin de St. Gelais, imbued with the Italian spirit, was writing his sprightly songs, we had nothing better to show in English than Lydgate, Skelton, and Barclay; or while the Parliament of Devils represents our stage in poetry, Alain Chartier and Christine de Pisan had already begun to write.

Let us sail rapidly down this single stream of French Poetry. As we go on, the waters grow deeper and the banks broader; we leave the still life of the monotonous meadows, and emerge into a varied and picturesque country; we pass through villages, where the rustics, gathered round the door of the auberge, listen to the jolly miller singing the praise of cider we flow by the monasteries and hear sometimes the Catholic hymn and the swell of the organ; sometimes the lament of the prodigal, dying before his time; and sometimes the refrain of roystering brethren disturbing the midnight peace; we flow by castles where jousts and tourneys are going on; with gallant knights in glittering armour and belles dames in silken sheen, joyous to behold; minstrels strike their lutes along our banks and sing of love, and youth, spring-time, and song, and folly; the Spirit of

France goes with us and weeps over her desolated land, or laughs to see her soldiers win the fight; we pass through the town and see the honest burghers in the market-place. laughing at Roger Bontemps as he cracks his expected jokes; outside the town is a gang of thieves and strollers, -they are eating what they have stolen-la grosse Margot is with them, and one is singing: these pass away, but the song remains, and the memory of the singer. King and bishop, lord and lady, judge and lawyer, and criminal, knight and man-at-arms, clerk and monk-we pass by all, and hear in their songs as they go what manner of men they were. The song grows louder, the child-voice strengthens, thought follows wonder, light follows daybreak, the stream has become a river; see, on the banks, Ronsard pipes on one side, and Malherbe pipes on the other; and now we may rest awhile, for the next breath of wind in our sails takes us out of these dreamy old scenes,-ablaze with light and colour,-to the trim lawns and meadows of Louis Quatorze, where, courtly, correct, classical, and bewigged, we must needs stop to admire, however much we yawn.

The earlier French literature, then, consists of the popular epic, the conte or fabliau, the romance, and the chronicle. The epics are divided into three distinct cycles. The first has been called the Carlovingian, which embraces not only the epics in honour of Charlemagne, but also those which speak even of Clovis on one hand, or of Charles the Bald on the other. To this cycle belong, among others, the Chanson de Roland, the Chronique de Turpin, and the Roman des Loherains, containing the story of Garin the Lorrainer. Information on this cycle may be abundantly

found in Mr. Ludlow's work on the 'Popular Epics of the Middle Ages.'

The second epic cycle contains the Arthurian poems, the stories of which are derived from Breton sources, and steeped in the new spirit of chivalry which was gradually growing up. The memory of Charlemagne and his glories was passing away, and a new field was necessary for the imagination of the minstrel. Arthur and the round table supplied it. The Roman du Brut was written by Wace about 1156, which was followed by the Roman du Rou. After Wace, the French trouvères followed up the subject, as the cyclic poets followed up the story of the siege of Troy, until everything possible had been said of it, and men were weary of the name of Arthur. And in the third cycle a new field was again discovered in the stories of antiquity. Then we begin to hear of the siege of Troy, of Ulysses, and of Helen; of Alexander and of Hector.

The middle ages, said Villemain, made use of three mythologies, the 'mythologie chevaleresque', the 'mythologie allégorique', and the 'mythologie chrétienne.' From the first came a whole crowd of enchanters, fairies, dwarfs, and magicians; from the second, which sprung naturally out of the first, came the personification of all the possible virtues, vices, and thoughts. This it was that gave the world the Roman de la Rose, that grand treasure-house of allegory; where the hero's auxiliaries are Bel Accueil and Doux Regard; where Dame Oiseuse takes him to the castle of Déduit (Delight), and Love has his escort of Joliveté, Courtoisie, Franchise, and Jeunesse. It took three hundred years for the minds of men to shake off the impression of

this work, and down to Clément Marot we shall find our friends Bel Accueil, Doux Regard, Faux Dangier, Jeunesse, Malebouche and company, acting their parts on the stage. We find the allegorical spirit in Spenser, still apparently fresh and young, though really moribund; and the last wave from this movement of the thirteenth century broke on English ears in the seventeenth, when the best of our allegories, the Pilgrim's Progress, was written.

What Villemain means by Christian Mythology is explained by the existence, side by side with the profane fabliaux, of pious romances, legends of holy men, fabulous histories of saints, and the countless stories of their miracles. This was the natural armour that the Church would put on against scoffers. In an age when imagination ran riot; when the bounds of knowledge were too small, and the fields of wonder too vast for the minds of men, they opposed invention to invention, and the marvels of Saintly legends to the marvels of Merlin and the Forest of Broceliande.

The Chronicle begins with Villehardouin. Of himwho is the most interesting perhaps of all the early French writers-we have little space here to speak; nor of Joinville, Froissart, Philip de Comines, and the host of writers who carried on the story of France and her knights. His work is as much of a romance as a history. It is told in the liveliest and most picturesque manner, at once romantic and real. He shews us that time which seems to us so glittering, brilliant, and gorgeous, as it really was. We see the crusaders, men full of lofty Christian sentiments and mundane ambitions, who had learned to unite the two, and to dream of the slaughter of the Paynim for the glory