FRENCH LITERATURE.

Early monuments.

Epic poetry.

_Origins._--The history of French literature in the proper sense of the

term can hardly be said to extend farther back than the 11th century.

The actual manuscripts which we possess are seldom of older date than

the century subsequent to this. But there is no doubt that by the end at

least of the 11th century the French language, as a completely organized

medium of literary expression, was in full, varied and constant use. For

many centuries previous to this, literature had been composed in France,

or by natives of that country, using the term France in its full modern

acceptation; but until the 9th century, if not later, the written

language of France, so far as we know, was Latin; and despite the

practice of not a few literary historians, it does not seem reasonable

to notice Latin writings in a history of French literature. Such a

history properly busies itself only with the monuments of French itself

from the time when the so-called Lingua Romana Rustica assumed a

sufficiently independent form to deserve to be called a new language.

This time it is indeed impossible exactly to determine, and the period

at which literary compositions, as distinguished from mere conversation,

began to employ the new tongue is entirely unknown. As early as the 7th

century the Lingua Romana, as distinguished from Latin and from Teutonic

dialects, is mentioned, and this Lingua Romana would be of necessity

used for purposes of clerical admonition, especially in the country

districts, though we need not suppose that such addresses had a very

literary character. On the other hand, the mention, at early dates, of

certain _cantilenae_ or songs composed in the vulgar language has served

for basis to a superstructure of much ingenious argument with regard to

the highly interesting problem of the origin of the _Chansons de Geste_,

the earliest and one of the greatest literary developments of northern

French. It is sufficient in this article, where speculation would be out

of place, to mention that only two such _cantilenae_ actually exist, and

that neither is French. One of the 9th century, the "Lay of Saucourt,"

is in a Teutonic dialect; the other, the "Song of St Faron," is of the

7th century, but exists only in Latin prose, the construction and style

of which present traces of translation from a poetical and vernacular

original. As far as facts go, the most ancient monuments of the written

French language consist of a few documents of very various character,

ranging in date from the 9th to the 11th century. The oldest gives us

the oaths interchanged at Strassburg in 842 between Charles the Bald and

Louis the German. The next probably in date and the first in literary

merit is a short song celebrating the martyrdom of St Eulalia, which may

be as old as the end of the 9th century, and is certainly not younger

than the beginning of the 10th. Another, the _Life of St Leger_, in 240

octosyllabic lines, is dated by conjecture about 975. The discussion

indeed of these short and fragmentary pieces is of more philological

than literary interest, and belongs rather to the head of French

language. They are, however, evidence of the progress which, continuing

for at least four centuries, built up a literary instrument out of the

decomposed and reconstructed Latin of the Roman conquerors, blended with

a certain limited amount of contributions from the Celtic and Iberian

dialects of the original inhabitants, the Teutonic speech of the Franks,

and the Oriental tongue of the Moors who pressed upwards from Spain. But

all these foreign elements bear a very small proportion to the element

of Latin; and as Latin furnished the greater part of the vocabulary and

the grammar, so did it also furnish the principal models and helps to

literary composition. The earliest French versification is evidently

inherited from that of the Latin hymns of the church, and for a certain

time Latin originals were followed in the choice of literary forms. But

by the 11th century it is tolerably certain that dramatic attempts were

already being made in the vernacular, that lyric poetry was largely

cultivated, that laws, charters, and such-like documents were written,

and that commentators and translators busied themselves with religious

subjects and texts. The most important of the extant documents, outside

of the epics presently to be noticed, has of late been held to be the

_Life of Saint Alexis_, a poem of 625 decasyllabic lines, arranged in

five-line stanzas, each of one assonance or vowel-rhyme, which may be as

early as 1050. But the most important development of the 11th century,

and the one of which we are most certain, is that of which we have

evidence remaining in the famous _Chanson de Roland_, discovered in a

manuscript at Oxford and first published in 1837. This poem represents

the first and greatest development of French literature, the chansons de

geste (this form is now preferred to that with the plural _gestes_). The

origin of these poems has been hotly debated, and it is only recently

that the importance which they really possess has been accorded to

them,--a fact the less remarkable in that, until about 1820, the epics

of ancient France were unknown, or known only through late and

disfigured prose versions. Whether they originated in the north or the

south is a question on which there have been more than one or two

revolutions of opinion, and will probably be others still, but which

need not be dealt with here. We possess in round numbers a hundred of

these chansons. Three only of them are in Provencal. Two of these,

_Ferabras_ and _Betonnet d'Hanstonne_, are obviously adaptations of

French originals. The third, _Girartz de Rossilho_ (Gerard de

Roussillon), is undoubtedly Provencal, and is a work of great merit and

originality, but its dialect is strongly tinged with the characteristics

of the Langue d'Oil, and its author seems to have been a native of the

debatable land between the two districts. To suppose under these

circumstances that the Provencal originals of the hundred others have

perished seems gratuitous. It is sufficient to say that the chanson de

geste, as it is now extant, is the almost exclusive property of northern

France. Nor is there much authority for a supposition that the early

French poets merely versified with amplifications the stories of

chroniclers. On the contrary, chroniclers draw largely from the

chansons, and the question of priority between _Roland_ and the

pseudo-Turpin, though a hard one to determine, seems to resolve itself

in favour of the former. At most we may suppose, with much probability,

that personal and family tradition gave a nucleus for at least the

earliest.

Chansons de Geste.

_Chansons de Geste._--Early French narrative poetry was divided by one

of its own writers, Jean Bodel, under three heads--poems relating to

French history, poems relating to ancient history, and poems of the

Arthurian cycle (_Matieres de France, de Bretagne, et de Rome_). To the

first only is the term chansons de geste in strictness applicable. The

definition of it goes partly by form and partly by matter. A chanson de

geste must be written in verses either of ten or twelve syllables, the

former being the earlier. These verses have a regular caesura, which,

like the end of a line, carries with it the licence of a mute e. The

lines are arranged, not in couplets or in stanzas of equal length, but

in _laisses_ or _tirades_, consisting of any number of lines from half a

dozen to some hundreds. These are, in the earlier examples

assonanced,--that is to say, the vowel sound of the last syllables is

identical, but the consonants need not agree. Thus, for instance, the

final words of a tirade of _Amis et Amiles_ (Il. 199-206) are _erbe_,

_nouvelle_, _selles_, _nouvelles_, _traversent_, _arrestent_, _guerre_,

_cortege_. Sometimes the tirade is completed by a shorter line, and the

later chansons are regularly rhymed. As to the subject, a chanson de

geste must be concerned with some event which is, or is supposed to be,

historical and French. The tendency of the trouveres was constantly to

affiliate their heroes on a particular _geste_ or family. The three

chief _gestes_ are those of Charlemagne himself, of Doon de Mayence, and

of Garin de Monglane; but there are not a few chansons, notably those

concerning the Lorrainers, and the remarkable series sometimes called

the _Chevalier au Cygne_, and dealing with the crusades, which lie

outside these groups. By this joint definition of form and subject the

chansons de geste are separated from the romances of antiquity, from the

romances of the Round Table, which are written in octosyllabic couplets,

and from the _romans d'aventures_ or later fictitious tales, some of

which, such as _Brun de la Montaigne_, are written in pure chanson form.

Volume and changes of early epics.

Not the least remarkable point about the chansons de geste is their vast

extent. Their number, according to the strictest definition, exceeds

100, and the length of each chanson varies from 1000 lines, or

thereabouts, to 20,000 or even 30,000. The entire mass, including, it

may be supposed, the various versions and extensions of each chanson, is

said to amount to between two and three million lines; and when, under

the second empire, the publication of the whole Carolingian cycle was

projected, it was estimated, taking the earliest versions alone, at over

300,000. The successive developments of the chansons de geste may be

illustrated by the fortunes of _Huon de Bordeaux_, one of the most

lively, varied and romantic of the older epics, and one which is

interesting from the use made of it by Shakespeare, Wieland and Weber.

In the oldest form now extant, though even this is probably not the

original, _Huon_ consists of over 10,000 lines. A subsequent version

contains 4000 more; and lastly, in the 14th century, a later poet has

amplified the legend to the extent of 30,000 lines. When this point had

been reached, _Huon_ began to be turned into prose, was with many of his

fellows published and republished during the 15th and subsequent

centuries, and retains, in the form of a roughly printed chap-book, the

favour of the country districts of France to the present day. It is not,

however, in the later versions that the special characteristics of the

chansons de geste are to be looked for. Of those which we possess, one

and one only, the _Chanson de Roland_, belongs in its present form to

the 11th century. Their date of production extends, speaking roughly,

from the 11th to the 14th century, their palmy days were the 11th and

the 12th. After this latter period the Arthurian romances, with more

complex attractions, became their rivals, and induced their authors to

make great changes in their style and subject. But for a time they

reigned supreme, and no better instance of their popularity can be given

than the fact that manuscripts of them exist, not merely in every French

dialect, but in many cases in a strange macaronic jargon of mingled

French and Italian. Two classes of persons were concerned in them. There

was the _trouvere_ who composed them, and the _jongleur_ who carried

them about in manuscript or in his memory from castle to castle and sang

them, intermixing frequent appeals to his auditory for silence,

declarations of the novelty and the strict copyright character of the

chanson, revilings of rival minstrels, and frequently requests for money

in plain words. Not a few of the manuscripts which we now possess appear

to have been actually used by the jongleur. But the names of the

authors, the trouveres who actually composed them, are in very few cases

known, those of copyists, continuators, and mere possessors of

manuscripts having been often mistaken for them.

The moral and poetical peculiarities of the older and more authentic of

these chansons are strongly marked, though perhaps not quite so strongly

as some of their encomiasts have contended, and as may appear to a

reader of the most famous of them, the _Chanson de Roland_, alone. In

that poem, indeed, war and religion are the sole motives employed, and

its motto might be two lines from another of the finest chansons

(_Aliscans_, 161-162):--

"Dist a Bertran: 'N'avons mais nul losir,

Tant ke vivons alons paiens ferir.'"

In Roland there is no love-making whatever, and the hero's betrothed "la

belle Aude" appears only in a casual gibe of her brother Oliver, and in

the incident of her sudden death at the news of Roland's fall. M. Leon

Gautier and others have drawn the conclusion that this stern and

masculine character was a feature of all the older chansons, and that

imitation of the Arthurian romance is the cause of its disappearance.

This seems rather a hasty inference. In _Amis et Amiles_, admittedly a

poem of old date, the parts of Bellicent and Lubias are prominent, and

the former is demonstrative enough. In _Aliscans_ the part of the

Countess Guibourc is both prominent and heroic, and is seconded by that

of Queen Blancheflor and her daughter Aelis. We might also mention

Oriabel in _Jourdans de Blaivies_ and others. But it may be admitted

that the sex which fights and counsels plays the principal part, that

love adventures are not introduced at any great length, and that the

lady usually spares her knight the trouble and possible indignities of a

long wooing. The characters of a chanson of the older style are somewhat

uniform. There is the hero who is unjustly suspected of guilt or sore

beset by Saracens, the heroine who falls in love with him, the traitor

who accuses him or delays help, who is almost always of the lineage of

Ganelon, and whose ways form a very curious study. There are friendly

paladins and subordinate traitors; there is Charlemagne (who bears

throughout the marks of the epic king common to Arthur and Agamemnon,

but is not in the earlier chanson the incapable and venal dotard which

he becomes in the later), and with Charlemagne generally the duke Naimes

of Bavaria, the one figure who is invariably wise, brave, loyal and

generous. In a few chansons there is to be added to these a very

interesting class of personages who, though of low birth or condition,

yet rescue the high-born knights from their enemies. Such are Rainoart

in _Aliscans_, Gautier in _Gaydon_, Robastre in _Gaufrey_, Varocher in

_Macaire_. These subjects, uniform rather than monotonous, are handled

with great uniformity if not monotony of style. There are constant

repetitions, and it sometimes seems, and may sometimes be the case, that

the text is a mere cento of different and repeated versions. But the

verse is generally harmonious and often stately. The recurrent

assonances of the endless tirade soon impress the ear with a grateful

music, and occasionally, and far more frequently than might be thought,

passages of high poetry, such as the magnificent _Granz doel por la mort

de Rollant_, appear to diversify the course of the story. The most

remarkable of the chansons are _Roland_, _Aliscans_, _Gerard de

Roussillon_, _Amis et Amiles_, _Raoul de Cambrai_, _Garin le Loherain_

and its sequel _Les quatre Fils Aymon_, _Les Saisnes_ (recounting the

war of Charlemagne with Witekind), and lastly, _Le Chevalier au Cygne_,

which is not a single poem but a series, dealing with the earlier

crusades. The most remarkable _group_ is that centring round William of

Orange, the historical or half-historical defender of the south of

France against Mahommedan invasion. Almost all the chansons of this

group, from the long-known _Aliscans_ to the recently printed _Chancon

de Willame_, are distinguished by an unwonted _personality_ of interest,

as well as by an intensified dose of the rugged and martial poetry which

pervades the whole class. It is noteworthy that one chanson and one

only, _Floovant_, deals with Merovingian times. But the chronology,

geography, and historic facts of nearly all are, it is hardly necessary

to say, mainly arbitrary.

_Arthurian Romances._--The second class of early French epics consists

of the Arthurian cycle, the _Matiere de Bretagne_, the earliest known

compositions of which are at least a century junior to the earliest

chanson de geste, but which soon succeeded the chansons in popular

favour, and obtained a vogue both wider and far more enduring. It is not

easy to conceive a greater contrast in form, style, subject and

sentiment than is presented by the two classes. In both the religious

sentiment is prominent, but the religion of the chansons is of the

simplest, not to say of the most savage character. To pray to God and to

kill his enemies constitutes the whole duty of man. In the romances the

mystical element becomes on the contrary prominent, and furnishes, in

the Holy Grail, one of the most important features. In the Carlovingian

knight the courtesy and clemency which we have learnt to associate with

chivalry are almost entirely absent. The _gentix ber_ contradicts, jeers

at, and execrates his sovereign and his fellows with the utmost freedom.

He thinks nothing of striking his _cortoise moullier_ so that the blood

runs down her _cler vis_. If a servant or even an equal offends him, he

will throw the offender into the fire, knock his brains out, or set his

whiskers ablaze. The Arthurian knight is far more of the modern model in

these respects. But his chief difference from his predecessor is

undoubtedly in his amorous devotion to his beloved, who, if not morally

superior to Bellicent, Floripas, Esclairmonde, and the other

Carlovingian heroines, is somewhat less forward. Even in minute details

the difference is strongly marked. The romances are in octosyllabic

couplets or in prose, and their language is different from that of the

chansons, and contains much fewer of the usual epic repetitions and

stock phrases. A voluminous controversy has been held respecting the

origin of these differences, and of the story or stories which were

destined to receive such remarkable attention. Reference must be made to

the article ARTHURIAN LEGEND for the history of this controversy and for

an account of its present state. This state, however, and all subsequent

states, are likely to be rather dependent upon opinion than upon actual

knowledge. From the point of view of the general historian of literature

it may not be improper here to give a caution against the frequent use

of the word "proven" in such matters. Very little in regard to early

literature, except the literary value of the texts, is ever susceptible

of _proof_; although things may be made more or less _probable_. What we

are at present concerned with, however, is a body of verse and prose

composed in the latter part of the 12th century and later. The earliest

romances, the _Saint Graal_, the _Quete du Saint Graal_, _Joseph

d'Arimathie_ and _Merlin_ bear the names of Walter Map and Robert de

Borron. _Artus_ and part at least of _Lancelot du Lac_ (the whole of

which has been by turns attributed and denied to Walter Map) appear to

be due to unknown authors. _Tristan_ came later, and has a stronger

mixture of Celtic tradition. At the same time as Walter Map, or a little

later, Chretien (or Chrestien) de Troyes threw the legends of the Round

Table into octosyllabic verse of a singularly spirited and picturesque

character. The chief poems attributed to him are the _Chevalier au Lyon_

(Sir Ewain of Wales), the _Chevalier a la Charette_ (one of the episodes

of _Lancelot_), _Eric et Enide_, _Tristan_ and _Percivale_. These poems,

independently of their merit, which is great, had an extensive literary

influence. They were translated by the German minnesingers, Wolfram von

Eschenbach, Gottfried of Strassburg, and others. With the romances

already referred to, which are mostly in prose, and which by recent

authorities have been put later than the verse tales which used to be

postponed to them, Chretien's poems complete the early forms of the

Arthurian story, and supply the matter of it as it is best known to

English readers in Malory's book. Nor does that book, though far later

than the original forms, convey a very false impression of the

characteristics of the older romances. Indeed, the Arthurian knight, his

character and adventures, are so much better known than the heroes of

the Carlovingian chanson that there is less need to dwell upon them.

They had, however, as has been already pointed out, great influence upon

their rivals, and their comparative fertility of invention, the much

larger number of their _dramatis personae_, and the greater variety of

interests to which they appealed, sufficiently explain their increased

popularity. The ordinary attractions of poetry are also more largely

present in them than in the chansons; there is more description, more

life, and less of the mere chronicle. They have been accused of relaxing

morality, and there is perhaps some truth in the charge. But the change

is after all one rather of manners than of morals, and what is lost in

simplicity is gained in refinement. _Doon de Mayence_ is a late chanson,

and _Lancelot du Lac_ is an early romance. But the two beautiful scenes,

in the former between Doon and Nicolette, in the latter between

Lancelot, Galahault, Guinevere, and the Lady of Malehaut, may be

compared as instances of the attitude of the two classes of poets

towards the same subject.

_Romances of Antiquity._--There is yet a third class of early narrative

poems, differing from the two former in subject, but agreeing, sometimes

with one sometimes with the other in form. These are the classical

romances--the _Matiere de Rome_--which are not much later than those of

Charlemagne and Arthur. The chief subjects with which their authors

busied themselves were the conquests of Alexander and the siege of Troy,

though other classical stories come in. The most remarkable of all is

the romance of _Alixandre_ by Lambert the Short and Alexander of Bernay.

It has been said that the excellence of the twelve-syllabled verse used

in this romance was the origin of the term alexandrine. The Trojan

romances, on the other hand, are chiefly in octosyllabic verse, and the

principal poem which treats of them is the _Roman de Troie_ of Benoit de

Sainte More. Both this poem and _Alixandre_ are attributed to the last

quarter of the 12th century. The authorities consulted for these poems

were, as may be supposed, none of the best. Dares Phrygius, Dictys

Cretensis, the pseudo-Callisthenes supplied most of them. But the

inexhaustible invention of the trouveres themselves was the chief

authority consulted. The adventures of Medea, the wanderings of

Alexander, the Trojan horse, the story of Thebes, were quite sufficient

to spur on to exertion the minds which had been accustomed to spin a

chanson of some 10,000 lines out of a casual allusion in some preceding

poem. It is needless to say that anachronisms did not disturb them. From

first to last the writers of the chansons had not in the least troubled

themselves with attention to any such matters. Charlemagne himself had

his life and exploits accommodated to the need of every poet who treats

of him, and the same is the case with the heroes of antiquity. Indeed,

Alexander is made in many respects a prototype of Charlemagne. He is

regularly knighted, he has twelve peers, he holds tournaments, he has

relations with Arthur, and comes in contact with fairies, he takes

flights in the air, dives in the sea and so forth. There is perhaps more

avowed imagination in these classical stories than in either of the

other divisions of French epic poetry. Some of their authors even

confess to the practice of fiction, while the trouveres of the chansons

invariably assert the historical character of their facts and

personages, and the authors of the Arthurian romances at least start

from facts vouched for, partly by national tradition, partly by the

authority of religion and the church. The classical romances, however,

are important in two different ways. In the first place, they connect

the early literature of France, however loosely, and with links of

however dubious authenticity, with the great history and literature of

the past. They show a certain amount of scholarship in their authors,

and in their hearers they show a capacity of taking an interest in

subjects which are not merely those directly connected with the village

or the tribe. The chansons de geste had shown the creative power and

independent character of French literature. There is, at least about the

earlier ones, nothing borrowed, traditional or scholarly. They smack of

the soil, and they rank France among the very few countries which, in

this matter of indigenous growth, have yielded more than folk-songs and

fireside tales. The Arthurian romances, less independent in origin,

exhibit a wider range of view, a greater knowledge of human nature, and

a more extensive command of the sources of poetical and romantic

interest. The classical epics superadd the only ingredient necessary to

an accomplished literature--that is to say, the knowledge of what has

been done by other peoples and other literatures already, and the

readiness to take advantage of the materials thus supplied.

_Romans d'Aventures._--These are the three earliest developments of

French literature on the great scale. They led, however, to a fourth,

which, though later in date than all except their latest forms and far

more loosely associated as a group, is so closely connected with them by

literary and social considerations that it had best be mentioned here.

This is the _roman d'aventures_, a title given to those almost avowedly

fictitious poems which connect themselves, mainly and centrally, neither

with French history, with the Round Table, nor with the heroes of

antiquity. These began to be written in the 13th century, and continued

until the prose form of fiction became generally preferred. The later

forms of the chansons de geste and the Arthurian poems might indeed be

well called romans d'aventures themselves. _Hugues Capet_, for instance,

a chanson in form and class of subject, is certainly one of this latter

kind in treatment; and there is a larger class of semi-Arthurian

romance, which so to speak branches off from the main trunk. But for

convenience sake the definition we have given is preferable. The style

and subject of these romans d'aventures are naturally extremely various.

_Guillaume de Palerme_ deals with the adventures of a Sicilian prince

who is befriended by a were-wolf; _Le Roman de l'escoufle_, with a

heroine whose ring is carried off by a sparrow-hawk (_escoufle_), like

Prince Camaralzaman's talisman; _Guy of Warwick_, with one of the most

famous of imaginary heroes; _Meraugis de Portleguez_ is a sort of branch

or offshoot of the romances of the Round Table; _Cleomades_, the work of

the trouvere Adenes le Roi, who also rehandled the old chanson subjects

of _Ogier_ and _Berte aux grans pies_, connects itself once more with

the _Arabian Nights_ as well as with Chaucer forwards in the

introduction of a flying mechanical horse. There is, in short, no

possibility of classifying their subjects. The habit of writing in

gestes, or of necessarily connecting the new work with an older one, had

ceased to be binding, and the instinct of fiction writing was free; yet

those romans d'aventures do not rank quite as high in literary

importance as the classes which preceded them. This under-valuation

arises rather from a lack of originality and distinctness of savour than

from any shortcomings in treatment. Their versification, usually

octosyllabic, is pleasant enough; but there is not much distinctness of

character about them, and their incidents often strike the reader with

something of the sameness, but seldom with much of the naivete, of those

of the older poems. Nevertheless some of them attained to a very high

popularity, such, for instance, as the _Partenopex de Blois_ of Denis

Pyramus, which has a motive drawn from the story of _Cupid and Psyche_

and the charming _Floire et Blanchefleur_, giving the woes of a

Christian prince and a Saracen slave-girl. With them may be connected a

certain number of early romances and fictions of various dates in prose,

none of which can vie in charm with _Aucassin et Nicolette_ (13th

century), an exquisite literary presentment of medieval sentiment in its

most delightful form.

General characteristics of early narrative.

Spread of literary taste.

In these classes maybe said to be summed up the literature of feudal

chivalry in France. They were all, except perhaps the last, composed by

one class of persons, the trouveres, and performed by another, the

jongleurs. The latter, indeed, sometimes presumed to compose for

himself, and was denounced as a _troveor batard_ by the indignant

members of the superior caste. They were all originally intended to be

performed in the _palais marberin_ of the baron to an audience of

knights and ladies, and, when reading became more common, to be read by

such persons. They dealt therefore chiefly, if not exclusively, with the

class to whom they were addressed. The bourgeois and the villain,

personages of political nonentity at the time of their early

composition, come in for far slighter notice, although occasionally in

the few curious instances we have mentioned, and others, persons of a

class inferior to the seigneur play an important part. The habit of

private wars and of insurrection against the sovereign supply the

motives of the chanson de geste, the love of gallantry, adventure and

foreign travel those of the romances Arthurian and miscellaneous. None

of these motives much affected the lower classes, who were, with the

early developed temper of the middle- and lower-class Frenchman, already

apt to think and speak cynically enough of tournaments, courts, crusades

and the other occupations of the nobility. The communal system was

springing up, the towns were receiving royal encouragement as a

counterpoise to the authority of the nobles. The corruptions and

maladministration of the church attracted the satire rather of the

citizens and peasantry who suffered by them, than of the nobles who had

less to fear and even something to gain. On the other hand, the gradual

spread of learning, inaccurate and ill-digested perhaps, but still

learning, not only opened up new classes of subjects, but opened them to

new classes of persons. The thousands of students who flocked to the

schools of Paris were not all princes or nobles. Hence there arose two

new classes of literature, the first consisting of the embodiment of

learning of one kind or other in the vulgar tongue. The other, one of

the most remarkable developments of sportive literature which the world

has seen, produced the second indigenous literary growth of which France

can boast, namely, the fabliaux, and the almost more remarkable work

which is an immense conglomerate of fabliaux, the great beast-epic of

the Roman de Renart.

_Fabliaux._--There are few literary products which have more originality

and at the same time more diversity than the fabliau. The epic and the

drama, even when they are independently produced, are similar in their

main characteristics all the world over. But there is nothing in

previous literature which exactly corresponds to the fabliau. It comes

nearest to the Aesopic fable and its eastern origins or parallels. But

differs from these in being less allegorical, less obviously moral

(though a moral of some sort is usually if not always enforced), and in

having a much more direct personal interest. It is in many degrees

further removed from the parable, and many degrees nearer to the novel.

The story is the first thing, the moral the second, and the latter is

never suffered to interfere with the former. These observations apply

only to the fabliaux, properly so called, but the term has been used

with considerable looseness. The collectors of those interesting pieces,

Barbazan, Meon, Le Grand d'Aussy, have included in their collections

large numbers of miscellaneous pieces such as _dits_ (rhymed

descriptions of various objects, the most famous known author of which

was Baudouin de Conde, 13th century), and _debats_ (discussions between

two persons or contrasts of the attributes of two things), sometimes

even short romances, farces and mystery plays. Not that the fable

proper--the prose classical beast-story of "Aesop"--was neglected. Marie

de France--the poetess to be mentioned again for her more strictly

poetical work--is the most literary of not a few writers who composed

what were often, after the mysterious original poet, named _Ysopets_.

Aesop, Phaedrus, Babrius were translated and imitated in Latin and in

the vernacular by this class of writer, and some of the best known of

"fablers" date from this time. The fabliau, on the other hand, according

to the best definition of it yet achieved, is "the recital, generally

comic, of a real or possible incident occurring in ordinary human life."

The comedy, it may be added, is usually of a satiric kind, and occupies

itself with every class and rank of men, from the king to the villain.

There is no limit to the variety of these lively verse-tales, which are

invariably written in eight-syllabled couplets. Now the subject is the

misadventure of two Englishmen, whose ignorance of the French language

makes them confuse donkey and lamb; now it is the fortunes of an

exceedingly foolish knight, who has an amiable and ingenious

mother-in-law; now the deserved sufferings of an avaricious or

ill-behaved priest; now the bringing of an ungrateful son to a better

mind by the wisdom of babes and sucklings. Not a few of the _Canterbury

Tales_ are taken directly from fabliaux; indeed, Chaucer, with the

possible exception of Prior, is our nearest approach to a

fabliau-writer. At the other end of Europe the prose novels of Boccaccio

and other Italian tale-tellers are largely based upon fabliaux. But

their influence in their own country was the greatest. They were the

first expression of the spirit which has since animated the most

national and popular developments of French literature. Simple and

unpretending as they are in form, the fabliaux announce not merely the

_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ and the _Heptameron_, _L'Avocat Patelin_, and

_Pantagruel_, but also _L'Avare_ and the _Roman comique_, _Gil Blas_ and

_Candide_. They indeed do more than merely prophesy the spirit of these

great performances--they directly lead to them. The prose-tale and the

farce are the direct outcomes of the fabliau, and the prose-tale and the

farce once given, the novel and the comedy inevitably follow.

Social importance of fabliaux.

The special period of fabliau composition appears to have been the 12th

and 13th centuries. It signifies on the one side the growth of a lighter

and more sportive spirit than had yet prevailed, on another the rise in

importance of other and lower orders of men than the priest and the

noble, on yet another the consciousness on the part of these lower

orders of the defects of the two privileged classes, and of the

shortcomings of the system of polity under which these privileged

classes enjoyed their privileges. There is, however, in the fabliau

proper not so very much of direct satire, this being indeed excluded by

the definition given above, and by the thoroughly artistic spirit in

which that definition is observed. The fabliaux are so numerous and so

various that it is difficult to select any as specially representative.

We may, however, mention, both as good examples and as interesting from

their subsequent history, _Le Vair Palfroi_, treated in English by Leigh

Hunt and by Peacock; _Le Vilain Mire_, the original consciously or

unconsciously followed in _Le Medecin malgre lui_; _Le Roi d'Angleterre

et le jongleur d'Eli_; _La houce partie_; _Le Sot Chevalier_, an

indecorous but extremely amusing story; _Les deux bordeors ribaus_, a

dialogue between two jongleurs of great literary interest, containing

allusions to the chansons de geste and romances most in vogue; and _Le

vilain qui conquist paradis par plait_, one of the numerous instances of

what has unnecessarily puzzled moderns, the association in medieval

times of sincere and unfeigned faith with extremely free handling of its

objects. This lightheartedness in other subjects sometimes bubbled over

into the _fatrasie_, an almost pure nonsense-piece, parent of the later

_amphigouri_.

_Roman de Renart._--If the fabliaux are not remarkable for direct

satire, that element is supplied in more than compensating quantity by

an extraordinary composition which is closely related to them. _Le Roman

de Renart_, or _History of Reynard the Fox_, is a poem, or rather series

of poems, which, from the end of the 12th to the middle of the 14th

century, served the citizen poets of northern France, not merely as an

outlet for literary expression, but also as a vehicle of satirical

comment,--now on the general vices and weaknesses of humanity, now on

the usual corruptions in church and state, now on the various historical

events which occupied public attention from time to time. The enormous

popularity of the subject is shown by the long vogue which it had, and

by the empire which it exercised over generations of writers who

differed from each other widely in style and temper. Nothing can be

farther from the allegorical erudition, the political diatribes and the

sermonizing moralities of the authors of _Renart le Contre-fait_ than

the sly naivete of the writers of the earlier branches. Yet these and a

long and unknown series of intermediate bards the fox-king pressed into

his service, and it is scarcely too much to say that, during the two

centuries of his reign, there was hardly a thought in the popular mind

which, as it rose to the surface, did not find expression in an addition

to the huge cycle of _Renart_.

We shall not deal with the controversies which have been raised as to

the origin of the poem and its central idea. The latter may have been a

travestie of real persons and actual events, or it may (and much more

probably) have been an expression of thoughts and experiences which

recur in every generation. France, the Netherlands and Germany have

contended for the honour of producing Renart; French, Flemish, German

and Latin for the honour of first describing him. It is sufficient to

say that the spirit of the work seems to be more that of the borderland

between France and Flanders than of any other district, and that,

wherever the idea may have originally arisen, it was incomparably more

fruitful in France than in any other country. The French poems which we

possess on the subject amount in all to nearly 100,000 lines,

independently of mere variations, but including the different versions

of _Renart le Contre-fait_. This vast total is divided into four

different poems. The most ancient and remarkable is that edited by Meon

under the title of _Roman du Renart_, and containing, with some

additions made by M. Chabaille, 37 branches and about 32,000 lines. It

must not, however, be supposed that this total forms a continuous poem

like the _Aeneid_ or _Paradise Lost_. Part was pretty certainly written

by Pierre de Saint-Cloud, but he was not the author of the whole. On the

contrary, the separate branches are the work of different authors,

hardly any of whom are known, and, but for their community of subject

and to some extent of treatment, might be regarded as separate poems.

The history of Renart, his victories over Isengrim, the wolf, Bruin, the

bear, and his other unfortunate rivals, his family affection, his

outwittings of King Noble the Lion and all the rest, are too well known

to need fresh description here. It is perhaps in the subsequent poems,

though they are far less known and much less amusing, that the hold

which the idea of Renart had obtained on the mind of northern France,

and the ingenious uses to which it was put, are best shown. The first of

these is _Le Couronnement Renart_, a poem of between 3000 and 4000

lines, attributed, on no grounds whatever, to the poetess Marie de

France, and describing how the hero by his ingenuity got himself crowned

king. This poem already shows signs of direct moral application and

generalizing. These are still more apparent in _Renart le Nouvel_, a

composition of some 8000 lines, finished in the year 1288 by the Fleming

Jacquemart Gielee. Here the personification, of which, in noticing the

_Roman de la rose_, we shall soon have to give extended mention, becomes

evident. Instead of or at least beside the lively personal Renart who

used to steal sausages, set Isengrim fishing with his tail, or make use

of Chanticleer's comb for a purpose for which it was certainly never

intended, we have _Renardie_, an abstraction of guile and hypocrisy,

triumphantly prevailing over other and better qualities. Lastly, as the

_Roman de la rose_ of William of Lorris is paralleled by _Renart le

Nouvel_, so its continuation by Jean de Meung is paralleled by the great

miscellany of _Renart le Contre-fait_, which, even in its existing

versions, extends to fully 50,000 lines. Here we have, besides floods of

miscellaneous erudition and discourse, political argument of the most

direct and important kind. The wrongs of the lower orders are bitterly

urged. They are almost openly incited to revolt; and it is scarcely too

much to say, as M. Lenient has said, that the closely following

Jacquerie is but a practical carrying out of the doctrines of the

anonymous satirists of _Renart le Contre-fait_, one of whom (if indeed

there was more than one) appears to have been a clerk of Troyes.

Audefroit le Bastard.

Thibaut de Champagne.

Ruteboef.

Adam de la Halle.

Lais.

_Early Lyric Poetry._--Side by side with these two forms of literature,

the epics and romances of the higher classes, and the fabliau, which, at

least in its original, represented rather the feelings of the lower,

there grew up a third kind, consisting of purely lyrical poetry. The

song literature of medieval France is extremely abundant and beautiful.

From the 12th to the 15th century it received constant accessions, some

signed, some anonymous, some purely popular in their character, some the

work of more learned writers, others again produced by members of the

aristocracy. Of the latter class it may fairly be said that the

catalogue of royal and noble authors boasts few if any names superior to

those of Thibaut de Champagne, king of Navarre at the beginning of the

13th century, and Charles d'Orleans, the father of Louis XII., at the

beginning of the 15th. Although much of this lyric poetry is anonymous,

the more popular part of it almost entirely so, yet M. Paulin Paris was

able to enumerate some hundreds of French chansonniers between the 11th

and the 13th century. The earliest song literature, chiefly known in the

delightful collection of Bartsch (_Altfranzosische Romanzen und

Pastourellen_), is mainly sentimental in character. The collector

divides it under the two heads of romances and pastourelles, the former

being usually the celebration of the loves of a noble knight and maiden,

and recounting how Belle Doette or Eglantine or Oriour sat at her

windows or in the tourney gallery, or embroidering silk and samite in

her chamber, with her thoughts on Gerard or Guy or Henry,--the latter

somewhat monotonous but naive and often picturesque recitals, very often

in the first person, of the meeting of an errant knight or minstrel with

a shepherdess, and his cavalier but not always successful wooing. With

these, some of which date from the 12th century, may be contrasted, at

the other end of the medieval period, the more varied and popular

collection dating in their present form from the 15th century, and

published in 1875 by M. Gaston Paris. In both alike, making allowance

for the difference of their age and the state of the language, may be

noticed a charming lyrical faculty and great skill in the elaboration of

light and suitable metres. Especially remarkable is the abundance of

refrains of an admirably melodious kind. It is said that more than 500

of these exist. Among the lyric writers of these four centuries whose

names are known may be mentioned Audefroi le Bastard (12th century), the

author of the charming song of _Belle Idoine_, and others no way

inferior, Quesnes de Bethune, the ancestor of Sully, whose song-writing

inclines to a satirical cast in many instances, the Vidame de Chartres,

Charles d'Anjou, King John of Brienne, the chatelain de Coucy, Gace

Brusle, Colin Muset, while not a few writers mentioned elsewhere--Guyot

de Provins, Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel and others--were also lyrists.

But none of them, except perhaps Audefroi, can compare with Thibaut IV.

(1201-1253), who united by his possessions and ancestry a connexion with

the north and the south, and who employed the methods of both districts

but used the language of the north only. Thibaut was supposed to be the

lover of Blanche of Castile, the mother of St Louis, and a great deal of

his verse is concerned with his love for her. But while knights and

nobles were thus employing lyric poetry in courtly and sentimental

verse, lyric forms were being freely employed by others, both of high

and low birth, for more general purposes. Blanche and Thibaut themselves

came in for contemporary lampoons, and both at this time and in the

times immediately following, a cloud of writers composed light verse,

sometimes of a lyric sometimes of a narrative kind, and sometimes in a

mixture of both. By far the most remarkable of these is Ruteboeuf (a

name which is perhaps a nickname), the first of a long series of French

poets to whom in recent days the title Bohemian has been applied, who

passed their lives between gaiety and misery, and celebrated their lot

in both conditions with copious verse. Ruteboeuf is among the earliest

French writers who tell us their personal history and make personal

appeals. But he does not confine himself to these. He discusses the

history of his times, upbraids the nobles for their desertion of the

Latin empire of Constantinople, considers the expediency of crusading,

inveighs against the religious orders, and takes part in the disputes

between the pope and the king. He composes pious poetry too, and in at

least one poem takes care to distinguish between the church which he

venerates and the corrupt churchmen whom he lampoons. Besides Ruteboeuf

the most characteristic figure of his class and time (about the middle

of the 13th century) is Adam de la Halle, commonly called the Hunchback

of Arras. The earlier poems of Adam are of a sentimental character, the

later ones satirical and somewhat ill-tempered. Such, for instance, is

his invective against his native city. But his chief importance consists

in his _jeux_, the _Jeu de la feuillie_, the _Jeu de Robin et Marion_,

dramatic compositions which led the way to the regular dramatic form.

Indeed the general tendency of the 13th century is to satire, fable and

farce, even more than to serious or sentimental poetry. We should

perhaps except the _lais_, the chief of which are known under the name

of Marie de France. These lays are exclusively Breton in origin, though

not in application, and the term seems originally to have had reference

rather to the music to which they were sung than to the manner or matter

of the pieces. Some resemblance to these lays may perhaps be traced in

the genuine Breton songs published by M. Luzel. The subjects of the lais

are indifferently taken from the Arthurian cycle, from ancient story,

and from popular tradition, and, at any rate in Marie's hands, they give

occasion for some passionate, and in the modern sense really romantic,

poetry. The most famous of all is the _Lay of the Honeysuckle_,

traditionally assigned to Sir Tristram.

_Satiric and Didactic Works._--Among the direct satirists of the middle

ages, one of the earliest and foremost is Guyot de Provins, a monk of

Clairvaux and Cluny, whose _Bible_, as he calls it, contains an

elaborate satire on the time (the beginning of the 13th century), and

who was imitated by others, especially Hugues de Bregy. The same spirit

soon betrayed itself in curious travesties of the romances of chivalry,

and sometimes invades the later specimens of these romances themselves.

One of the earliest examples of this travesty is the remarkable

composition entitled _Audigier_. This poem, half fabliau and half

romance, is not so much an instance of the heroi-comic poems which

afterwards found so much favour in Italy and elsewhere, as a direct and

ferocious parody of the Carlovingian epic. The hero Audigier is a model

of cowardice and disloyalty; his father and mother, Turgibus and

Rainberge, are deformed and repulsive. The exploits of the hero himself

are coarse and hideous failures, and the whole poem can only be taken as

a counterblast to the spirit of chivalry. Elsewhere a trouvere,

prophetic of Rabelais, describes a vast battle between all the nations

of the world, the quarrel being suddenly atoned by the arrival of a holy

man bearing a huge flagon of wine. Again, we have the history of a

solemn crusade undertaken by the citizens of a country town against the

neighbouring castle. As erudition and the fancy for allegory gained

ground, satire naturally availed itself of the opportunity thus afforded

it; the disputes of Philippe le Bel with the pope and the Templars had

an immense literary influence, partly in the concluding portions of the

_Renart_, partly in the _Roman de la rose_, still to be mentioned, and

partly in other satiric allegories of which the chief is the romance of

_Fauvel_, attributed to Francois de Rues. The hero of this is an

allegorical personage, half man and half horse, signifying the union of

bestial degradation with human ingenuity and cunning. Fauvel (the name,

it may be worth while to recall, occurs in Langland) is a divinity in

his way. All the personages of state, from kings and popes to mendicant

friars, pay their court to him.

Baudouin de Sebourc.

But this serious and discontented spirit betrays itself also in

compositions which are not parodies or travesties in form. One of the

latest, if not absolutely the latest (for Cuvelier's still later

_Chronique de Du Guesclin_ is only a most interesting _imitation_ of the

_chanson_ form adapted to recent events), of the chansons de geste is

_Baudouin de Sebourc_, one of the members of the great romance or cycle

of romances dealing with the crusades, and entitled Le Chevalier au

Cygne. _Baudouin de Sebourc_ dates from the early years of the 14th

century. It is strictly a chanson de geste in form, and also in the

general run of its incidents. The hero is dispossessed of his

inheritance by the agency of traitors, fights his battle with the world

and its injustice, and at last prevails over his enemy Gaufrois, who has

succeeded in obtaining the kingdom of Friesland and almost that of

France. Gaufrois has as his assistants two personages who were very

popular in the poetry of the time,--viz., the Devil, and Money. These

two sinister figures pervade the fabliaux, tales and fantastic

literature generally of the time. M. Lenient, the historian of French

satire, has well remarked that a romance as long as the _Renart_ might

be spun out of the separate short poems of this period which have the

Devil for hero, and many of which form a very interesting transition

between the fabliau and the mystery. But the Devil is in one respect a

far inferior hero to Renart. He has an adversary in the Virgin, who

constantly upsets his best-laid schemes, and who does not always treat

him quite fairly. The abuse of usury at the time, and the exactions of

the Jews and Lombards, were severely felt, and Money itself, as

personified, figures largely in the popular literature of the time.

William of Lorris.

Jean de Meung.

_Roman de la Rose._--A work of very different importance from all of

these, though with seeming touches of the same spirit, a work which

deserves to take rank among the most important of the middle ages, is

the _Roman de la rose_,--one of the few really remarkable books which is

the work of two authors, and that not in collaboration but in

continuation one of the other. The author of the earlier part was

Guillaume de Lorris, who lived in the first half of the 13th century;

the author of the later part was Jean de Meung, who was born about the

middle of that century, and whose part in the _Roman_ dates at least

from its extreme end. This great poem exhibits in its two parts very

different characteristics, which yet go to make up a not inharmonious

whole. It is a love poem, and yet it is satire. But both gallantry and

raillery are treated in an entirely allegorical spirit; and this

allegory, while it makes the poem tedious to hasty appetites of to-day,

was exactly what gave it its charm in the eyes of the middle ages. It

might be described as an _Ars amoris_ crossed with a _Quodlibeta_. This

mixture exactly hit the taste of the time, and continued to hit it for

two centuries and a half. When its obvious and gallant meaning was

attacked by moralists and theologians, it was easy to quote the example

of the Canticles, and to furnish esoteric explanations of the allegory.

The writers of the 16th century were never tired of quoting and

explaining it. Antoine de Baif, indeed, gave the simple and obvious

meaning, and declared that "La rose c'est d'amours le guerdon gracieux";

but Marot, on the other hand, gives us the choice of four mystical

interpretations,--the rose being either the state of wisdom, the state

of grace, the state of eternal happiness or the Virgin herself. We

cannot here analyse this celebrated poem. It is sufficient to say that

the lover meets all sorts of obstacles in his pursuit of the rose,

though he has for a guide the metaphorical personage Bel-Accueil. The

early part, which belongs to William of Lorris, is remarkable for its

gracious and fanciful descriptions. Forty years after Lorris's death,

Jean de Meung completed it in an entirely different spirit. He keeps the

allegorical form, and indeed introduces two new personages of

importance, Nature and Faux-semblant. In the mouths of these personages

and of another, Raison, he puts the most extraordinary mixture of

erudition and satire. At one time we have the history of classical

heroes, at another theories against the hoarding of money, about

astronomy, about the duty of mankind to increase and multiply. Accounts

of the origin of loyalty, which would have cost the poet his head at

some periods of history, and even communistic ideas, are also to be

found here. In Faux-semblant we have a real creation of the theatrical

hypocrite. All this miscellaneous and apparently incongruous material in

fact explains the success of the poem. It has the one characteristic

which has at all times secured the popularity of great works of

literature. It holds the mirror up firmly and fully to its age. As we

find in Rabelais the characteristics of the Renaissance, in Montaigne

those of the sceptical reaction from Renaissance and reform alike, in

Moliere those of the society of France after Richelieu had tamed and

levelled it, in Voltaire and Rousseau respectively the two aspects of

the great revolt,--so there are to be found in the _Roman de la rose_

the characteristics of the later middle age, its gallantry, its

mysticism, its economical and social troubles and problems, its

scholastic methods of thought, its naive acceptance as science of

everything that is written, and at the same time its shrewd and

indiscriminate criticism of much that the age of criticism has accepted

without doubt or question. The _Roman de la rose_, as might be supposed,

set the example of an immense literature of allegorical poetry, which

flourished more and more until the Renaissance. Some of these poems we

have already mentioned, some will have to be considered under the head

of the 15th century. But, as usually happens in such cases and was

certain to happen in this case, the allegory which has seemed tedious to

many, even in the original, became almost intolerable in the majority of

the imitations.

Early didactic verse.

Artificial forms of verse.

We have observed that, at least in the later section of the _Roman de la

rose_, there is observable a tendency to import into the poem

indiscriminate erudition. This tendency is now remote from our poetical

habits; but in its own day it was only the natural result of the use of

poetry for all literary purposes. It was many centuries before prose

became recognized as the proper vehicle for instruction, and at a very

early date verse was used as well for educational and moral as for

recreative and artistic purposes. French verse was the first born of all

literary mediums in modern European speech, and the resources of ancient

learning were certainly not less accessible in France than in any other

country. Dante, in his _De vulgari eloquio_, acknowledges the excellence

of the didactic writers of the Langue d'Oil. We have already alluded to

the _Bestiary_ of Philippe de Thaun, a Norman trouvere who lived and

wrote in England during the reign of Henry Beauclerc. Besides the

_Bestiary_, which from its dedication to Queen Adela has been

conjectured to belong to the third decade of the 12th century, Philippe

wrote also in French a _Liber de creaturis_, both works being translated

from the Latin. These works of mystical and apocryphal physics and

zoology became extremely popular in the succeeding centuries, and were

frequently imitated. A moralizing turn was also given to them, which was

much helped by the importation of several miscellanies of Oriental

origin, partly tales, partly didactic in character, the most celebrated

of which is the _Roman des sept sages_, which, under that title and the

variant of _Dolopathos_, received repeated treatment from French writers

both in prose and verse. The odd notion of an _Ovide moralise_ used to

be ascribed to Philippe de Vitry, bishop of Meaux (1291?-1391?), a

person complimented by Petrarch, but is now assigned to a certain

Chretien Legonais. Art, too, soon demanded exposition in verse, as well

as science. The favourite pastime of the chase was repeatedly dealt

with, notably in the _Roi Modus_ (1325), mixed prose and verse; the

_Deduits de la chasse_ (1387), of Gaston de Foix, prose; and the _Tresor

de Venerie_ of Hardouin (1394), verse. Very soon didactic verse extended

itself to all the arts and sciences. Vegetius and his military precepts

had found a home in French octosyllables as early as the 12th century;

the end of the same age saw the ceremonies of knighthood solemnly

versified, and _napes_ (maps) _du monde_ also soon appeared. At last, in

1245, Gautier of Metz translated from various Latin works into French

verse a sort of encyclopaedia, while another, incongruous but known as

_L'Image du monde_, exists from the same century. Profane knowledge was

not the only subject which exercised didactic poets at this time.

Religious handbooks and commentaries on the scriptures were common in

the 13th and following centuries, and, under the title of _Castoiements,

Enseignements_ and _Doctrinaux_, moral treatises became common. The most

famous of these, the _Castoiement d'un pere a son fils_, falls under the

class, already mentioned, of works due to oriental influence, being

derived from the Indian _Panchatantra_. In the 14th century the

influence of the _Roman de la rose_ helped to render moral verse

frequent and popular. The same century, moreover, which witnessed these

developments of well-intentioned if not always judicious erudition

witnessed also a considerable change in lyrical poetry. Hitherto such

poetry had chiefly been composed in the melodious but unconstrained

forms of the romance and the pastourelle. In the 14th century the

writers of northern France subjected themselves to severer rules. In

this age arose the forms which for so long a time were to occupy French

singers,--the ballade, the rondeau, the rondel, the triolet, the chant

royal and others. These received considerable alterations as time went

on. We possess not a few _Artes poeticae_, such as that of Eustache

Deschamps at the end of the 14th century, that formerly ascribed to

Henri de Croy and now to Molinet at the end of the 15th, and that of

Thomas Sibilet in the 16th, giving particulars of them, and these

particulars show considerable changes. Thus the term rondeau, which

since Villon has been chiefly limited to a poem of 15 lines, where the

9th and 15th repeat the first words of the first, was originally applied

both to the rondel, a poem of 13 or 14 lines, where the first two are

twice repeated integrally, and to the triolet, one of 8 only, where the

first line occurs three times and the second twice. The last is an

especially popular metre, and is found where we should least expect it,

in the dialogue of the early farces, the speakers making up triolets

between them. As these three forms are closely connected, so are the

ballade and the chant royal, the latter being an extended and more

stately and difficult version of the former, and the characteristic of

both being the identity of rhyme and refrain in the several stanzas. It

is quite uncertain at what time these fashions were first cultivated,

but the earliest poets who appear to have practised them extensively

were born at the close of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th

centuries. Of these Guillaume de Machault (c. 1300-1380) is the oldest.

He has left us 80,000 verses, never yet completely printed. Eustache

Deschamps (c. 1340-c. 1410) was nearly as prolific, but more fortunate

as more meritorious, the Societe des anciens Textes having at last

provided a complete edition of him. Froissart the historian (1333-1410)

was also an agreeable and prolific poet. Deschamps, the most famous as a

poet of the three, has left us nearly 1200 ballades and nearly 200

rondeaux, besides much other verse all manifesting very considerable

poetical powers. Less known but not less noteworthy, and perhaps the

earliest of all, is Jehannot de Lescurel, whose personality is obscure,

and most of whose works are lost, but whose remains are full of grace.

Froissart appears to have had many countrymen in Hainault and Brabant

who devoted themselves to the art of versification; and the _Livre des

cent ballades_ of the Marshal Boucicault (1366-1421) and his friends--c.

1390--shows that the French gentleman of the 14th century was as apt at

the ballade as his Elizabethan peer in England was at the sonnet.

Mysteries and miracles.

_Early Drama._--Before passing to the prose writers of the middle ages,

we have to take some notice of the dramatic productions of those

times--productions of an extremely interesting character, but, like the

immense majority of medieval literature, poetic in form. The origin or

the revival of dramatic composition in France has been hotly debated,

and it has been sometimes contended that the tradition of Latin comedy

was never entirely lost, but was handed on chiefly in the convents by

adaptations of the Terentian plays, such as those of the nun Hroswitha.

There is no doubt that the mysteries (subjects taken from the sacred

writings) and miracle plays (subjects taken from the legends of the

saints and the Virgin) are of very early date. The mystery of the

_Foolish Virgins_ (partly French, partly Latin), that of _Adam_ and

perhaps that of _Daniel_, are of the 12th century, though due to unknown

authors. Jean Bodel and Ruteboeuf, already mentioned, gave, the one that

of _Saint Nicolas_ at the confines of the 12th and 13th, the other that

of _Theophile_ later in the 13th itself. But the later moralities,

soties, and farces seem to be also in part a very probable development

of the simpler and earlier forms of the fabliau and of the tenson or

jeu-parti, a poem in simple dialogue much used by both troubadours and

trouveres. The fabliau has been sufficiently dealt with already. It

chiefly supplied the subject; and some miracle-plays and farces are

little more than fabliaux thrown into dialogue. Of the jeux-partis there

are many examples, varying from very simple questions and answers to

something like regular dramatic dialogue; even short romances, such as

_Aucassin et Nicolette_, were easily susceptible of dramatization. But

the _Jeu de la feuillie_ (or _feuillee_) of Adam de la Halle seems to be

the earliest piece, profane in subject, containing something more than

mere dialogue. The poet has not indeed gone far for his subject, for he

brings in his own wife, father and friends, the interest being

complicated by the introduction of stock characters (the doctor, the

monk, the fool), and of certain fairies--personages already popular from

the later romances of chivalry. Another piece of Adam's, _Le Jeu de

Robin et Marion_, also already alluded to, is little more than a simple

throwing into action of an ordinary pastourelle with a considerable

number of songs to music. Nevertheless later criticism has seen, and not

unreasonably, in these two pieces the origin in the one case of farce,

and thus indirectly of comedy proper, in the other of comic opera.

Profane drama.

For a long time, however, the mystery and miracle-plays remained the

staple of theatrical performance, and until the 13th century actors as

well as performers were more or less taken from the clergy. It has,

indeed, been well pointed out that the offices of the church were

themselves dramatic performances, and required little more than

development at the hands of the mystery writers. The occasional festive

outbursts, such as the Feast of Fools, that of the Boy Bishop and the

rest, helped on the development. The variety of mysteries and miracles

was very great. A single manuscript contains forty miracles of the

Virgin, averaging from 1200 to 1500 lines each, written in octosyllabic

couplets, and at least as old as the 14th century, most of them perhaps

much earlier. The mysteries proper, or plays taken from the scriptures,

are older still. Many of these are exceedingly long. There is a _Mystere

de l'Ancien Testament_, which extends to many volumes, and must have

taken weeks to act in its entirety. The _Mystere de la Passion_, though

not quite so long, took several days, and recounts the whole history of

the gospels. The best apparently of the authors of these pieces, which

are mostly anonymous, were two brothers, Arnoul and Simon Greban

(authors of the _Actes des apotres_, and in the first case of the

_Passion_), c. 1450, while a certain Jean Michel (d. 1493) is credited

with having continued the _Passion_ from 30,000 lines to 50,000. But

these performances, though they held their ground until the middle of

the 16th century and extended their range of subject from sacred to

profane history--legendary as in the _Destruction de Troie_,

contemporary as in the _Siege d'Orleans_--were soon rivalled by the more

profane performances of the moralities, the farces and the soties. The

palmy time of all these three kinds is the 15th century, while the

Confrerie de la Passion itself, the special performers of the sacred

drama, only obtained the licence constituting it by an ordinance of

Charles VI. in 1402. In order, however, to take in the whole of the

medieval theatre at a glance, we may anticipate a little. The

Confraternity was not itself the author or performer of the profaner

kind of dramatic performance. This latter was due to two other bodies,

the clerks of the Bazoche and the Enfans sans Souci. As the

Confraternity was chiefly composed of tradesmen and persons very similar

to Peter Quince and his associates, so the clerks of the Bazoche were

members of the legal profession of Paris, and the Enfans sans Souci were

mostly young men of family. The morality was the special property of the

first, the sotie of the second. But as the moralities were sometimes

decidedly tedious plays, though by no means brief, they were varied by

the introduction of farces, of which the jeux already mentioned were the

early germ, and of which _L'Avocat Patelin_, dated by some about 1465

and certainly about 200 years subsequent to Adam de la Halle, is the

most famous example.

Moralities.

Soties.

The morality was the natural result on the stage of the immense literary

popularity of allegory in the _Roman de la rose_ and its imitations.

There is hardly an abstraction, a virtue, a vice, a disease, or anything

else of the kind, which does not figure in these compositions. There is

Bien Advise and Mal Advise, the good boy and the bad boy of nursery

stories, who fall in respectively with Faith, Reason and Humility, and

with Rashness, Luxury and Folly. There is the hero Mange-Tout, who is

invited to dinner by Banquet, and meets after dinner very unpleasant

company in Colique, Goutte and Hydropisie. Honte-de-dire-ses-Peches

might seem an anticipation of Puritan nomenclature to an English reader

who did not remember the contemporary or even earlier _personae_ of

Langland's poem. Some of these moralities possess distinct dramatic

merit; among these is mentioned _Les Blasphemateurs_, an early and

remarkable presentation of the Don Juan story. But their general

character appears to be gravity, not to say dullness. The Enfans sans

Souci, on the other hand, were definitely satirical, and nothing if not

amusing. The chief of the society was entitled Prince des Sots, and his

crown was a hood decorated with asses' ears. The sotie was directly

satirical, and only assumed the guise of folly as a stalking-horse for

shooting wit. It was more Aristophanic than any other modern form of

comedy, and like its predecessor, it perished as a result of its

political application. Encouraged for a moment as a political engine at

the beginning of the 16th century, it was soon absolutely forbidden and

put down, and had to give place in one direction to the lampoon and the

prose pamphlet, in another to forms of comic satire more general and

vague in their scope. The farce, on the other hand, having neither moral

purpose nor political intention, was a purer work of art, enjoyed a

wider range of subject, and was in no danger of any permanent

extinction. Farcical interludes were interpolated in the mysteries

themselves; short farces introduced and rendered palatable the

moralities, while the sotie was itself but a variety of farce, and all

the kinds were sometimes combined in a sort of tetralogy. It was a short

composition, 500 verses being considered sufficient, while the morality

might run to at least 1000 verses, the miracle-play to nearly double

that number, and the mystery to some 40,000 or 50,000, or indeed to any

length that the author could find in his heart to bestow upon the

audience, or the audience in their patience to suffer from the author.

The number of persons and societies who acted these performances grew to

be very large, being estimated at more than 5000 towards the end of the

15th century. Many fantastic personages came to join the Prince des

Sots, such as the Empereur de Galilee, the Princes de l'Etrille, and des

Nouveaux Maries, the Roi de l'Epinette, the Recteur des Fous. Of the

pieces which these societies represented one only, that of _Maitre

Patelin_, is now much known; but many are almost equally amusing.

_Patelin_ itself has an immense number of versions and editions. Other

farces are too numerous to attempt to classify; they bear, however, in

their subjects, as in their manner, a remarkable resemblance to the

fabliaux, their source. Conjugal disagreements, the unpleasantness of

mothers-in-law, the shifty or, in the earlier stages, clumsy valet and

chambermaid, the mishaps of too loosely given ecclesiastics, the abuses

of relics and pardons, the extortion, violence, and sometimes cowardice

of the seigneur and the soldiery, the corruption of justice, its delays

and its pompous apparatus, supply the subjects. The treatment is rather

narrative than dramatic in most cases, as might be expected, but makes

up by the liveliness of the dialogue for the deficiency of elaborately

planned action and interest. All these forms, it will be observed, are

directly or indirectly comic. Tragedy in the middle ages is represented

only by the religious drama, except for a brief period towards the

decline of that form, when the "profane" mysteries referred to above

came to be represented. These were, however, rather "histories," in the

Elizabethan sense, than tragedies proper.

Early chronicles.

Villehardouin.

Joinville.

_Prose History._--In France, as in all other countries of whose literary

developments we have any record, literature in prose is considerably

later than literature in verse. We have certain glosses or vocabularies

possibly dating as far back as the 8th or even the 7th century; we have

the Strassburg oaths, already described, of the 9th, and a commentary on

the prophet Jonas which is probably as early. In the 10th century there

are some charters and muniments in the vernacular; of the 11th the laws

of William the Conqueror are the most important document; while the

_Assises de Jerusalem_ of Godfrey of Bouillon date, though not in the

form in which we now possess them, from the same age. The 12th century

gives us certain translations of the Scriptures, and the remarkable

Arthurian romances already alluded to; and thenceforward French prose,

though long less favoured than verse, begins to grow in importance.

History, as is natural, was the first subject which gave it a really

satisfactory opportunity of developing its powers. For a time the French

chroniclers contented themselves with Latin prose or with French verse,

after the fashion of Wace and the Belgian, Philippe Mouskes (1215-1283).

These, after a fashion universal in medieval times, began from fabulous

or merely literary origins, and just as Wyntoun later carries back the

history of Scotland to the terrestrial paradise, so does Mouskes start

that of France from the rape of Helen. But soon prose chronicles, first

translated, then original, became common; the earliest of all is said to

have been that of the pseudo-Turpin, which thus recovered in prose the

language which had originally clothed it in verse, and which, to gain a

false appearance of authenticity, it had exchanged still earlier for

Latin. Then came French selections and versions from the great series of

historical compositions undertaken by the monks of St Denys, the

so-called _Grandes Chroniques de France_ from the date of 1274, when

they first took form in the hands of a monk styled Primat, to the reign

of Charles V., when they assumed the title just given. But the first

really remarkable author who used French prose as a vehicle of

historical expression is Geoffroi de Villehardouin, marshal of

Champagne, who was born rather after the middle of the 12th century, and

died in Greece in 1212. Under the title of _Conquete de Constantinoble_

Villehardouin has left us a history of the fourth crusade, which has

been accepted by all competent judges as the best picture extant of

feudal chivalry in its prime. The _Conquete de Constantinoble_ has been

well called a chanson de geste in prose, and indeed in the surprising

nature of the feats it celebrates, in the abundance of detail, and in

the vivid and picturesque poetry of the narration, it equals the very

best of the chansons. Even the repetition of the same phrases which is

characteristic of epic poetry repeats itself in this epic prose; and as

in the chansons so in Villehardouin, few motives appear but religious

fervour and the love of fighting, though neither of these excludes a

lively appetite for booty and a constant tendency to disunion and

disorder. Villehardouin was continued by Henri de Valenciennes, whose

work is less remarkable, and has more the appearance of a rhymed

chronicle thrown into prose, a process which is known to have been

actually applied in some cases. Nor is the transition from Villehardouin

to Jean de Joinville (considerable in point of time, for Joinville was

not born till ten years after Villehardouin's death) in point of

literary history immediate. The rhymed chronicles of Philippe Mouskes

and Guillaume Guiart belong to this interval; and in prose the most

remarkable works are the _Chronique de Reims_, a well-written history,

having the interesting characteristics of taking the lay and popular

side, and the great compilation edited (in the modern sense) by Baudouin

d'Avesnes (1213-1289). Joinville (? 1224-1317), whose special subject is

the Life of St Louis, is far more modern than even the half-century

which separates him from Villehardouin would lead us to suppose. There

is nothing of the knight-errant about him personally, notwithstanding

his devotion to his hero. Our Lady of the Broken Lances is far from

being his favourite saint. He is an admirable writer, but far less

simple than Villehardouin; the good King Louis tries in vain to make him

share his own rather high-flown devotion. Joinville is shrewd,

practical, there is even a touch of the Voltairean about him; but he,

unlike his predecessor, has political ideas and antiquarian curiosity,

and his descriptions are often very creditable pieces of deliberate

literature.

Froissart.

It is very remarkable that each of the three last centuries of feudalism

should have had one specially and extraordinarily gifted chronicler to

describe it. What Villehardouin is to the 12th and Joinville to the 13th

century, that Jean Froissart (1337-1410) is to the 14th. His picture is

the most famous as it is the most varied of the three, but it has

special drawbacks as well as special merits. French critics have indeed

been scarcely fair to Froissart, because of his early partiality to our

own nation in the great quarrel of the time, forgetting that there was

really no reason why he as a Hainaulter should take the French side. But

there is no doubt that if the duty of an historian is to take in all the

political problems of his time, Froissart certainly comes short of it.

Although the feudal state in which knights and churchmen were alone of

estimation was at the point of death, and though new orders of society

were becoming important, though the distress and confusion of a

transition state were evident to all, Froissart takes no notice of them.

Society is still to him all knights and ladies, tournaments, skirmishes

and feasts. He depicts these, not like Joinville, still less like

Villehardouin, as a sharer in them, but with the facile and picturesque

pen of a sympathizing literary onlooker. As the comparison of the

_Conquete de Constantinoble_ with a chanson de geste is inevitable, so

is that of Froissart's _Chronique_ with a roman d'aventures.

For Provencal Literature see the separate article under that heading.

_15th Century._--The 15th century holds a peculiar and somewhat disputed

position in the history of French literature, as, indeed, it does in the

history of the literature of all Europe, except Italy. It has sometimes

been regarded as the final stage of the medieval period, sometimes as

the earliest of the modern, the influence of the Renaissance in Italy

already filtering through. Others again have taken the easy step of

marking it as an age of transition. There is as usual truth in all these

views. Feudality died with Froissart and Eustache Deschamps. The modern

spirit can hardly be said to arise before Rabelais and Ronsard. Yet the

15th century, from the point of view of French literature, is much more

remarkable than its historians have been wont to confess. It has not the

strongly marked and compact originality of some periods, and it

furnishes only one name of the highest order of literary interest; but

it abounds in names of the second rank, and the very difference which

exists between their styles and characters testifies to the existence of

a large number of separate forces working in their different manners on

different persons. Its theatre we have already treated by anticipation,

and to it we shall afterwards recur. It was the palmy time of the early

French stage, and all the dramatic styles which we have enumerated then

came to perfection. Of no other kind of literature can the same be said.

The century which witnessed the invention of printing naturally devoted

itself at first more to the spreading of old literature than to the

production of new. Yet as it perfected the early drama, so it produced

the prose tale. Nor, as regards individual and single names, can the

century of Charles d'Orleans, of Alain Chartier, of Christine de Pisan,

of Coquillart, of Comines, and, above all, of Villon, be said to lack

illustrations.

Christine de Pisan.

Alain Chartier.

Charles d'Orleans.

Villon.

Cretin.