[1] See Arneth, _Marie Antoinette, Joseph II. and Leopold II._, pp.
1-18.
[2] v. the _Instructions données à la marquise de Tourzel_, governess
of the children of France, dated the 24th of July, 1789, in la
Rocheterie and Beaucourt, _Lettres de Marie Antoinette_, ii. 131.
[3] But see Arneth and Flammermont, i. 228, foot-note.
[4] This had reflected discredit on the queen, Madame de Guéménée
having been one of her intimate friends.
[5] Letters of 31st July 1791 to Mercy. Arneth, p. 193 and 194, and
letter of 1st August.
[6] Arneth, pp. 196, 203; Klinekowström, _Fersen_, i. 192.
[7] H. Belloc, _Marie-Antoinett_, pp. 311-312, states that clause
VIII. of Brunswick's manifesto was "drafted" by Marie Antoinette,
i.e. that the idea of holding Paris responsible for the safety of the
royal family was first suggested by her. He bases this statement
entirely upon the queen's letters of July 3rd to Fersen, of July 4th
to Mercy, the reception of which Fersen notes in his Journal on July
8th and 9th (Fersen ii. 21). But these letters were obviously the
answer to Fersen's letter of June 30th to the queen (Fersen ii. 315),
in which he tells her the terms of the manifesto. Moreover, the
suggestion of holding the Assembly responsible is to be found as
early as in the memo. of the Constitutionals of September the 8th,
1791, and is included in the Instructions of Mallet du Pan (Mems. ed.
Sayous, i. 281, and appendix 445). Fersen (_Fersen_ ii. 329, 337,
18th July and 28th July to the queen, and p. 338, 29th July to Taube)
states that it was he who drew up the manifesto by means of the
marquis de Limon.
MARIE DE FRANCE (fl. c. 1175-1190), French poet and fabulist. In the
introduction (c. 1240) to his _Vie Seint Edmund le Rey_[1] Denis Pyramus
says she was one of the most popular of authors with counts, barons and
knights, but especially with ladies. She is also mentioned by the
anonymous author of the _Couronnement Renart_. Her lays were translated
into Norwegian[2] by order of Haakon IV.; and Thomas Chestre, who is
generally supposed to have lived in the reign of Henry VI., gave a
version of _Lanval_.[3] Very little is known about her history, and
until comparatively recently the very century in which she lived
remained a matter of dispute. In spite of her own statement in the
epilogue to her fables: "Marie ai num, si suis de France," generally
interpreted to mean that Marie was a native of the Île de France, she
seems to have been of Norman origin, and certainly spent most of her
life in England. Her language, however, shows little trace of
Anglo-Norman provincialism. Like Wace, she used a literary dialect which
probably differed very widely from common Norman speech. The manuscripts
in which Marie's poems are preserved date from the late 13th or even the
14th century, but the language fixes the date of the poems in the second
half of the 12th century. The _Lais_ are dedicated to an unknown king,
who is identified as Henry II. of England; and the fables, her _Ysopet_,
were written according to the _Epilogus_ for a Count William, generally
recognized to be William Longsword, earl of Salisbury. The author of
_Couronnement Renart_, says that Marie had dedicated her poem to the
count William to whom the unknown poet addresses himself. This is
William of Dampierre (d. 1251), the husband of the countess Margaret of
Flanders, and his identification with Marie's count William is almost
certainly an error. Marie lived and wrote at the court of Henry II.,
which was very literary and purely French. Queen Eleanor was a
Provençal, and belonged to a family in which the patronage of poetry was
a tradition. There is no evidence to show whether Marie was of noble
origin or simply pursued the profession of a _trouvère_ for her living.
The origin of the _lais_ has been the subject of much discussion. Marie
herself says that she had heard them sung by Breton minstrels. It seems
probable that it is the lesser or French Brittany from which the stories
were derived, though something may be due to Welsh and Cornish sources.
Gaston Paris (_Romania_, vol. xv.) maintained that Marie had heard the
stories from English minstrels, who had assimilated the Celtic legends.
In any case the Breton lays offer abundant evidence of traditions from
Scandinavian and Oriental sources. The _Guigemar_ of Marie de France
presents marked analogies with the ordinary Oriental romance of escape
from a harem, for instance, with details superadded from classical
mythology. Marie seems to have contented herself with giving new
literary form to the stories she heard by turning them into Norman
octosyllabic verse, and apparently made few radical changes from her
originals. Joseph Bédier thinks that the lays of the Breton minstrels
were prose recitals interspersed with short lyrics something after the
manner of the cante-fable of _Aucassin et Nicolette_. Marie's task was
to give these cante-fables a narrative form destined to be read rather
than sung or recited.
The _Lais_ which may be definitely attributed to Marie are:
_Guigemar_, _Equitan_, _Le Frêne_, _Le Bisclavret_ (the werewolf),
_Les Deux amants_, _Laustic_, _Chaitivel_, _Lanval_, _Le
Chèvrefeuille_, _Milon_, _Yonec_ and _Eliduc_. The other similar lays
are anonymous except the _Lai d'Ignaure_ by Renant and the Lai du cor
of Robert Biket, two authors otherwise unknown. They vary in length
from some twelve thousand lines to about a hundred. _Le
Chèvrefeuille_, a short episode of the Tristan story, telling how
Tristan makes known his presence in the wood to Iseult, is the best
known of them all. Laustic[4] (_Le Rossignol_) is almost as short and
simple. In _Yonec_ a mysterious bird visits the lady kept in durance
by an old husband, and is turned into a valiant knight. The lover is
killed by the husband, but in due time is avenged by his son. The
scene of the story is partly laid in Chester, but the fable in
slightly different forms occurs in the folk-lore of many countries.[5]
_Lanval_[6] is a fairy story, and the hero vanishes eventually with
his fairy princess to the island of Avallon or Avilion. _Eliduc_ is
more elaborately planned than any of these, and the action is divided
between Exeter and Brittany. Here again the story of the man with two
brides is not new, but the three characters of the story are so dealt
with that each wins the reader's sympathy. The resignation of the wife
of Eliduc and her reception of the new bride find a parallel in
another of the lays, _Le Frêne_. The story is in both cases more
human and less repugnant than the, in some respects, similar story of
Griselda.
Marie's _Ysopet_ is translated from an English original which she
erroneously attributed to Alfred the Great, who had, she said,
translated it from the Latin. The collection includes many fables that
have come down from Phaedrus, some Oriental stories derived from
Jewish sources, with many popular apologues that belong to the Renard
cycle, and differ from those of older origin in that they are intended
to amuse rather than to instruct. Marie describes the misery of the
poor under the feudal régime, but she preaches resignation rather than
revolt. The popularity of this collection is attested by the
twenty-three MSS. of it that have been preserved.
Another poem attributed to Marie de France is _L'Espurgatoire Seint
Patriz_, a translation from the _Tractatus de purgatorio S. Patricii_
(c. 1185) of Henri de Salterey, which brings her activity down almost
to the close of the century.
See _Die Fabeln der Marie de France_ (1898), edited by Karl Warnke
with the help of materials left by Eduard Mall; and _Die Lais der
Marie de France_ (2nd ed., 1900), edited by Karl Warnke, with
comparative notes by Reinhold Köhler; the two works being vols. vi.
and iii. of the _Bibliotheca Normannica_ of Hermann Suchier; also an
extremely interesting article by Joseph Bédier in the _Revue des deux
mondes_ (Oct. 1891); another by Alice Kemp-Welch in the _Nineteenth
Century_ (Dec. 1907). For an analysis of the _Lais_ see _Revue de
philologie française_, viii. 161 seq.; Karl Warnke, _Die Quellen der
Esope der Marie de France_ (1900). The _Lais_ were first published in
1819 by B. de Roquefort. _L'Espurgatoire Seint Patriz_ was edited by
T. A. Jenkins (Philadelphia, 1894). Some of the _Lays_ were
paraphrased by Arthur O'Shaughnessy in his _Lays of France_ (1872).