THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION
[Sidenote: Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century. _Aucassin et
Nicolette_ not quite typical.]
The title of this chapter may seem an oversight or an impertinence,
considering that large parts of an earlier one have been occupied with
discussions and translations of the prose Arthurian Romances. It was,
however, expressly pointed out that the priority of these is a matter of
opinion, not of judgment; and it may be here quite frankly admitted that
one of the most serious arguments against that priority is the extreme
lateness of Old French Prose in any finished literary form. The excuse,
however, if excuse be needed, does not turn on any such hinge as this.
It was desired to treat, in the last two chapters, romance matter proper
of the larger kind, whether that matter took the form of prose or of
verse. Here, on the other hand, the object is to deal with the smaller
but more miscellaneous body of fictitious matter (part, no doubt, of a
larger) which presents it tolerably early, and in character foretells
the immense development of the kind which French was to see later.[75] A
portion of this body, sufficient for us, is contained in two little
volumes of the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_, published rather less than
sixty years ago (1856 and 1858) by MM. L. Moland and Ch. d'Hericault,
the first devoted to thirteenth-, the second to fourteenth-century work.
One of these, the now world-famous _Aucassin et Nicolette_, has been so
much written about and so often translated already that it cannot be
necessary to say a great deal about it here. It is, moreover, of a mixed
kind, a _cante-fable_ or blend of prose and verse, with a considerable
touch of the dramatic in it. Its extraordinary charm is a thing long ago
settled; but it is, on the whole, more of a dramatic and lyrical
romance--to recouple or releash kinds which Mr. Browning had perhaps
best never have put asunder--than of a pure prose tale.
[Sidenote: _L'Empereur Constant_ more so.]
Its companions in the thirteenth-century volume are four in number, and
if none of them has the peculiar charm, so none has the technical
disqualification (if that be not too strong a word) of _Aucassin et
Nicolette_. The first, shortest, and, save for one or two points, least
remarkable, _L'Empereur Constant_, is a very much abbreviated and in
more than one sense prosaic version of the story out of which Mr.
William Morris made his delightful _The Man Born to be King_. Probably
of Greek or Greek-Eastern origin, it begins with an astrological passage
in which the Emperor, childless except for a girl, becomes informed of
the imminent birth of a man-child, who shall marry his daughter and
succeed him. He discovers the, as it seems, luckless baby; has it
brought to him, and with his own hand attempts to disembowel it, but
allows himself, most improbably,[76] to be dissuaded from finishing the
operation. The benevolent knight who has prevented the completion of the
crime takes the infant to a monastery, where (after a quaint scene of
haggling about fees with the surgeon) the victim is patched up, grows to
be a fine youth, and comes across the Emperor, to whom the abbot
guilelessly, but in this case naturally enough,[77] betrays the secret.
The Emperor's murderous thoughts as naturally revive, and the
frustration of them by means of the Princess's falling in love with the
youth, the changing of "the letters of Bellerophon," and the Emperor's
resignation to the inevitable, follow the same course as in the English
poem. The latter part is better than the earlier; and the writer is
evidently (as how should he not be?) a novice; but his work is the kind
of experiment from which better things will come.
[Sidenote: _Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane._]
These marks of the novice are even more noticeable in a much longer
story, _Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_, which is found not only in the
same printed volume, but in the same original MS. The fault of this is
curious, and--if not to a mere reader for pastime, to a student of
fiction--extremely interesting. It is one not at all unknown at the
present day, and capable of being used as an argument in favour of the
doctrine of the Unities: that is to say, the mixture, by arbitrary and
violent process, of two stories which have nothing whatever to do with
each other, except that they are, wilfully and with no reason, buckled
together at the end. The first, thin and uninteresting enough, is of a
certain King Florus, who has a wife, dearly beloved, but barren. After
some years and some very unmanly shilly-shallyings, he puts her away,
and marries another, with whom (one is feebly glad to find) he is no
more lucky, but who has herself the luck to die after some years.
Meanwhile, King Florus being left "in a cool barge for future use," the
second item, a really interesting story, is, with some intervals,
carried on. A Count of high rank and great possessions has an only
daughter, whom, after experience of the valour and general worthiness of
one of his vassals of no great "having," he bestows on this knight,
Robert, the pair being really in love with each other. But another
vassal knight of greater wealth, Raoul, plots with one of the wicked old
women who abound in these stories, and engages Robert in a rash wager of
all his possessions, that during one of those pilgrimages to "St.
James," which come in so handy, and are generally so unreasonable, he
will dishonour the lady. He fails, but, in a manner not distantly
related to the Imogen-Iachimo scene, acquires what seems to be damning
acquaintance with the young Countess's person-marks. Robert and Jehane
are actually married; but the felon knight immediately afterwards brings
his charge, and Robert pays his debt, and flies, a ruined man, from, as
he thinks, his faithless wife, though he takes no vengeance on her.
Jehane disguises herself as a man, joins him on his journey, supports
him with her own means for a time, and enters into partnership with him
in merchandise at Marseilles, he remaining ignorant of her sex and
relation to him. At last things come right: the felon knight is forced
in single combat (a long and good one) to acknowledge his lie and give
up his plunder, and the excellent but somewhat obtuse Robert recovers
his wife as well. A good end if ever there was one, and not a badly told
tale in parts. But, from some utterly mistaken idea of craftsmanship,
the teller must needs kill Robert for no earthly reason, except in order
that Jehane may become the third wife of Florus and bear him children. A
more disastrous "sixth act" has seldom been imagined; for most readers
will have forgotten all about Florus, who has had neither art nor part
in the main story; few can care whether the King has children or not;
and still fewer can be other than disgusted at the notion of Jehane,
brave, loving, and clever, being, as a widow, made a mere child-bearing
machine to an oldish and rather contemptible second husband. But, once
more, the mistake is interesting, and is probably the first example of
that fatal error of not knowing when to leave off, which is even worse
than the commoner one (to be found in some great artists) of "huddling
up the story." The only thing to be said in excuse is that you could cut
his majesty Florus out of the title and tale at once without even the
slightest difficulty, and with no need to mend or meddle in any other
way.
The remaining stories of the thirteenth-century volume are curiously
contrasted. One is a short prose version of that exquisite _chanson de
geste_, _Amis et Amiles_, of which it has been said above that any one
who cannot "taste" it need never hope to understand mediaeval
literature. The full beauty of the verse story does not appear in the
prose; but some does.
[Sidenote: _Le Comtesse de Ponthieu._]
Of the other, the so-called "Comtesse de Ponthieu" (though she is not
really this, being only the Count's daughter and the wife of a vassal),
I thought rather badly when I first read it thirty or forty years ago,
and till the present occasion I have never read it since. Now I think
better of it, especially as a story suggestive in story-telling art. The
original stumbling-block, which I still see, though I can get over or
round it better now, was, I think, the character of the heroine, who
inherits not merely the tendency to play fast and loose with successive
husbands, which is observable in both _chanson_ and _roman_ heroines,
but something of the very unlovely savagery which is also sometimes
characteristic of them; while the hero also is put in "unpleasant"
circumstances. He is a gentleman and a good knight, and though only a
vassal of the Count of Ponthieu, he, as has been said, marries the
Count's daughter, entirely to her and her father's satisfaction. But
they are childless, and the inevitable "monseigneur Saint _Jakeme_" (St.
James of Compostella) suggests himself for pilgrimage. Thiebault, the
knight, obtains leave from his lady to go, and she, by a device not
unprettily told, gets from him leave to go too. Unfortunately and
unwisely they send their suite on one morning, and ride alone through a
forest, where they are set upon by eight banditti. Thiebault fights
these odds without flinching, and actually kills three, but is
overpowered by sheer numbers. They do not kill him, but bind and toss
him into a thicket, after which they take vengeance of outrage on the
lady and depart, fearing the return of the meyney. Thiebault feels that
his unhappy wife is guiltless, but unluckily does not assure her of
this, merely asking her to deliver him. So she, seeing a sword of one
of the slain robbers, picks it up, and, "full of great ire and evil
will," cries, "I will deliver you, sir," and, instead of cutting his
bonds, tries to run him through. But she only grazes him, and actually
cuts the thongs, so that he shakes himself free, starts up, and wrests
the sword from her with the simple words, "Lady, it is not to-day that
you will kill me." To which she replies, "And right sorry I am
therefor."[78] Their followers come up; the pair are clothed and set out
again on their journey. But Thiebault, though treating his wife with the
greatest attention, leaves her at a monastery, accomplishes his
pilgrimage alone, and on his return escorts her to Ponthieu as if
nothing had happened. Still--though no one knows this or indeed anything
about her actual misfortune and intended crime--he does not live with
her as his wife. After a time the Count, who is, as another story has
it, a "_h_arbitrary" Count, insists that Thiebault shall tell him some
incident of his voyage, and the husband (here is the weak point of the
whole) recounts the actual adventure, though not as of himself and his
lady. The Count will not stand ambiguity, and at last extorts the truth,
which the lady confirms, repeating her sorrow that she had _not_ slain
her husband. Now the Count is, as has been said, an arbitrary Count, and
one day, his county having, as our Harold knew to his cost, a sea-coast
to it, somewhat less disputable than those of Bohemia and the Ardennes,
embarks, with only his daughter, son-in-law, son, and a few retainers,
taking with him a nice new cask. Into this, despite the prayers of her
husband and brother, he puts the lady, and flings it overboard. She is
picked up half-suffocated by mariners, who carry her to "Aymarie" and
sell her to the Sultan. She is very beautiful, and the Sultan promptly
proposes conversion and marriage. She makes no difficulty, bears him two
children, and is apparently quite happy. But meanwhile the Count of
Ponthieu begins--his son and son-in-law have never ceased--to feel that
he has exercised the paternal rights rather harshly; the Archbishop of
Rheims very properly confirms his ideas on this point, and all three go
_outremer_ on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They are captured by the
Saracens of Aymarie, imprisoned, starved, and finally in immediate
danger of being shot to death as an amusement for the Sultan's
bodyguard. But the Sultaness has found out who they are, visits them in
prison, and "reconciliations and forgivenesses of injuries" follow.
After this, things go in an easily guessable manner. The
Countess-Sultana beguiles her easy-going lord into granting her the
lives of the prisoners one after another, for which she rewards him by
carrying them off, with her son by the second marriage, to Italy, where
the boy is baptized. "The Apostle" (as the Pope is usually called in
Romance), by a rather extensive exercise of his Apostleship, gives
everybody absolution, confirms the original marriage of Thiebault and
the lady who had been so obstinately sorry that she had not killed him,
and who had suffered the paynim spousals so easily; and all goes
merrily. There is a postscript which tells how the daughter of the
Sultan and the Countess, who is termed _La Bele Caitive_, captivates and
marries a Turk of great rank, and becomes the mother of no less a person
than the great Saladin himself--a consummation no doubt very
satisfactory to the Miss Martha Buskbodies of the mediaeval world.
Now this story might seem to one who read it hastily, carelessly, or as
"not in the vein," to be partly extravagant, partly disagreeable, and,
despite its generous allowance of incident, rather dull, especially if
contrasted with its next neighbour in the printed volume, _Aucassin et
Nicolette_ itself. I am afraid there may have been some of these
uncritical conditions about my own first reading. But a little study
shows some remarkable points in it, though the original writer has not
known how to manage them. The central and most startling one--the
attempt of the Countess to murder her husband--is, when you think of it,
not at all unnatural. The lady is half mad with her shame; the witness,
victim, and, as she thinks, probable avenger of that shame is helpless
before her, and in his first words at any rate seems to think merely of
himself and not of her. Whether this violent outburst of feeling was not
likely to result in as violent a revulsion of tenderness is rather a
psychological probability than artistically certain. And Thiebault,
though an excellent fellow, is a clumsy one. His actual behaviour is
somewhat of that "killing-with-kindness" order which exasperates when it
does not itself kill or actually reconcile; and, whether out of delicacy
or not, he does not give his wife the only proof that he acknowledges
the involuntariness of her actual misfortune, and forgives the
voluntariness of her intended crime. His telling the story is
inexcusable: and neither his preference of his allegiance as a vassal to
his duty as knight, lover, and husband in the case of the Count's
cruelty, nor his final acceptance of so many and such peculiar bygones
can be called very pretty. But there are possibilities in the story, if
they are not exactly made into good gifts.
[Sidenote: Those of the fourteenth. _Asseneth._]
The contents of the fourteenth-century volume are, with one exception,
much less interesting in themselves; but from the point of view of the
present enquiry they hardly yield to their predecessors. They are three
in number: _Asseneth_, _Foulques Fitzwarin_, and _Troilus_. The first,
which is very short, is an account of Joseph's courtship of his future
wife, in which entirely guiltless proceeding he behaves at first very
much as if the daughter of Potipherah were fruit as much forbidden as
the wife of Potiphar. For on her being proposed to him (he has come to
her father, splendidly dressed and brilliantly handsome, on a mission
from Pharaoh) he at first replies that he will love her as his sister.
This, considering the Jewish habit of exchanging the names, might not be
ominous. But when the damsel, at her father's bidding, offers to kiss
him, Joseph puts his hand on her chest and pushes her back, accompanying
the action with words (even more insulting in detail than in substance)
to the effect that it is not for God-fearing man to kiss an idolatress.
(At this point one would rather like to kick Joseph.) However, when,
naturally enough, she cries with vexation, the irreproachable but most
unlikable patriarch condescends to pat her on the head and bless her.
This she takes humbly and thankfully; deplores his absence, for he is
compelled to return to his master; renounces her gods; is consoled by an
angel, who feeds her with a miraculous honeycomb possessing a sort of
sacramental force, and announces her marriage to Joseph, which takes
place almost immediately.
It will be at once seen, by those who know something of the matter, that
this is entirely in the style of large portions of the Graal romances;
and so it gives us a fresh and interesting division of the new short
prose tale, allying itself to some extent with the allegory which was to
be so fruitful both in verse and in prose. It is not particularly
attractive in substance; but is not badly told, and would have made
(what it was very likely used as) a good sermon-story.
[Sidenote: _Troilus._]
As _Asseneth_, the first of the three, is by far the shortest, so
_Troilus_, the last, is by far the longest. It is, in fact, nearly
twenty times the length of the history of Joseph's pious impoliteness,
and makes up something like two-thirds of the whole collection. But,
except as a variant of one of the famous stories of the world (_v. sup._
Chap. IV.), it has little interest, and is not even directly taken from
Benoit de Sainte-Maure, but from Guido delle Colonne and Boccaccio, of
whose _Filostrato_ it is, in fact, a mere translation, made apparently
by a known person of high station, Pierre de Beauvau, one of the chief
nobles of Anjou, at the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the
fifteenth century. It thus brings itself into direct connection with
Chaucer's poem, and has some small importance for literary history
generally. But it has not much for us. It was not Boccaccio's verse but
his prose that was really to influence the French Novel.
[Sidenote: _Foulques Fitzwarin._]
With the middle piece of the volume, _Foulques Fitzwarin_, it is very
different. It is true that the present writer was once "smitten
friendly" by a disciple of the modern severe historical school, who
declared that the adventures of Fitzwarin, though of course adulterated,
were an important historical document, and nothing so frivolous as a
novel. One has, however, a reed-like faculty of getting up again from
such smitings: and for my part I do not hesitate once more to call
_Foulques Fitzwarin_ the first historical prose novel in modern
literature. French in language, as we have it, it is thoroughly English
in subject, and, beyond all doubt, in the original place of composition,
while there is no reason to doubt the assertion that there were older
verse-renderings of the story both in English and French. In fact, they
may turn up yet. But the thing as it stands is a very desirable and even
delectable thing, and well deserved its actual publication, not merely
in the French collection, of which we are speaking, but in the papers of
the too short-lived English Warton Club.
For it is not only our first historical novel, but also the first, as
far as England is concerned, of those outlaw stories which have always
delighted worthy English youth from _Robin Hood_ to _The Black Arrow_.
The Fitzwarins, as concerns their personalities and genealogies, may be
surrendered without a pang to the historian, though he shall not have
the marrow of the story. They never seem to have been quite happy except
when they were in a state of "utlagation," and it was not only John
against whom they rebelled, for one of them died on the Barons' side at
Lewes.
The compiler, whoever he was--it has been said already and cannot be
said too often, that every recompiler in the Middle Ages felt it (like
the man in that "foolish" writer, as some call him, Plato) a sacred duty
to add something to the common stock,--was not exactly a master of his
craft, but certainly showed admirable zeal. There never was a more
curious _macedoine_ than this story. Part of it is, beyond all doubt,
traditional history, with place-names all right, though distorted by
that curious inability to transpronounce or trans-spell which made the
French of the thirteenth century call Lincoln "Nicole," and their
descendants of the seventeenth call Kensington "Stintinton." Part is
mere stock or common-form Romance, as when Foulques goes to sea and has
adventures with the usual dragons and their usual captive princesses.
Part, though not quite dependent on the general stock, is indebted to
that of a particular kind, as in the repeated catching of the King by
the outlaws. But it is all more or less good reading; and there are two
episodes in the earlier part which (one of them especially) merit more
detailed account.
The first still has something of a general character about it. It is the
story of a certain Payn Peveril (for we meet many familiar names), who
seems to have been a real person though wrongly dated here, and has one
of those nocturnal combats with demon knights, the best known examples
of which are those recounted in _Marmion_ and its notes. Peveril's
antagonist, however--or rather the mask which the antagonist
takes,--connects with the oldest legendary history of the island, for he
reanimates the body of Gogmagog, the famous Cornish giant, whom Corineus
slew. The diabolic Gogmagog, however, seems neither to have stayed in
Cornwall nor gone to Cambridgeshire, though (oddly enough the French
editors do not seem to have noticed this) Payn Peveril actually held
fiefs in the neighbourhood of those exalted mountains called now by the
name of his foe. He had a hard fight; but luckily his arms were _or_
with a cross _edentee azure_, and this cross constantly turned the
giant-devil's mace-strokes, while it also weakened him, and he had
besides to bear the strokes of Peveril's sword. So he gave in, remarking
with as much truth as King Padella in similar circumstances, that it was
no good fighting under these conditions. Then he tells a story of some
length about the original Gogmagog and his treasure. The secret of this
he will not reveal, but tells Peveril that he will be lord of
Blanche-lande in Shropshire, and vanishes with the usual unpleasant
accompaniment--_tiel pueur dont Payn quida devier_. He left his mace,
which the knight kept as a testimony to anybody who did not believe the
story.
This is not bad; but the other, which is either true or extraordinarily
well invented, is far finer, and, with some omissions, must be analysed
and partly translated. Those who know the singular beauty of Ludlow Town
and Castle will be able to "stage" it to advantage, but this is not
absolutely necessary to its appreciation as a story.
The Peverils have died out by this time, and the honour and lands have
gone by marriage to Guarin of Metz, whose son, Foulques Fitzguarin or
Warin, starts the subjects of the general story. When the first Foulkes
is eighteen, there is war between Sir Joce of Dinan (the name then given
to Ludlow) and the Lacies. In one of their skirmishes Sir Walter de Lacy
is wounded and captured, with a young knight of his party, Sir Ernault
de Lyls. They have courteous treatment in Ludlow Castle, and Ernault
makes love to Marion de la Briere, a most gentle damsel, who is the
chief maid of the lady of the castle, and as such, of course, herself a
lady. He promises her marriage, and she provides him and his chief with
means of escape. Whether Lisle (as his name probably was) had at this
time any treacherous intentions is not said or hinted. But Lacy,
naturally enough, resents his defeat, and watches for an opportunity of
_revanche_; while Sir Joce[lyn], on the other hand, takes his prisoners'
escape philosophically, and does not seem to make any enquiry into its
cause. At first Lacy thinks of bringing over his Irish vassals to aid
him; but his English neighbours not unnaturally regard this step with
dislike, and a sort of peace is made between the enemies. A match is
arranged between Sir Joce's daughter Hawyse and Foulques Fitzwarin. Joce
then quits Ludlow for a time, leaving, however, a strong garrison there.
Marion, who feigns illness, is also left. And now begins the tragic and
striking part of the story.
The next day after Joce had gone, Marion sent a message to
Sir Ernault de Lyls, begging him, for the great love that
there was between them, not to forget the pledges they had
exchanged, but to come quickly to speak with her at the
castle of Dinan, because the lord and the lady and the bulk
of the servants had gone to Hertilande--also to come to the
same place by which he had left the castle. [_He replies
asking her to send him the exact height of the wall (which
she unsuspiciously does by the usual means of a silk thread)
and also the number of the household left. Then he seeks his
chief, and tells him, with a mixture of some truth, that the
object of the Hertilande journey is to gather strength
against Lacy, capture his castle of Ewyas, and kill
himself--intelligence which he falsely attributes to Marion.
He has, of course, little difficulty in persuading Lacy to
take the initiative. Sir Ernault is entrusted with a
considerable mixed force, and comes by night to the
castle._] The night was very dark, so that no sentinel saw
them. Sir Ernault took a squire to carry the ladder of hide,
and they went to the window where Marion was waiting for
them. And when she saw them, never was any so joyful: so she
dropped a cord right down and drew up the hide ladder and
fastened it to a battlement. Then Ernault lightly scaled the
tower, and took his love in his arms and kissed her: and
they made great joy of each other and went into another room
and supped, and then went to their couch, and left the
ladder hanging.
But the squire who had carried it went to the forces hidden
in the garden and elsewhere, and took them to the ladder.
And one hundred men, well armed, mounted by it and descended
by the Pendover tower and went by the wall behind the
chapel, and found the sentinel too heavy with sleep to
defend himself: and the knights and the sergeants were cut
to pieces crying for mercy in their beds. But Sir Ernault's
companions were pitiless, and many a white sheet was dyed
red with blood. And at last they tossed the watchman into
the deep fosse and broke his neck.
Now Marion de la Briere lay by her lover Sir Ernault and
knew nothing of the treason he had done. But she heard a
great noise in the castle and rose from her bed, and looked
out and heard more clearly the cry of the massacred, and saw
knights in white armour. Wherefore she understood that Sir
Ernault had deceived and betrayed her, and began to weep
bitterly and said, "Ah! that I was ever of mother born: for
that by my crime I have lost my lord Sir Joce, who bred me
so gently, his castle, and his good folk. Had I not been,
nothing had been lost. Alas! that I ever believed this
knight! for by his lies he has ruined me, and what is worse,
my lord too." Then, all weeping, she drew Sir Ernault's
sword and said, "Sir knight! awake, for you have brought
strange company into my lord's castle without his leave. I
brought in only you and your squire. And since you have
deceived me you cannot rightly blame me if I give you your
deserts--at least you shall never boast to any other
mistress that by deceiving me you conquered the castle and
the land of Dinan!" The knight started up, but Marion, with
the sword she held drawn, ran him straight through the body,
and he died at once. She herself, knowing that if she were
taken, ill were the death she should die, and knowing not
what to do, let herself fall from a window and broke her
neck.
Now this, I venture to think, is not an ordinary story. Tales of
treachery, onslaught, massacre, are not rare in the Middle Ages, nor
need we go as far as the Middle Ages for them. But the almost heroic
insouciance with which the traitor knight forgets everything except his
immediate enjoyment, and, provided he has his mistress at his will,
concerns himself not in the slightest degree as to what becomes of his
companions, is not an every-day touch. Nor is the strong contrast of the
chambers of feast and dalliance--undisturbed, voluptuous,
terrestrial-paradisaic--with "the horror and the hell" in the courts
below. Nor, last of all, the picture of the more than half innocent
Marion, night-garbed or ungarbed, but with sword drawn, first hanging
over her slumbering betrayer, then dealing the stroke of vengeance, and
then falling--white against the dark towers and the darker ravines at
their base--to her self-doomed judgment.
[Sidenote: Something on these,]
Even more, however, than in individual points of interest or excitement,
the general survey of these two volumes gives matter for thought on our
subject. Here are some half-dozen stories or a little more. It is not
much, some one may say, for the produce of two hundred years. But what
it lacks in volume (and that will be soon made up in French, while it is
to be remembered that we have practically nothing to match it in
English) it makes up in variety. The peculiarity, some would say the
defect, of mediaeval literature--its sheep-like tendency to go in
flocks--is quite absent. Not more than two of the eight, _Le Roi Flore_
and _La Comtesse de Ponthieu_, can be said to be of the same class,
even giving the word class a fairly elastic sense. They are short prose
_Romans d'aventures_. But _Asseneth_ is a mystical allegory; _Aucassin
et Nicolette_ is a sort of idyll, almost a lyric, in which the adventure
is entirely subordinated to the emotional and poetical interest;
_L'Empereur Constant_, though with something of the _Roman d'aventures_
in it, has a tendency towards a _moralitas_ ("there is no armour against
fate") which never appears in the pure adventurous kind; _Troilus_ is an
abridgment of a classical romance; and _Foulques Fitzwarin_ is, as has
been said, an embryonic historical novel. Most, if not all, moreover,
give openings for, and one or two even proceed into, character- and even
"problem"-writing of the most advanced novel kind. In one or two also,
no doubt, that aggression and encroachment of allegory (which is one of
the chief notes of these two centuries) makes itself felt, though not to
the extent which we shall notice in the next chapter. But almost
everywhere a strong _nisus_ towards actual tale-telling and the rapid
acquisition of proper "plant" for such telling, become evident. In
particular, conversation--a thing difficult to bring anyhow into
verse-narrative, and impossible there to keep up satisfactorily in
various moods--begins to find its way. We may turn, in the next chapter,
to matter mostly or wholly in verse forms. But prose fiction is started
all the same.
[Sidenote: And on the short story generally.]
Before we do so, however, it may not be improper to point out that the
short story undoubtedly holds--of itself--a peculiar and almost
prerogative place in the history and morphology or the novel. After a
long and rather unintelligible unpopularity in English--it never
suffered in this way in French--it has been, according to the way of the
world, a little over-exalted of late perhaps. It is undoubtedly a very
difficult thing to do well, and it would be absurd to pretend that any
of the foregoing examples is done thoroughly well. The Italian _novella_
had to come and show the way.[79] But the short story, even of the
rudimentary sort which we have been considering, cannot help being a
powerful schoolmaster to bring folk to good practice in the larger kind.
The faults and the merits of that kind, as such, appear in it after a
fashion which can hardly fail to be instructive and suggestive. The
faults so frequently charged against that "dear defunct" in our own
tongue, the three-volume novel--the faults of long-windedness, of otiose
padding, of unnecessary episodes, etc., are almost mechanically or
mathematically impossible in the _nouvelle_. The long book provides
pastime in its literal sense, and if it is not obvious in the other the
accustomed reader, unless outraged by some extraordinary dulness or
silences, goes on, partly like the Pickwickian horse because he can't
well help it, and partly because he hopes that something _may_ turn up.
In the case of the short he sees almost at once whether it is going to
have any interest, and if there is none such apparent he throws it
aside.
Moreover, as in almost every other case, the shortness is appropriate to
_exercise_; while the prose form does not encourage those terrible
_chevilles_--repetitions of stock adjective and substantive and verb and
phrase generally--which are so common in verse, and especially in
octosyllabic verse. It is therefore in many ways healthy, and the space
allotted to these early examples of it will not, it is hoped, seem to
any impartial reader excessive.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] The position of "origin" assigned already to the sacred matter of
the Saint's Life may perhaps be continued here as regards the Sermon. It
was, as ought to be pretty generally known, the not ungenial habit of
the mediaeval preacher to tell stories freely. We have them in AElfric's
and other English homilies long before there was any regular French
prose; and we have, later, large and numerous collections of
them--compiled more or less expressly for the use of the clergy--in
Latin, English, and French. The Latin story is, in fact, very
wide-ranging and sometimes quite of the novel (at least _nouvelle_)
kind, as any one may see in Wright's _Latin Stories_, Percy Society,
1842.
[76] This is one, and one of the most glaring, of the _betises_ which at
some times have been urged against Romance at large. They are not, as a
matter of fact, very frequent; but their occurrence certainly does show
the essentially uncritical character of the time.
[77] For of course the knight did not tell the _whole_ story.
[78] _I.e._ not sorry for having tried to kill him, but sorry that she
had not done so.
[79] In _prose_. For the very important part played by the home verse
_fabliaux_ see next chapter.