4
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 SEELEY W. MUDU 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 
 DR.JOHNR. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 JOHN FISKE
 
 J 
 
 •>^« '-'•»-^

 
 STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 EARLY FRENCH POETRY
 
 PRINTED BV J. I'At.MER.
 
 STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 EARLY FRENCH POETRY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER BESANT, M.A. 
 
 CHKISt's college, CAMBRinr.E. 
 
 ^onboir anb (fambribge: 
 
 MAC MILL AN AND CO. 
 
 1 868.
 
 C. • V- 
 It ' ' I ' t J 
 
 - t « • •
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Introduction ....■•' 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Froissart— Alain Chartier— Christine de Pisan— 
 
 EUSTACHE DeSCHAMPS ..... 42 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 Charles of Orleans . . . • • 54 
 
 'J 
 
 •"^ CHAPTER III. 
 
 Olivier Basselin de Vire ..... 8i 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Martial de Paris ...... 9^ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 FRAN901S Villon . . . . • i'4 
 
 CIJAPTER VI. 
 Rf)c.ER DE Cni.LERYE— Baude- Glillaume Alexis . 144 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Guili.aume Coquillar-i . . . ■ • '63 
 
 CHAPTER VIll. 
 
 iHE i.MMORTALS .... • '7' 
 
 i
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Maistrk Pierre Pathki.in ..... 200 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 DE S.A.INT GeI.AIS ...... 218 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Francis and Margaret ..... 236 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 La Famille Ma rot ...... 248 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Clotilde de Surville ..... 288 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 English Poems of Charles of Orleans 
 
 APPENDIX IT. . . .
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When one considers that at every respectable school, 
 whether for girls or boys, in England, French is a part of 
 the professed course ; that a Frenchman is generally specially 
 retained for this branch of instruction, and that a respectable 
 minority of the pupils are really enabled to read French 
 with something like ease and pleasure, it is singular to note 
 the general ignorance on the subject of French literature 
 and literary history. A sort of impression rests on most 
 minds that French literature begins with the "sibcle de 
 Louis Quatorze"; that Boileau, Corneille, Racine were the 
 first French poets; that before them was nothing but the 
 crude efforts of genius struggling with an undeveloped and 
 stubborn language. Some few know of Malherbe, some of 
 Ronsard, and a still smaller number of Cldment Marot. 
 How many have heard of Frangois Villon, or Mellin de 
 Saint Gelais ? and how many know anything of the enormous 
 literary activity that began in the thirteenth centurj', was 
 carried on by Rutebeuf, Marie de France, Gaston de Foix, 
 Thibault de Champagne, and Lorris ; was fostered by Charles 
 
 B
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Orleans, by Margaret of Valois, by Francis the First ; that 
 gave a crowd of versifiers to France, enriched, strengthened, 
 developed, and fixed the French language, and prepared the 
 way for Comeille and for Racine? 
 
 The reasons of this ignorance are mainly two; the in- 
 efficient and careless way in which French — French, which 
 might be made as useful in education as Latin — is taught, 
 and the lack of English books on the subject. French 
 books, too, are not always easy of access, and our public 
 libraries are generally most deficient in continental literature. 
 And yet the means of acquiring a knowledge of French 
 literature are much more readily got at than those of learning 
 our own. Numberless essays, etudes, treatises, collections, 
 and histories have been made in France. In no country 
 have writers found so much appreciation ; in no country are 
 there more careful editions, more elaborate biographies, 
 and more loving criticism. What the student w\ants is 
 direction and advice ; he has to be told when to read and 
 how ; and, in general, he has to be taught that France has 
 a literature independent of the wellknown names, as original 
 and as well worthy of study as that of our own country. 
 In one small field I propose to endeavour to afford him 
 information and direction. Should he wish to study the 
 early efforts of France in poetical literature, I hope that in 
 the following pages he may find matter that may not be 
 wholly waste of time. 
 
 For the study of French language and literary history is 
 perhaps more interesting than that of any other nation. It 
 may be traced back farther and more clearly. It lies in 
 one unbroken chain ; it grows and spreads like a cone of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 light from one point ; it flows from one spring, and it is 
 a river with no affluents. 
 
 The attempt made with so much learning and ingenuity 
 by Raynouard to prove that all the modern Latin languages 
 spring from one common stock, not Latin, but an inter- 
 mediate language which he calls "la langue romane," is 
 long since allowed to have been a failure. Every living 
 and dead dialect of this class of languages owes its existence 
 to the fusion of Latin, doubtless the Latin, ungrammatical 
 and vulgar, spoken by the common people and soldiery, 
 with the native tongues of the conquered tribes. And as 
 not only did each tribe speak its own language, but each 
 detached village had its own peculiarities, so there grew 
 up not only great distinctive branches, but for every branch 
 numerous subdivisions. Again, as communication between 
 to\vns grew up ; as song-writers and minstrels went from 
 place to place, these subdivisions would naturally grow 
 fewer and fewer, and towns in diflerent places would become 
 centres of dialect. Thus we have in France two great 
 branches, the Langue d'Oc, and the Langue d'Oil. They 
 grew up side by side, each at first with her family of rustic 
 dependants. The Langue d'Oc was the first to consolidate 
 herself, and by means of a literature unrivalled in its kind 
 to attain to the dignity of one of the languages of the 
 world. But her sister tongue was of slower growth. When 
 we come to the earliest days of her literature, we find three 
 dialects of equal importance ; the Norman, the Picard, and 
 the Burgundian. The Nornnan dialect was spoken and 
 written by the inhabitants of Normandy, a part of Maine, 
 a part of Brittany, Perche, Poitou, and Anjou : the Picard
 
 4 introduction; 
 
 in Picardy, Artois, Flandre, Bas Maine, Champagne, Lor- 
 raine, Hainaut, Namur, Lie'ge, and Brabant : and the 
 Burgundian in Burgundy, Nivernais, Berry, Orle'anais, Tour- 
 aine, Bas Bourbonnais, Anjou, He de France, Champagne, 
 Lorraine, Tranche Comte, Vaud, Neufchatel, and Berne. ^ 
 Gradually these three dialects, only one language through- 
 out, lost their distinctive characteristics, and became for 
 literature at least, one tongue. Meantime the literature of 
 the Langue d' Oc had blossomed, borne fruit, and died, 
 smitten to death by Simon de Montfort. From her mori- 
 bund rival, the Langue d' Oil stole material to feed her own 
 writers, and gathered into her own gamers what her sister 
 had already reaped. Thenceforth, that is from the four- 
 teenth century, the history of the Langue d' Oil is the history 
 of the French language. 
 
 The writer of the history of French literature has to 
 consider the effects of many different influences. There 
 is first the esprit Gaulois, a thing much talked about, but 
 little understood. As I understand it, French critics intend 
 by this term to attribute that vein of French wit, so largely 
 intermixed with satire, caustic and malicious, rather than 
 genial, which is found in Villon, Marot, Rabelais, Scarron, 
 Moliere, La Fontaine, and others, to the Celtic blood in the 
 national veins. Next comes the influence of Provengal 
 Literature ; then the great Italian wave, which had a small 
 precursor in the time of Charles the Sixth ; then the Spanish, 
 and lastly the English influence. The short period which our 
 purpose allows us to consider embraces the time immediately 
 
 ^ This division is taken from Burguy's Gra7iimaire de la Langue 
 (T Oil.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 before the Renaissance and its Italian forces ; when change 
 was in the air, disquieting men's minds, and when the old 
 spirit collecting all its energy for a final effort gave to the 
 world the last poets of the old school, Charles of Orleans 
 on the one side, and Clement Marot on the other. 
 
 As for the growth of the language, curious readers and 
 students will find its story exhaustively treated by Ampere, 
 Chevallet, and Burguy. There is no modern language 
 which offers such an interesting and clearly marked line of 
 investigation. Its development from Latin can be perfectly 
 easily made out from old monuments and wTitings. Thus 
 the oath pronounced by Louis-le-Germanique and the sub- 
 jects of Charles-le-Chauve in 842^ is still preserved: a 
 Cantil^ne in honour of S. Eulalie of the tenth century re- 
 mains, and from that time every change in the tongue is 
 marked by some literary relic. Further, the language is 
 almost wholly Latin; the words of Teutonic origin are, 
 though extremely important, comparatively small in number 
 (about a thousand), and the Celtic words are still smaller. 
 
 But taking the end of the eighth century as our starting- 
 point, from that day there has been no disturbing force to 
 act on the Langue d' Oil. The occupation of the English 
 in the fifteenth century is no exception, for it lasted less 
 than thirty years, and was, so far as the English soldiers 
 themselves were concerned, an armed encampment in a 
 hostile country. They went away without leaving one trace 
 of their possession in language, literature, or manners, if we 
 except the hatred to the English name that remained behind 
 
 1 See note at end of this chapter.
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 them. In England, on the other hand, beside the dialects 
 of early English, or what, for want of a better name, we call 
 Anglo-Saxon and late Saxon, there was the language of the 
 court and its literature in Norman French. These streams 
 ran together; one did not supplant the other, nor did one 
 disappear; the Saxon literature and the Norman joined 
 their waters. How long it took to thoroughly effect the 
 fusion may be judged by comparing the English of Charles 
 of Orleans and his time with his French ; or by remember- 
 ing that while Mellin de St. Gelais, imbued with the Italian 
 spirit, was writing his sprightly songs, we had nothing better 
 to show in English than Lydgate, Skelton, and Barclay ; or 
 while the Parliament of Devils represents our stage in poetry, 
 Alain Chartier and Christine de Pisan had already begun to 
 write. 
 
 Let us sail rapidly down this single stream of French 
 Poetry. As we go on, the waters grow deeper and the 
 banks broader; we leave the still life of the monotonous 
 meadows, and emerge into a varied and picturesque country; 
 we pass through villages, where the rustics, gathered round 
 the door of the auberge, listen to the jolly miller singing the 
 praise of cider : we flow by the monasteries and hear some- 
 times the Catholic hymn and the swell of the organ ; some- 
 times the lament of the prodigal, dying before his time ; 
 and sometimes the refrain of roystering brethren disturbing 
 the midnight peace; we flow by castles where jousts and 
 tourneys are going on ; with gallant knights in glittering 
 armour and belles dames in silken sheen, joyous to behold; 
 minstrels strike their lutes along our banks and sing of love, 
 and youth, spring-time, and song, and folly; the Spirit of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 France goes with us and weeps over her desolated land, or 
 laughs to see her soldiers win the fight ; we pass through 
 the town and see the honest burghers in the market-place 
 laughing at Roger Bontemps as he cracks his expected 
 jokes ; outside the town is a gang of thieves and strollers, 
 — they are eating what they have stolen — la grosse Margot 
 is with them, and one is singing : these pass away, but the 
 song remains, and the memory of the singer. King and 
 bishop, lord and lady, judge and la\vyer, and criminal, 
 knight and man-at-arms, clerk and monk — we pass by all, 
 and hear in their songs as they go what manner of men 
 they were. The song grows louder, the child-voice strength- 
 ens, thought follows wonder, light follows daybreak, the 
 stream has become a river; see, on the banks, Ronsard 
 pipes on one side, and Malherbe pipes on the other; and 
 now we may rest awhile, for the next breath of wind in our 
 sails takes us out of these dreamy old scenes,— ablaze with 
 light and colour, — to the trim lawns and meadows of Louis 
 Quatorze, where, courtly, correct, classical, and bewigged, 
 we must needs stop to admire, however much we yawn. 
 — The earlier French literature, then, consists of the popular 
 epic, the conte or fabliau, the romance, and the chronicle. 
 The epics are divided into three distinct cycles. The first 
 has been called the Carlovingian, which embraces not only 
 the epics in honour of Charlemagne, but also those which 
 speak even of Clo\'is on one hand, or of Charles the Bald 
 on the other. To this cycle belong, among others, the 
 Chanson de Roland, the Chronique de Turpin, and the 
 Roman des Loherains, containing the story of Garin the 
 Lorrainer. Information on this cycle may be abundantly
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 found in Mr. Ludlow's work on the 'Popular Epics of the 
 Middle Ages.' 
 
 The second epic cycle contains the Arthurian poems, 
 the stories of which are derived from Breton sources, and 
 steeped in the new spirit of chivalry which was gradually 
 growing up. The memory of Charlemagne and his glories 
 was passing away, and a new field was necessary for the 
 imagination of the minstrel. Arthur and the round table 
 supplied it. The Roman du Brut was written by Wace 
 about 1 156, which was followed by the Roman du Rou. 
 After Wace, the French trouvbres followed up the subject, 
 as the cyclic poets followed up the story of the siege of 
 Troy, until everything possible had been said of it, and men 
 were weary of the name of Arthur. And in the third cycle 
 a new field was again discovered in the stories of antiquity. 
 Then we begin to hear of the siege of Troy, of Ulysses, and 
 of Helen ; of Alexander and of Hector. 
 
 The middle ages, said Villemain, made use of three 
 mythologies, — the ' mythologie chevaleresque', the ' mytho- 
 logie allegorique', and the 'mythologie chre'tienne.' From 
 the first came a whole crowd of enchanters, fairies, dwarfs, 
 and magicians; from the second, which sprung naturally 
 out of the first, came the personification of all the possible 
 virtues, vices, and thoughts. This it was that gave the 
 world the Roman de la Rose, that grand treasure-house of 
 allegory; where the hero's auxiliaries are Bel Accueil and 
 Doux Regard; where Da?fie Oiseuse takes him to the castle 
 of Deduit (Delight), and Love has his escort of JolivetCy 
 Courtoisie, Franchise, dcaCi Jeiinesse. It took three hundred 
 years for the minds of men to shake off the impression of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 this work, and down to Clement Marot we shall find our 
 friends Bel Accueil, Doux Regard, Faux Dangler, Jeunesse, 
 Malebouche and company, acting their parts on the stage. 
 We find the allegorical spirit in Spenser, still apparently- 
 fresh and young, though really moribund; and the last 
 wave from this movement of the thirteenth century broke 
 on English ears in the seventeenth, when the best of our 
 allegories, the Pilgrim's Progress, was written. 
 
 What Villemain means by Christian Mythology is ex- 
 plained by the existence, side by side with the profane 
 fabliaux, of pious romances, legends of holy men, fabulous ' 
 histories of saints, and the countless stories of their miracles. 
 This was the natural armour that the Church would put on 
 against scoffers. In an age when imagination ran riot; 
 when the bounds of knowledge were too small, and the 
 fields of wonder too vast for the minds of men, they opposed 
 invention to invention, and the marvels of Saintly legends 
 to the marvels of Merlin and the Forest of Broceliande. 
 
 The Chronicle begins with Villehardouin. Of him— 
 who is the most interesting perhaps of all the early French 
 writers — we have little space here to speak ; nor of Join- 
 ville, Froissart, Philip de Comines, and the host of writers 
 who carried on the story of France and her knights. His 
 work is as much of a romance as a history. It is told 
 in the liveliest and most picturesque manner, at once 
 .omantic and real. He shews us that time which seems 
 to us so glittering, brilliant, and gorgeous, as it really was. 
 We see the crusaders, men full of lofty Christian sentiments 
 and mundane ambitions, who had learned to unite the two, 
 and to dream of the slaughter of the Paynim for the glory
 
 to INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of God, and the government of islands for the glory of 
 tliemselves. For it was no invention or crackbrained fancy 
 of Don Quixote's that faithful squires were rewarded by 
 the government of islands. The East was the field of glory. 
 There were islands to be conquered and ruled; no matter 
 if they were not islands surrounded by the sea ; there were 
 kingdoms like the kingdoms of Edessa — marquisates like the 
 Marquisate of Nazareth — duchies like that of Athens or 
 Achaia — to be fought for and won. Corydon, in Clotilde de 
 Surville's tale, becomes Marquis of Trebisonde. Baldwin, 
 in the Chronicle of Villehardouin, and in sober fact becomes 
 king of Constantinople. Men said in those times : " Let 
 us fight ; let us offer our arms to the Christian King of 
 Damascus." Where was Damascus? No matter. It was 
 over there — in the golden east, in the land of infidels, 
 magicians, and enchantments ; where dragons and serpents 
 haunted the deserts ; where were lovely groves and splendid 
 palaces, with gardens of eternal spring ; where were women 
 as beautiful as the day ; where there was no cold nor frost ; 
 where to live was happiness, and where to die — for it was 
 all sacred land — was heaven at once, without the inter- 
 mediate discomforts of purgatory. To be a sinner and a 
 saint at the same time was surely a piece of chance that 
 came but rarely. In Christian times it has only happened 
 for Crusaders. 
 
 The colour that these expeditions threw into the literature 
 of their times can be easily imagined. The most holy king 
 that France ever saw — perhaps also the ablest — Saint Louis, 
 gave an impulse to literature that was felt long afterwards. 
 But the thirteenth was in every respect a most remarkable
 
 INTR OD UCTIOM. 1 1 
 
 century, a century of remarkable men. Innocent III. was 
 pope in this century. Philip Augustus, Saint Louis, Philippe 
 le Bel, were kings of France; England got Magna Charta 
 and Edward the First; Italy saw the growth and develop- 
 ment of her great to\vns ; Germany had Barbarossa and 
 Frederick the Second. 
 
 The literary efforts of France, too, in this century were 
 prodigious. As many as one hundred French poets have 
 been enumerated before the year 1300. I do not know 
 whether this list includes the Troubadours, but these were 
 all dead or dying by the end of tlie thirteenth century. 
 The mighty calamities that the crusade by Simon de Mont- 
 fort inflicted on them were never recovered from, the wounds 
 were too deep to be healed, and literature, as well as people 
 and religion, fell not to rise again. Whatever could be 
 taken from the monuments of Provencal literature was 
 taken by the conquerors ; their stories, and the form of their 
 songs. Of these imitations and copies, manuscripts exist 
 in the Bibliotheque Imperiale, which may be numbered 
 by thousands. These have as yet only been printed in 
 fragments, great masses having never been even read. Even 
 though they should meet with few readers, it would still be 
 good to have these riches in an accessible form. In the 
 words of Villemain, " La vie enti^re du temps passe est Ik : 
 il ne faut que de la patience pour tirer de ces mines la 
 statue comple'te du passe." These romances and poems 
 give a most complete insight into the usages of chivalry, 
 and the only possible insight into tlie manners and thoughts 
 of the age. Of the poets who compiled or wrote them, the 
 name best known is that of Chre'tien de Troyes, who belongs
 
 1 2 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 to the tAvelfth century. He died in 1191, having done a 
 great deal for the language, if he did litde for real Hterature. 
 He Avrote romances in verse, such as " Perceval le Gallois, le 
 Chevallier au Lion"; " Guillaume, roi d' Angleterre"; " Ivain 
 fils du roi Urien", and others. What he left unfinished his 
 successors carried on, so that his name lasted long into the 
 thirteenth century. He has never, I believe, been printed, 
 except in extracts, and is- at first difficult to read. For 
 example, this will serve as a specimen of the language of 
 the time. 
 
 "Joie ne guerredons d' amours 
 Ne viennent pas par bel servir : 
 Car on voit chaus^ souvent faillir, 
 Ki- sei"vent sans aller aillours. 
 
 Fi m'en air 
 Quant cell serf^ sans repentir 
 Ki ne me veut faire secours. 
 
 Voirs* est c' amours est grant dou90urs 
 Quant doi cuer ^ sont un sans partir : 
 Mais amours fait I'un seul languir, 
 Et les anuis sentir toujours. 
 
 Bien os gehir^ 
 Que ne puis a amours venir, 
 En amours gist tous mes secours."* 
 
 Before passing on to more modern French, let me give 
 one more illustration in translation. The following lines 
 are taken from the Chatoiement des Dames in Barbazon's 
 collection. They are rendered almost word for word. 
 
 * 1 chaus = ceux. 2 Ki = qui. ^ serf, 3rd person sing, from servir. 
 4 voirs is vraiment. ^ doi cuer = deux coeurs. " bien os gehir = il 
 faut bien avouer. With this assistance there is no difficulty.
 
 INTRO D UC TION. ^ 3 
 
 "Love is a free and a lawless thing, 
 Love fears neither count nor king ; 
 Quails not for glittering sword and steel, 
 Nor flaming tortures fears to feel. 
 Dreads not waters deep and black, 
 Not the whole world turns him back; 
 Little cares he for father or mother, 
 Little looks he for sister or brother. 
 Fears not low, nor stoops to high. 
 Nor thinks it any dread to die. 
 Love cares nought for buckler and spear. 
 For bar and bolt he wU not fear; 
 Love makes lances shiver and break, 
 Love makes horses stumble and shake ; 
 Love invents the tourney's fray. 
 Love makes people happy and gay ; 
 Love ennobles gallantry, 
 Love hates rude discourtesy ; 
 Love an endless song uplifts. 
 Love is loaded with precious gifts ; 
 Love hates slothfid idleness. 
 Love makes generous largesse ; 
 Love makes cowards of brave and bold. 
 Love makes misers lavish their gold ; 
 Love makes peace, and love makes war, 
 Love makes all the locks unbar ; 
 Love strikes many a gallant blow. 
 Love descends from high to low; 
 Love mounts up from low to high, 
 Nothing too great for love to try. 
 Love keeps no noble blood intact, 
 Love suffers many a lawless act ; 
 Love guards not oath or sacrament. 
 Love despises chastisement; 
 Love pretends religious zeal. 
 But cannot keep his reason well; 
 Love has ruined many a marriage. 
 Brought low many a warrior's courage ;
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Love is uncertain, love is vain, 
 Love puts lis all in dolour and pain ; 
 Love is good, and love is bad. 
 Love makes many a visage sad ; 
 Love to many bringeth sadness, 
 But to many he bringeth gladness." 
 
 We cannot now linger over many of these old names. 
 The best known of them are Rutebeuf, Marie de France, 
 Thibault, count of Champagne, Dans He'lynaud, and Lorris 
 and Jean de IMeung, the authors of the Roman de la Rose. 
 
 Marie de France was born, as her name indicates, in 
 France, but where or when is not known. She lived and 
 %vrote in England during the reign of Henry III., and en- 
 joyed a very great reputation. Her French attains to what 
 may be called the maximum point, the point of highest 
 perfection of the old language before those changes which 
 turned it gradually into modern French. Many of her 
 stories are borrowed from Breton sources, whence it is 
 concluded that she was born in Normandy. This little 
 fable will illustrate the condition of the language in her 
 
 time. 
 
 " Du coc racunte kii munta 
 Sour un femier, e si grata 
 Selunc" nature purchaceit, 
 Sa viande cum^ il soleit*: 
 Une chiere jame^ truva, 
 Clere la vit, si 1' esgarda ; 
 "Je cuidai," feit il, "purchacier 
 Ma viande sor cest femier, 
 Or ai ici jame truvee. 
 Par moi ne serez remuee. 
 
 ^ Ki = qui. * selunc = selon. ^ cum = comun. 
 
 4 soleit = solebat. ^ jame = gem.
 
 INTR OD UC TION. 1 5 
 
 S'uns rices hum' ci vus truvast, 
 Bien sai ke d' or vus enurast •? 
 Si en creust vustre clartei. 
 Pur r or ki a mult grant biauei. 
 Qant ma vulcntei n' ai de tei 
 J^''' nul henor n'auraz par mei." 
 
 — Rutebeuf, the most eminently representative man of 
 his time as a trouv^re, hved in the reign of Louis IX. Of 
 his hfe Httle is known except what is found in his writings. 
 He has been pubhshed by Jubinal. All I can do for him 
 here is to give a short example of his language. He was 
 one of the continuers of the Roman de Renart. In the 
 following specimen, observe the s which at that time marked 
 the nominative singular. It comes of course from the Latin, 
 all the words of these languages being formed from the root- 
 form. Thus villano, for the nominative singular gives 
 villanos or tis by the simple addition of the j, and in French 
 villains. 
 
 "Jadis estoit uns vilains riches, 
 Qui moult estoit avers et chiches ; 
 Une charrue ades* avoit, 
 Tos tens par lui la maintenoit 
 D' une jument et d' un roncin ; 
 Assez ot char et pain et vin, 
 Et quanques mestier li estoit. 
 Mais por fame que pas n' avoit 
 Le blasmoient moult si ami, 
 Et toute la gent autressi ; 
 II dist volentiers en prendroit 
 Une bonne se la trovoit." 
 
 ' s'uns rices hum, si un riche homme. 
 ' enurast, would have honoured. 3 j^^ jamais. 
 
 * ades, ad ipsum, continually, always.
 
 1 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The works of Rutebeuf are easy to read with a little 
 trouble, and the aid of Burguy's Grammaire de la Langue 
 d'Oil. They will repay the trouble to those who take an 
 interest in the study either of the language or of the 
 literature of France. 
 
 Dans Helynaud was poet-laureate to Philip Augustus, 
 his business being to sing to the king after dinner, or recite 
 deeds of valour and tales of love. The only poem of his 
 that remains is one on Death. This, owing to the corrupt- 
 ness of the text, is in parts unintelligible, and is throughout 
 excessively difficult to read. The poem is given in full in 
 Auguis. 
 
 Thibault of Champagne was born in 1201, after the 
 death of his father. He was under the protection of Philip 
 Augustus, went crusading, returned safely, governed his 
 states with prudence, cultivated letters, wrote poetry, and 
 died in 1253. This is the story of his life. 
 
 He has been called the first of French poets. It is true 
 that critics differ as to who merits this title. Charles of 
 Orleans, Alain Chartier, Villon, Clement Marot, Chretien 
 de Troyes, Eustache Deschamps, and Marie de France, 
 have all received it from their respective admirers. He 
 wrote songs, tengons, sonnets, and reverdies — this last 
 species being a composition in praise of spring and the 
 return of the flowers ; it is called by Marot the Chant de mai. 
 
 Take these four verses of his song of the Crusade. This 
 song illustrates perfectly the style and language of Thibault. 
 
 "Signor, saciez,^ ki' or ne s' en ira 
 En cele terre, u^ Diex fu mors et ^^s, 
 
 1 sachez. ^ qui. ^ u^ qu.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1 7 
 
 Et ki la crois d' outre mer ne prendra, 
 
 A paines mais ' ira en paradis ; 
 
 Ki a en soi pitie et ramembrance 
 
 Au haut seignor, doit querre- sa venjance, 
 
 Et delivrer sa terre et son pais. 
 
 Tout li mauvais demorront par de9a, 
 Ki n'aiment Dieu, bien, ne honor, ne pris, 
 Et chascuns dit, "Ma femme que fera? 
 Te ne lairoie^ a nul fuer^ mes amis : 
 Cil sont assis en trop fole attendance, 
 K'il n'est amis fors, que cil sans dotance, 
 Ki pour nos fu en la vraie crois mis. 
 
 Or s'en iront cil vaillant bacheler,^ 
 
 Ki aiment Dieu et I'onour de cest mont, 
 
 Ki sagement voelent^ a Dieu aler, 
 
 Et li mon-eus, li cendreux demourront : 
 
 Avugle sunt, de ce ne dout-je mie,'' 
 
 Ki un secours ne font Dieu en sa vie, 
 
 Et por si pot pert la gloire del mont. 
 
 Diex se laissa por nos en crois pener 
 Et nous dira un jour ou tuit^ venront, 
 "Vos, ki ma crois m'aidates a porter, 
 Vos en irez 14, oil li angele sont, 
 La me verrez, et ma m^re Marie : 
 Et vos par qui je n'oi onques aie,' 
 Descendez tuit en enfer le parfont."'" 
 
 The fourteenth century in France brought little literary / 
 
 fruit, except fresh collections of fabliaux. It is remarkable, ] \ 
 
 however, for the completion of one extraordinary book, the 1 
 
 \ 
 ^ h. paines mais, with difficulty. - querre, quarere, seek. 
 
 ^ lairoie, laisserais. * fuer, derived from forum, at no price. 
 
 * plural, the singular being 'bachelers.' * voclent, are willing. 
 
 ' mie, mica, at all. 8 tuit, plural, all. 
 
 ' aie, older form was ajude, aid. 
 
 ^° parfond, fond, "Descend all of you to the bottom of hell." 
 
 C
 
 1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Roman de la Rose, and the appearance of two prolific 
 versifiers, Guillaume de Machau and Eustache Deschamps. 
 A notice of Deschamps will be found farther on. Of the 
 Romance it is only here necessary to add, that it was the 
 parent of an immense stream of allegorical verse, that the 
 taste engendered by its personifications lasted till the six- 
 teenth centur)^, and that it shews the earliest signs of that 
 growing interest in classical literature which preceded the 
 Renaissance. Great Avriters have imitated it, read it, drawn 
 inspiration from it. Chaucer in England, Marot, and La 
 Fontaine in France, loved it. It was the work of two men, 
 Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung. Of the latter it 
 is told that, dying, he left, as a precious legacy to the 
 monks, two weighty coffers supposed to be filled with 
 money. In return for this unexpected gift a rich funeral 
 was accorded the poet by the grateful legatees, but on 
 opening the boxes they were found to contain nothing but 
 slates. The angry monks wished to disinter the poet, but 
 were prevented from doing so by a decree of the parliament. 
 If the story is not true it ought to be. The satirist of the 
 Church could hardly have ended his life in a more con- 
 sistent manner. 
 
 In the fourteenth century, too, lived the French Bunyan. 
 How far the Pilgrim's Progress was original it is difficult to 
 determine. Macaulay asserts that John Bunyan had no 
 assistance whatever, and that Sir Bevis of Southampton 
 was the only book of popular literature that he had ever 
 read. On the other hand, a version of De Guilleville^ was 
 
 1 His name is spelt in the list of books of the E. E. Text Society, 
 and by Goujet, De Deguilleville.
 
 INTRO D UCTION. 1 9 
 
 made in Englisli more tlian two liundred years before 
 Bunyan, and it may very well be that a story so popular 
 and so striking may have been floated down with the 
 current of country traditions, even after the rude English 
 verses had passed out of men's memories. 
 
 De Guilleville was a monk of the Cistercian Order (1295 
 — 1358). His book is called the "Roman des trois Pelerin- 
 ages." The first of these represents the Pilgrim inflamed 
 with a desire of travelling to the Heavenly Jerusalem. In 
 a mirror he has a vision of the city. The gate that bars the 
 road is guarded by angels who keep off the unworthy. 
 Grace de Dieu, a lady of exquisite beauty, guides the 
 Pilgrim to her house, where she instructs him, baptizes him, 
 and confirms him. He receives the Eucharistic bread, and 
 is presented with the scarf and the staff; he is girt with 
 the girdle of Justice, and receives those writings containing 
 professions of Faith. He is then armed with cuirass, 
 helmet, buckler, sword, spear, but finding himself cumbered 
 with all this harness, he begs leave to put them off, and 
 arms himself instead only with David's sling and the five 
 pebbles that David employed against Goliath. He then 
 starts. Great dangers meet him. All the passions, per- 
 sonified, stand across his path. Reason and Grace de 
 Dieu constantly help him. Tribulation gets him down ; he 
 is assailed by Avarice, Heresy, and Satan ; he is led astray 
 by Fortune, and takes refuge in a convent, where he finds 
 Discipline, Abstinence, Poverty, Charity, and Obedience. 
 The convent, badly guarded, is assailed by enemies. At 
 last he meets Infirmity, who seizes him, and Death, who 
 strikes him down.
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The leading ideas, it is seen, are exactly the same as in 
 Bunyan's book. The way to life leads along a road beset 
 with numberless dangers, from all of which he is rescued by 
 the servants of God. Death comes at last, not as Bunyan's 
 higher fancy painted it, in the shape of a cold river which 
 must be passed, but in the commoner image of an armed 
 figure with a scythe. And the whole is under the sem- 
 blance of a dream, from which Bunyan wakes when the 
 phantoms of his brain have crossed the stream, and De 
 Guilleville when the cold scythe of Death cuts his Pilgrim 
 down. 
 
 "La Mort laissa sa faulx courir, 
 Et me fist du corps departir, 
 Ce me sembla, en ce moment. 
 Si que de I'espouvantement 
 Esveille et desdormy fu, 
 Et me trouvay si esperdu 
 Qu'aviser' je ne me povoie 
 Se ja' mort ou en vie j'estoie, 
 Jusqu'a tant que j'ouy sonner 
 L'orloge' de nuyt pour lever: 
 Et aussi lors chantoient les coqs." 
 
 In the gradual changes of a language it is impossible 
 to draw a line of demarcation between the old and the new. 
 We shall see how the Langue d' Oil of Marie de France and 
 of Chrestien de Troyes was by the time of Froissart altered 
 so as to be hardly recognisable as the same tongue. We 
 shall see archaisms in the later poets, and traces of old 
 forms and idioms even in the WTitings of the great Maitre 
 Clement. Still, speaking roughly, we may take the fifteenth 
 
 ' aviser, perceive. - ja, jam. ^ orloge, horologe.
 
 I NT ROD UC TION. 2 r 
 
 century as the first of French poetry. In all literature there 
 are three great periods ; the first, when a thing has to be 
 said, and when it gets itself said with what readiness it may 
 — a period of matter without style. In the second, men 
 have become artists in Avords, they affect precision in style, 
 and aim at ingenious forms and collocations of idioms : 
 and they sacrifice the thought they wish to express to the 
 manner of expressing it. It is in the third period only 
 that thought and style become wedded to each other, so 
 that neither intrudes in the other's place, or occupies an 
 undue importance. 
 
 Thus the tale of Aristotle by Rutebeuf is an example of 
 the first kind, where the poet goes straight on artlessly 
 rhyming his philosophy and his story \vith very small 
 consideration as to style. 
 
 Of the second kind we have examples in the tribe of 
 poetasters like Meschinot, Molinet, and Cretin ; in the 
 Euphuists of England ; in the Ciceronian pedants of Italy, 
 whose aim was solely at style, and whose thought is lost 
 in affectation and pedantry. The fifteenth century was 
 much infected with this evil, but even in the most inveterate 
 of offenders it is not rare to light upon passages of real 
 beauty and poetic grace. 
 
 One word before going on to the fifteenth century. 
 France has the merit of being the foster-mother of the 
 imagination of two nations, England and Italy. From 
 France Chaucer learned how to sing : much as he owed 
 to Petrarch and to Italy, he owed more to France.^ Dante, 
 and the master of Dante, disputed before the University 
 
 ^ See Pro£ Morley's "English Writers before Chaucer," p. 770.
 
 2 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Paris. And the influence of the Provencal poetry on the 
 precursors of Dante has been clearly marked and set forth. 
 Thus the story of Griselda, told by Boccacio and by 
 Chaucer, is found in a fabliau. 
 
 Only this difference exists. In Italy the seed sown by 
 France fell upon soil fertile in genius. Dante, Petrarch, 
 Boccacio, fixed the Italian language, while French and 
 English were changing from year to year. No great genius 
 arose in England between Chaucer and Spenser, and none 
 at all in France before Moliere and Corneille. Literature 
 of the popular kind alone will not save a language from 
 change and decay, nor, indeed, will writing of the very 
 highest order. But when the words of a Shakespeare 
 become household proverbs, when generation after genera- 
 tion finds delight in the nimble fancy of a man who reads 
 all hearts like a printed book, the change is gradual and 
 longer. We talk and write now much as Shakespeare and 
 Ben Jonson talked and wrote, but we do not talk or write 
 like John Lydgate or Skelton. 
 
 Under all its aspects, political, social, religious, and 
 literary, the fifteenth is the most interesting of the Christian 
 centuries. Perhaps, had we sufiticient information, the age 
 which saw the break-up of Roman manners and institutions, 
 and the growth of feudalism, would be the one exception. 
 But with the fifteenth, we have the fullest possible acquaint- 
 ance. Chronicles, letters, histories, biographies, satires, 
 and plays exist which tell us its story to the minutest 
 particulars. We know not only the events but the actors 
 as they lived, spoke, and appeared. The end of the old 
 order was at hand, and the birth of a new. Chivalry and
 
 IXTR OD UC TION. 2 3 
 
 feudalism were grievously shorn and mutilated, the Church 
 was about to lose her fairest possessions, the thought of 
 man was emancipated, learning burst like a flood over all 
 Western Europe, scholasticism fell, and the unknown half 
 of the world was open for the enterprise of nations. Poli- 
 tically — for with France alone we have to do — the century 
 began with dire disaster and disgrace ; for thirty years the 
 country was held by foreign garrisons and a foreign king ; 
 and the triumphs of the French arms in the expulsion of 
 the English could not compensate for the miseries of the 
 protracted war. What these miseries were may be imagined 
 from the account of a traveller through France. He says 
 that from walled town to walled town there was not stand- 
 ing a house or a cottage, that the road-sides were lined with 
 thickets and forest, whence issued ferocious wolves who 
 attacked the passers-by; and that all the country people 
 were either killed or had taken refuge in the towns. It 
 takes long for a country to recover from such disasters 
 as these, and France for the next three reigns was weak 
 and almost powerless. The strength of the lesser nobles 
 was wholly gone, never to be recovered, and Azincour, with 
 its following of battles, sieges, and skirmishes, did for 
 France what, with Wakefield, Bamet, and Tewkesbury, it 
 did for England. Then was strengthened that bourgeois 
 spirit, destined to play a great part in the history of France. 
 For the towns, cut off and isolated by desolation, dependent 
 no longer on their ruined seigneurs, had to look to themselves 
 for their own safety. There arose from the common instinct 
 of self-preservation, bonds of union which united the to\\'ns- 
 folk more closely than the walls of their city, and patriotism
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for France was metamorphosed into a burning zeal for the 
 safety and welfare of the town. The town of Cahors, for 
 instance, the birthplace of Clement Marot, would not allow 
 their spiritual and temporal lord, the Bishop, to enter within 
 the walls until he had sworn twice to respect the laws and 
 privileges of the town. Little by little they extorted one 
 concession after another from successive Bishops, till, in the 
 eyes of the age, they obtained perfect liberty. There was 
 even a bourgeois nobility, the representatives of which were 
 not the less traders and merchants. The town had to work 
 hard, all the citizens belonging to some trade or guild, 
 but they had their fetes and days of holiday. Then came 
 the masks and mysteries, the time of rough bear play and 
 practical jokes; of Roger Bontemps and his rude wit. 
 Then they sang their songs — songs lasted longer in those 
 days than at present — to the old tunes that they all knew 
 so well, from grandfather to grandson. And the same 
 refrain was heard from year to year: 
 
 "Y avoit trois filles 
 Toutes trois d'un grand, 
 Disoient I'une a 1' autre — 
 Je n'ay point d'amant. 
 Et he ! he ! 
 Vague la galee ; 
 Donnez lui du vent." 
 
 We shall see of what kind the bourgeois amusements 
 were when we come to Coquillart and Roger de Collerye. 
 
 The astute Louis XI. perceived the great use that might 
 be made of the citizens, and from his day, with alternations 
 of good and bad times, they steadily increased in importance 
 and power. That they were gross and coarse in manners
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 was natural in a body of artisans; and that they did not 
 so rapidly gain influence in France as in England is due 
 mainly to the great success and wealth of the English 
 merchants compared with the French. 
 
 It is hard to realise, when one reads of the calamities 
 and disasters of those days, how life was even tolerable. 
 But we forget the spaces of time between events. Plagues 
 came and decimated towns, conquerors came and sacked 
 them, fires burned them doAvn, kings pillaged them by 
 taxation. Still, how many plagues came upon one town? 
 how often was it sacked, burnt, pillaged ? Generation after 
 generation passed away in peace and plenty, and there are 
 to\vns in France which have never, to this day, suffered 
 heavily from war, famine, or pestilence. Even in the bitter 
 times of the English, few to\vns but escaped A\ith a timely 
 submission, and probably the fury of war was felt more 
 among the poor creatures who tilled the field than the 
 smiths who forged the sword. 
 
 For the better class, the choice of professions was only 
 a little more limited than it is at this day. Men could 
 enter the church or put on the robe. The former was the 
 better for ambitious minds, the latter, probably, for those 
 who cared more for money than position. Readers of 
 Rabelais and the Arrets d' Amour will gather readily enough 
 that law was then even more technical, dry, and pedantic 
 than it is at present. As for the Church, it was no longer 
 the refuge of piety but the school of promotion. Doubtless 
 there were good, humble, single-minded priests in those 
 days as in all others, but in the course of my reading I 
 have met with none — except the one example of Bishop
 
 26 , INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Octavien de Saint Gelais, and he was only a repentant 
 prodigal — and, which is worse, I have met with no hint 
 or sign or trace that there Avere any. Was faith in its 
 proper sense dead in those times? It would seem almost 
 as if it were. There were, as always, men to preach terror 
 to sinners, and men to sell them pardon ; but the undis- 
 guised abuse, in the middle ages, of the Church, and the 
 constant fruitless efforts to break the iron chain, shew 
 something deeper than a mere protest against the impiety 
 and iniquitous lives of Churchmen. And what a long list 
 may be made of early reformers ! Wyclyf, Huss, Savanarola, 
 the Albigeois, Dolcino, and a crowd of others, all protested. 
 Some were burnt, some got through by powerful protection ; 
 a few, such as St. Francis or St. Dominic, sought by a 
 stricter rule of life to bring back an ideal state of simplicity 
 and innocence. But in the course of ages a great mass of 
 legendary belief had gradually grown up. To coarse and 
 rude minds terror is the only law, and the only side of 
 religion by which they could be approached was that which 
 threatened tortures and despair for sins. Therefore the 
 doctrine of Hell and Purgatory grew deeper into men's 
 minds ; the Christian religion became a sort of tariff, by 
 which for such a sin such a penalty could be exacted, but 
 which might be evaded by the goodness and clemency of 
 the Church. We find, even in these days, this form of 
 belief still existing. Still, utterly monstrous as it is, perhaps 
 in its practical working it was no worse for rough minds 
 than the Draconian law of our Puritans, not yet stamped 
 out of our unwritten Articles. 
 
 The Reform was ripening through these centuries. In
 
 INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 the fifteenth the cry of indignation was louder and more 
 persistent than in any preceding age. Coarse abuse pre- 
 ceded and accompanied the satire of Erasmus, and effected 
 changes of thought Avhere his deHcate irony would have 
 been powerless. It must be acknowledged that the Church 
 of Rome before the Reformation, and that after it, are two 
 things quite different in their popular aspects. There have 
 been no Tetzels since the Reformation ; a better succession 
 of Popes followed, and the license of monks was effectively 
 repressed. If the voice of the people was silenced, at 
 least many of the abuses were repressed, and the Church 
 began to recover her self-respect. Stated briefly, mediaeval 
 Catholicism was dying out of men's minds, and modem 
 Catholicism slowly coming into existence. Reform, in that 
 thorough spirit which led to separation, never found very 
 deep root among the Latin races. Exceptional men were 
 seen, like Coligny and a few others, but — it may be from the 
 hereditary old Roman sense of unity and imperialism — the 
 mass of the people, or the leading men of thought, neither 
 contemplated nor would tolerate the idea of disruption. 
 
 Of what kind is this literature that we are about to 
 consider ? It must be remembered that there was, as yet, 
 little of philosophy, though plenty of scholasticism, little 
 of scholarship, little acquaintance with Latin and Greek 
 historians, no acquaintance with the great poets of Greece, 
 little with those of Rome. Literature had no high aims and 
 no great models. It aimed as yet at amusing, and had little 
 care for aught else. If a reflection occurred to the poet he 
 put it down, but his reflections were generally singularly 
 trite. He loved to sing of the spring and the green grass,
 
 28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the summer flowers and the warbling of the birds. He was 
 not intellectual, but sensuous. He knew nothing about 
 hidden springs of action, nor cared to pry into the human 
 heart. Robert Browning he would have burnt as an un- 
 intelligible sorcerer, Shelley for his Revolt of Islam, or for 
 those parts which he could understand of it, would have 
 been consigned to the Chastelet. The warmth of the sun 
 expanded his soul and made him sing ; and he sang, like 
 the birds, to please his mate. Love, and the praise of love, 
 are the only indication, as they were almost the only source, 
 of his sense of beauty. 
 
 "Corps feminin, qui tant est tendre, 
 Polly, souef, si gracieux," 
 
 was then, as always, the ideal of beauty and of grace. To 
 be successful in love was his truest happiness, to be scorned 
 his greatest misery. It is creditable that he^ added to this 
 entirely human sentiment the christian, or chivalrous, respect 
 of women, which is the redeeming point in that early morality. 
 Only occasionally he breaks out into some half passionate, 
 half laughing protest against the coquetry and falseness of 
 the fair sex ; as when Charles asks where she is to be found 
 who loves loyalty, or when Bishop Octavien de Saint Gelais 
 says that Motisieur vaiit Men Madame. A great deal of this 
 was of course affectation, but it was that kind of affectation 
 which distinguishes the savage from the civilized, which 
 prevents us from fighting for the best bits at table, and 
 from settling our disputes with the aid of the poker. If we 
 
 1 That is, the knightly poet, not the bourgeois. This makes all the 
 difference between Charles of Orleans and Coquillart — Saint Gelais 
 and Villon.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 may judge by the ' courts of Love' and their decisions, love- 
 making was a most complicated and serious affair. The 
 lady's heart was a fort which the lover had to assail by 
 stratagem and by military tactics. And this feeling sur- 
 vived far down, almost to our oavti century. In the ' Pre- 
 cieuses Ridicules' of Moliere, Madelon and Cathos are 
 highly indignant at the downright fashion of their wooers. 
 " La belle galanterie que la leur ! Quoi ! dt^buter d' abord 
 par le mariage ! . . . . ne faire 1' amour qu' en faisant le 
 contrat de mariage ! et prendre justement le Roman par la 
 queue !" There is a book by Andre' Chapelain, written in 
 the beginning of the thirteenth century, which is a sort of 
 locus classiais on this subject. It is called " De arte ama- 
 toria et reprobatione amoris." I have not been able to see 
 it, but it is said to contain the fullest information possible 
 on the niceties of this study of love. 
 
 " The truth of poetry is to paint the human soul truly." 
 Alas ! how much then of my friends' verse is poetry ? But 
 the soul is many-sided ; let me shew that one side only is 
 painted, and my versifiers will be poets. Or, to take Leigh 
 Hunt's definition — rather a wordy and clumsy one — " Poetry 
 is the utterance of a passion for truth, beauty, and power, 
 embodying and illustrating the conception by imagination 
 and fancy, and modulating its language on the principle of 
 variety in uniformity." The craving for expression of 
 thoughts which, if one can express them at all, must be 
 sung and not said ; the power of moving men's hearts by 
 the delineation of scenes and events foreign to their ex- 
 perience ; and the grace and beauty of the music of words 
 in rhythm, to some men more delightful than the music of
 
 30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 instruments, have been, in all ages, the strongest impulses 
 to the making of verse ; and by the very nature of the 
 impulse the verse must be graceful, illustrated by imagina- 
 tion and fancy, and varied in language. The remaining 
 part of the definition cannot always be satisfied. The 
 aiming at truth belongs to higher minds and more cultivated 
 times ; it has never, not even with Shakespeare, who. was 
 perhaps unconsciously truthful, reached to a higher point 
 than in one or two poets of the present century; while 
 power is itself an adjunct of truth, conscious and artistic, 
 or unconscious and natural. 
 
 Let us confess at once that according to no possible 
 definition of poetry is any one of my list of bards a poet. 
 Villemain grants one poet only to the fifteenth century — 
 Charles of Orleans. St. Beuve, by no means an enthusiastic 
 critic, will have none. If Charles is to be accounted a 
 poet, I contend also for Villon, and, if she be admitted at 
 all, for Clotilde de Suiville. Mellin de St. Gelais and 
 Marot belong to the first half of the sixteenth century. 
 
 With the first beginnings of the revival of learning grew 
 up a great desire for the display of learning. Hence 
 Chastellain's curious work in which Achilles has to apologize 
 to Hector for his ill-treatment of him ; hence the great 
 number of works published in Latin as well as in French ; 
 hence the translations, imitations, and constant references 
 to classical works ; hence, too, the attention paid to verbal 
 ingenuity, and the bad taste that characterized the tribe of 
 versifiers under Charles the Eighth and Louis the Twelfth, 
 We shall have to speak more in detail presently of these 
 poetasters, ridiculed by Rabelais, who calls them carilloneiirs
 
 INTROD UCTION: 3 1 
 
 de cloches} At present we must confine ourselves to their 
 style. They were the inventors of numberless difterent 
 modes of rhyming and of endless arrangements of their 
 lines, and so long as they could conform to their own taste- 
 less rules, paid little regard to the thought they wished to 
 express. The Abb(^ Massieu in his little history of French 
 poetry, published in 1739, gives some curious details about 
 their forms of rhvTiies. " I shall not be afraid," he says, 
 " to introd\^ce here a portion of the puerilities which formed 
 the delight of these poets. Their faults may be useful to 
 us, and it is quite right that we should learn what they 
 sought for with so much care, in order to avoid it ourselves." 
 
 These are the foniis he gives, which I copy, with his 
 illustrations. 
 
 " La Rime Batelee." This was when the end of the 
 verse rhymed with the pause of the following verse : 
 
 "Quand Neptunus puissant Dieu de la Mer 
 Cessa d'armer Galm-j et Vaisseaux." 
 
 " La Rime Frateniisee," when the last word of one verse 
 
 was repeated, wholly or in part, at the beginning of the 
 
 next line : 
 
 "Dieu Gard ma maitresse et regetite, 
 Geiite de corps et de fa^oti : 
 Son coeur tient le mien dans sa fcjifi; 
 Tant et plus en mortel frisson." 
 
 " La Rime Retrograde," when you could read the lines 
 backwards, and still hear rh}Tne and metre. This must 
 have been a most laborious style of writing. Here is a 
 specimen : 
 
 ' See note (2) at end of this chapter.
 
 3 2 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 " Triomphamment cherchez honneur et prix, 
 Desolez, coeurs mechans, infortunez, 
 Terriblement estes moquez et pris." 
 
 Now backwards : 
 
 "Pris et moquez estes terriblement, 
 Infortunez, mechans coeurs, desolez, 
 Prix et honneur cherchez triomphamment." 
 
 "La Rime Enchaisnde," a simple alternating of the 
 
 rhyme : 
 
 "Dieu des Amours, de mort me garde, 
 M' en gardant donne moi bonheur : 
 En me la donnant, prends ta Darde, 
 En la prenant, navre son coeur." 
 
 " La Rime Brisee," when the lines may be split up and 
 read different ways. Thus : 
 
 ' ' De coeur parfait chassez toute douleur, 
 Soyez soigneux, n'usez de nulle feinte, 
 Sans vilain fait entretenez douceur, 
 Vaillant et Pieux abandonnez la feinte." 
 
 Which may be read thus : 
 
 "De coeur parfait 
 Soyez soigneux. 
 Sans vilain fait 
 Vaillant et Pieux. 
 Chassez toute douleur 
 N'usez de nulle feinte, 
 Entretenez douceur, 
 Abandonnez la feinte." 
 
 *' La Rime Equivoque," of which Guillaume Cretin was 
 a great master, consists in repeating the last word or words 
 of one line at the end of the next, but with a different 
 signification. Thus :
 
 INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 " Peuples en paix te plaise maintettir, 
 Et envers nous si bien la main ienir, 
 Qu'aprcs la vie ayons fin de tnort se&re. 
 Pour eviter infeniale viorsiire." 
 
 "La Rime Senee," when all the words of each verse 
 began with the same letter : 
 
 "Ardent Amour, Adorable Angclique." 
 
 This has the merit at least of being easy, which is the 
 principal reason why it was not generally followed. 
 
 " La Rime Couronnee," a double rhyme, a most in- 
 genious invention, and highly poetical form. Other ex- 
 amples will be found of it in Chapter VIIL : 
 
 "Mar blanche cdiomhelle d'' die, 
 Je vais souvent prir/;// criant. 
 Qui dessous la cordt'/Zt' belle, 
 Me jette un ceil friand, riattt." 
 
 And the " Rime Empe'rie're." This was Molinet's triumph. 
 
 Look at it : 
 
 "Benins lecteurs, tres dSWgetis gens, getis, 
 Prenez en gre mes impar/izZ/j, fails, fails." 
 
 Imperfect ! Observe the modesty of the true poet. 
 
 They had, besides, verses of one syllable, tvvo syllables, 
 three syllables, and so on. They made their lines of 
 unequal length, so as to form ovals, triangles, crosses, etc. 
 Of this trifling we have examples in English verse. 
 
 But why revive the memories of these absurdities ? 
 
 " In Literature" — I am quoting no less a wTiter than 
 De Quincy — " not the weight of service done, or the power 
 exerted, is sometimes considered chiefly — either of these 
 must be very conspicuous before it will be considered at all 
 
 D
 
 34 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 — but the splendour, or the notoriety, or the absurdity, or 
 even the scandalousness of the circumstances surrounding 
 the author." 
 
 Now we have to consider every one of these things, and 
 more. But I wish to revive the memory of these obscure 
 and forgotten authors for many other reasons, and chiefly 
 for this : that the story of the Literature of France would 
 be incomplete without them. Were all the English Amtings 
 between Chaucer and Spenser hopelessly lost, our history 
 would be littie the worse; England took a gigantic leap 
 in the age, so enthusiastic and exalte, of Elizabeth ; and 
 Shakespeare, king of all writers that ever lived, was the 
 offspring of the time, and not of the foregone times. He 
 owed nothing, absolutely nothing, except the incidents of 
 a tale or two, to Lydgate, Skelton, and all the tribe of 
 versifiers that preceded him. French literature took no 
 such mighty leap into full growth. Slowly and continuously 
 she grew in stature, and changed her robes from time to 
 time as she outgrew them. But she was not transformed, 
 and in the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth, are 
 clearly to be discerned the features of that of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. 
 
 Further, in these authors we read the spirit of the times, 
 its religion and its social life. Very little things shew the 
 change of national modes of thought. For instance, M. 
 D'Hericault remarks that in the earlier times the image of 
 the Blessed Virgin was that of a middle-aged woman, austere, 
 and unlovely; in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries she 
 grows younger, and is, as it were, "revetue d' amour"; while 
 in that troublous time of the fifteenth century when men
 
 INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 longed for authority and power, and prayed for a strong 
 man, she became an empress : 
 
 "Dame des cieux, rcgentc terrienne, 
 Empt'iicre des infernaulx paliix." 
 
 Or again, to quote the same author, we see in these 
 poets " the characteristic side of the fifteenth century, the 
 perturbation of moral sense, doubt on every side, a blinding 
 of all consciences, hesitation among the most learned, mu- 
 tability among the most deeply convinced, and confusion 
 of the sincere conscience which sees everywhere nothing 
 but fluctuating ideas, things corrupt, shameful, and dis- 
 graced." 
 
 And, lastly, the study of these writers is interesting and 
 useful for this reason, that they represent the beginning of 
 a new and the end of an old order. The Mahometan, 
 expelled at one end of Europe, entered at another ; a great 
 kingdom rose in the west, and one fell in the east. Print- 
 ing and the revival of Greek learning caused a revolution 
 in scholarship; to east and west, across the ocean which 
 till now had been the bounding river of the world, were 
 opened out new lands, new fields of enterprise, new sources 
 of wealth. Language became fixed, and the folk learned 
 to find wisdom as well as amusement in books : and in the 
 newly-printed works of Roman literature, students discovered 
 how thought and language may be wedded, and of what 
 mighty and deep things words are capable. It was not for 
 threescore years and more that the dazzled minds of men 
 could comprehend the splendour of the new order, nor was 
 it till the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century that Shakespeare and Spenser and
 
 36 introduction: 
 
 Jonson; Ariosto, Tasso, Cervantes, Montaigne, Malherbe, 
 spoke ; that Drake, Pizarro, Cortes did mighty deeds ; that 
 Gahleo, Descartes, and Tycho Brahe thought. Men at first, 
 like children suddenly rushing from the dark school-room to 
 the bright sunshine, could do nothing but dance about and 
 shout. 
 
 Let this be a sufficient apology. My poets are all bom 
 before the sixteenth century, and are all tinged with some 
 of the old spirit, except, perhaps, Mellin de Saint Gelais. 
 They begin with Froissart, and end with Clement Marot. 
 Of the great mass of verse writers who were contempo- 
 raneous with or followed immediately after Clement, I have 
 not spoken. One or two of them deserve honour ; most of 
 them belong to the tribe of imitators. 
 
 With regard to the editions of the poets of whom I have 
 undertaken to give an account, most of them have been 
 reprinted, or printed for the first time, within the last fifty 
 years. But there are a few^ — Christine de Pisan and Alain 
 Chartier, for instance — who have never been printed or are 
 inaccessible, and a mass of others, the great tribe of Molinet 
 and Company, whose reputation is gone, and their works 
 lost or only found in curious collections. With these I 
 have been, perforce, content to get what selections I could, 
 and to rely for the rest on the judgment of others. The 
 descriptions of the allegorists, for instance, I owe almost 
 wholly to Goujet's old book on French Literature. Michault 
 and Martial de Paris have not, so far as I know, been re- 
 printed of late years, the latest editions I have seen of them 
 being upwards of a hundred years old. The rest are found 
 in the Bibliotheque Elzeverienne, or are published singly by 
 Messrs. P. L. Jacob, Ch. D' Hericault, Tarb^, etc.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 37 
 
 A few things remain to be noted. 
 
 The University of Paris, to which so many of my poets 
 belonged, was in its constitution something hke what Oxford 
 and Cambridge are now. It had its own rights, governors, 
 privileges, and laws. It was independent of the town, it 
 had colleges, scholarships, rectors, and lecturers ; it formed 
 a small nation of itself. Many of its students were horribly 
 poor, like Villon, and seem to have got their living anyhow, 
 from patrons, by begging, or by stealing. As for their 
 course of studies, it was very limited. Latin was the only 
 language they knew anything about, and theology the only 
 study in which any interest was taken. Though the tri- 
 vium and the quadrivium were still in vogue at the end of 
 the fifteenth century, the University of Paris was at the head 
 of European education. It numbered 25000 scholars, and 
 5000 graduates. 
 
 The Basoche properly means the commonalty of the 
 clerks of parliament and lawyers, who had a kind of juris- 
 diction between themselves. The Basochiens, envious of 
 the success of the confreres de la Passion in their mysteries, 
 formed a sort of dramatic company, and acted allegorical 
 dramas. From them sprang another society called Les 
 Enfants de Sans Souci. They discarded the gravity of 
 allegory, and played what they called soties. These were 
 a mixture of the old ' morality' and the modern farce, A\ath 
 a strong infusion of satire. Clement Marot is said to have 
 belonged to this troop before becoming page to Monsieur 
 de Neuville. Constant allusions are made in the literature 
 of the time to these dramatic companies. 
 
 As for the form of our poetry, it consists of ballads, 
 
 3 1 u 1 tj
 
 38 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 chansons, rondeaux, tengons, lays, virelays, triolets, sirventes, 
 diets, and complaintes. 
 
 The ballad differed from the chanson only in having its 
 refrain at the end of each verse. The rondeau generally 
 consists of fifteen lines with only two rhymes ; the first 
 words of the first line are repeated in the ninth and the 
 last line. The best specimens of this laboured and 
 artificial form are certainly Clement Marot's. Examples 
 of the rondeau will be found in the following pages. 
 
 The tengons were questions and answers on matters 
 relating to the science of love, and were greatly in vogue 
 at the time of the Cours d' Amour, ' les plaids et gieux sous 
 r orme.' 
 
 The triolet was another common form. This pretty 
 little poem consisted of eight verses with two rhymes. The 
 first two verses are repeated at the end to form a sort of 
 refrain, and sometimes in the middle, for example : 
 
 "Le premier jour du mois de Mai 
 Fut le plus heureux de ma vie. 
 Le beau dessein que je formai 
 Le premier jour du mois de Mai ! 
 Je vous vis et je vous aimai — 
 Si ce dessein vous plut, Sylvie, 
 Le premier jour du mois de Mai 
 Fut le plus heureux de ma vie." 
 
 Sirventes were generally gallant or satirical pieces with 
 a kind of invocation : reverdies were little songs of spring 
 time and love : chansons, lais, virelais, were different forms 
 of songs, some with a refrain, and some without. The 
 laws of these were altered from time to time. 
 
 My aim is to form an introduction to French poetry;
 
 INTRODUCTION. 39 
 
 to shew by what means, and through what varying standards 
 of taste the language of poetry came down to Boileau. 
 With this object I have abstained from treating on the 
 Langue d' Oil and the earher versifiers, save in the brief 
 examples given above ; and I have considered that the best 
 means of attaining my purpose was to take the poets singly 
 — they have, as a rule, little connection with each other — 
 and discuss their works and their genius. I begin with 
 Jean Froissart, in whom many of the older forms and idioms 
 are dropping out, and who is certainly the first that can 
 be considered as having written in modern French — I 
 include all the poets of the fifteenth century, and one or 
 two of the early part of the sixteenth. And I conclude 
 with Clement Marot, because, "on retrouve en lui la 
 couleur de Villon, la gentillesse de Froissart, la delicatesse 
 de Charles d' Orleans, le bon sens d' Alain Chartier, et la 
 verve mordante de Jean de Meung." He sums up the 
 middle ages ; he heralds the new style ; he is the last of the 
 old poets in thought, and the first of the new in language. 
 
 With regard to the language of the fifteenth century, I 
 do not think it necessary or desirable to enter into any 
 detailed account of its peculiarities. Should I find time 
 and opportunity, I propose a separate Treatise on the 
 History and Formation of the Langue d'Oil. I hope 
 there \A\\ be no difficulty in understanding the extracts 
 which I have given ; with a view to facilitate the reading, 
 I have given brief foot notes. Words occur which have 
 been lost, such as het — hilaritas; aie — aide; antan — ante 
 annum ; sade, sadinet — agreeable ; mie — mica. Words are 
 spelt differently, apuys is appui ; poy is peu ; karesme is
 
 40 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 careme. These are always distinguishable. Grammatical 
 forms are sometimes more difficult, thus : lairroy is laisserai; 
 oy is ai ; tiengne is tienne ; querra is cherchera ; tu ne 
 congnois is tu ne connais pas ; the pronoun is not indis- 
 pensable, and is as often as not omitted ; si is sic, while se 
 is generally si ; o is avec ; soubs is sub ; sus is super ; luy, 
 moy, suys, ung, and such words explain themselves. One 
 very simple rule is that, whenever a circumflex occurs in 
 modern French there will be an s in old French. Thus, 
 fete is feste. 
 
 Note i. 
 
 The Oath of Louis de Germanique. 
 
 This is curious as shewing the state of the popular language in the 
 ninth century. It is as follows ; — 
 
 Pro Deo amur et pro christian poplo, et nostro commun salvament 
 dist di in avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo 
 cist meon fradre Karlo et in adjudha, et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om 
 per dreit son fradra Salvan dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab 
 Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui, meon vol, cist meon fradre 
 Karle in damno sit. 
 
 SeRMENT DES seigneurs FRAN9AIS, SUJETS PE 
 
 Charles-le-Chauve. 
 
 Si Lodhuwigs sagrament, que son frade Karlo jurat, conservat, et 
 Karlus meos sendra de suo part non lo stanit, si io returnar non I'int 
 pois, ne io ne neuls, cui eo returnar int pois, in nulla adjudha contra 
 Lodhuwig nun li iner.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 41 
 
 Note ii. 
 
 ronsard and the pleiad. 
 
 This curious movement sprang from the eagerness with which 
 Classical literature was studied. Ronsard, himself an enthusiast in 
 one direction as much as Malherbe subsequently in the opposite, ini- 
 tiated with others as zealous as himself, a sort of Perpetual Adoration 
 of study. Their lamp was never extinguished, the work never stopped ; 
 and after years of labour they were prepared, not to improve the language, 
 but to remodel it altogether. It seems ridiculous to us that one man, 
 or one small body of men should propose to themselves this gigantic 
 task, but so it was. The kind of language they tried to introduce is 
 ridiculed by Rabelais. Pantagruel meets a Limousin scholar who in- 
 forms him how they spend their time in Paris. "We transfretate the 
 Sequane at the dilucul and crepuscul ; we deambulate by the compiles 
 and quadrives of the urb ; we despumate the Lalial verbocination, and 
 like verisimilary amorabons, we captat the benevolence of the omnijugal, 
 omniform, and omnigenal feminine sex. And if by fortune there be 
 rarity, or penury of pecune in our marsupies, and that they be exhausted 
 of ferruginean metal, for the shot we demit our codices, and oppignerat 
 our vestiments, whilst we prestolate the coming of the Tabellaries from 
 the Penates and patriotic Lares." To which Pantagruel answers — 
 "What devilish language is this? by the Lord, I think thou art some 
 kind of heretic."
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROISSART— ALAIN CHARTIER— CHRISTINE DE PISAN 
 — EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS. 
 
 It is impossible of course to name any year, or any short 
 period, when the Langue d' Oil changed into French. As, 
 however, the child grows into the man, so the young 
 language grows into the mature. Further, as children 
 rejoice in tales of feats of arms, of wonders, of travels ; as 
 a young man's mind lightly turns to thoughts of love ; as 
 wisdom and reflection come with age, so French literature, 
 which begins with those wonderful old contes et fabliaux, 
 where Alexander and Hector are knights ; where Aristotle, 
 overcome by love, consents to carry a lady sitting on his 
 back, as if he were an ass ; where love has all its grossness, 
 but none of its passion : where the thing to be said is 
 plainly said without the veil of decency and the assistance 
 of the imagination ; where fact and fancy are mixed up in 
 that delicious and dreamlike mess, which children love : — 
 goes on to the reign of Love, wlien poetry becomes a 
 collection of songs and ballads all on one theme; and, 
 tired at last of this, drops down into the quiet maturity 
 of life, when it has acquired knowledge, suffered enough
 
 FROISSART. 43 
 
 to learn wisdom, and, being now practised in speaking, 
 begins to speak to some purpose. Rutebeuf, Charles of 
 Orleans, and Boileau, may be taken as representative men 
 of the three stages. We are chiefly concerned with the 
 middle period, when the child was become a young man, 
 the teller of stories a singer of love songs. 
 
 I cannot find any fitter man to commence this middle 
 period than Jean Froissart. He is known, chiefly, of 
 course, by his Chronicles, but he was the author of a great 
 quantity of verses. These, which are spirited and graceful, 
 shew in their language a great advance on the lines of 
 Gaston de Foix or Thibault de Champagne. In this ex- 
 ample, however, the language is modernized : 
 
 "Le corps s'en va, mais le cccur vous demeure; 
 Tr^s chere dame, adieu jusqu'au retour. 
 Trop me sera lointaine ma demeure. 
 Le corps s'en va, mais le cceur vous demeure, 
 Tres chore dame, adieu jusqu'au retour. 
 Mais doux penser que j'aurai a toute hcure, 
 Adoucira grant part de ma doulour. 
 Tres chere dame, adieu jusqu'au retour; 
 Le corps s'en va, mais le coeur vous demeure." 
 
 Most of his pieces are in a similar strain. Here is one 
 lighter and more musical : 
 
 "On dit que j'ay bien maniere 
 
 D' estre orguillousette : 
 Bien afiert' a estre fiere 
 
 Jeune pucelette. 
 Hier matin me levay 
 
 Droit a la journee. 
 En un jardinet entray 
 
 Dessus la rousee. 
 
 * affiert, it is becoming.
 
 44 CHAPTER /. 
 
 Je cuyday^ estre premiere 
 
 Au clos sur I'herbette: 
 Mais mon doux amy y ere, 
 Cueillant la flourette. 
 
 On dit que j'ay bien maniere 
 
 D' estre orguillousette : 
 Bien afiert a estre fiere 
 
 Jeune pucelette. 
 Un chappelet ly donnai, 
 
 Fait a la vespree : 
 II le prist, bon gre I'en say. 
 
 Puis m'a appellee: 
 Veuillez ouir ma priere, 
 
 Tres belle et doucette : 
 Un petit plus que n'afiere 
 
 Vous m'estes durette. 
 
 On dit que j'ay bien maniere 
 
 D' estre orguillousette: 
 Bien afiert a estre fiere 
 
 Jeune pucelette." 
 
 The name of Alain Chartier, once the most famous poet 
 of his age, has wellnigh died out of the memory of man. 
 "Le bien disant en rhythme et prose, Alain," 
 
 rests in obscurity in his unpubUshed manuscripts. Like 
 others of his time, he is lost by the very magnitude of his 
 works ; they are too big to be printed, save at the expense 
 of a nation, and too voluminous for any single man to hope 
 to get through them. 
 
 Alain Chartier was born about 1386, and died about 
 1458. An attempt has been made to prove him of honour- 
 able descent, but on this point we may afford to be in- 
 different. He was secretary to Charles the Sixth, and, 
 
 * cuyday, thought.
 
 ALAIN CIIARTIER. 45 
 
 after his death, to Charles the Seventh, and held other 
 appointments. He is said to have been the ugliest man 
 in France. One day, Margaret, wife of the Dauphin, after- 
 wards Louis the Eleventh, finding him sleeping in a hall, 
 kissed him before her attendants, saying, "It is not the 
 man whom I have kissed, but the mouth out of which so7}t 
 issus taut iV excellent s propos, matures graves, et paroles 
 elegantes.''^ 
 
 His poetical works, which have not been reprinted since 
 161 7, consist oi Le Dehat dti Reveil Matin: la belle Dafue 
 sans mercy: le Lay de Paix : le Breviaire des Nobles: le 
 Livre des Quatre Barnes, and others. The language is 
 greatly indebted to Chartier. He was the first who wrote 
 with facility, using rhymes interlaced and doubled, instead 
 of the old couplet rh)Tne. His facility spoiled him as a 
 poet, the extracts which I have seen of him showing more 
 ease than art, and more command of language than origin- 
 ality of thought. He was happy in gaining a reputation 
 during his life which did not die with him. For the next 
 hundred years he was recognised as the real founder of 
 modern French poetry. Goujet collects together a number 
 of eulogistic notices of him. Clement Marot says : 
 
 "En Maistre Alain Nonnandie prend gloire, 
 
 The anonymous author of the Art of Rhetoric says : 
 
 "Par Maistre Alain a qui Dieu pardon face, 
 Cest art ici monstre et verifie." 
 
 And Octavien de Saint Gelais : 
 
 "Je, pen apres visitant ce quartier, 
 Vis un Tocte hault et scientifique.
 
 46 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Helas ! c'etoit feu Maistre Alain Chartier, 
 Doux en ses faicts, et plein de Rhetorique, 
 Clerc excellent, orateur magnifique, 
 Comma Ton pent par ses diets tesmoigner, 
 Art si tres bien I'apprint a besongner, 
 Qu'oncques Vulcan mieux n'ouvra sur I'enclume, 
 Que cestuy fist de papier et de plume." 
 
 His book, des Quatre Dames, is styled by Goujet the 
 most supportable of Alain Chartier's poems. In it four 
 ladies, who have lost their lovers on the day of Azincourt, 
 lament their misfortunes. One, certain of the death of her 
 lover, extols his virtues, and is almost in despair; the 
 second has heard that hers is taken prisoner; the third 
 considers herself more unhappy than the others because she 
 has heard no news at all of hers; while the fourth claims 
 the preeminence of misfortune. Her friends have lost their 
 lovers honourably ; one is dead, one is a prisoner, one may 
 perhaps return, not ingloriously, — but for her, her lover is 
 a coward, he fled from the fatal field, and she would rather 
 have him dead than dishonoured. 
 
 The following " Idylle" I extract from the collection of 
 Auguis. He goes forth one fine spring morning to forget 
 his melancholy. It is almost unnecessary to explain that 
 his melancholy was caused by love, and that it was the 
 normal state of all poets and knights, especially, one would 
 say, if they were so ugly as Alain Chartier. One remembers 
 when Don Quixote insisted on being left in the mountains 
 to indulge undisturbed in the freaks of melancholy and 
 lover's madness. Chartier did much the same. 
 
 "Tout autour oiseaux voletoient, 
 Et si tres doucement chantoient,
 
 ALAIN CH ARTIER. ^J 
 
 Qu'il n'est coeur qui n'en fut joyeux; 
 Et en chantant en I'air montoicnt, 
 Et puis I'un 1' autre surmontoient 
 A I'estrivee a qui niieux mieux, 
 Le temps n'estoit mie' nueux 
 De bleu estoient vestus les cieux, 
 Et le beau soleil cler luisoit. 
 Violettes croissoient par lieux, 
 Et tout faisoit ses devoirs, tieux 
 Comme nature le duisoit. 
 
 Oiseaux en buissons s'assembloient : 
 
 L'un chantoit, les autres doubloient 
 
 Leurs gorgettes, qui verboyoient 
 
 Le chant que nature a appris, 
 
 Et puis l'un de 1' autre s'embloient, 
 
 Et point un s'entrc-rcssembloient : 
 
 Tant en y eut, que ilz sembloient, 
 
 Fors k estre en nombre compris. 
 
 Les arbres regarday flourir, 
 
 Et lievres et lapins courir. 
 
 Du printemps tout s'esjouissoit. 
 
 La sembloit amour seignourir, 
 
 Nul n'y peut vieillir, ni mourir, 
 
 Ce me semble, tant qu'il y soit . . , , 
 
 Si disoie k Amours: "Amours, 
 Pourquoi me fais tu vivre en plours, 
 Et passer tristement mcs jours, 
 Quand tu donnes par tout plaisance?" 
 
 Spring, Love, Joy, Winter, Sorrow, and Old Age — these 
 are the stock subjects of tlie old writers; when these fail, 
 we can at least betake ourselves to giving good advice. 
 Here is some. It is in a ballad, of which the refrain is 
 " Vous n' aviez rien quand vous fustes nez." 
 
 ' mic, Lat. mica, nc mie, not at all.
 
 48 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "O fols du fols, et les fols mortels hommes, 
 Qui vous fiez tant ez biens de fortune, 
 En celle terre, et pays oil nous sommes, 
 Y avez vous de chose propre aucune ? 
 Vous n'y avez chose vostre nesune, ' 
 Fors les beaux dons de grace et de nature, 
 Si fortune done par cas d'aventure, 
 Vous toult" les biens que vostres vous tenez 
 Tort ne vous fait, ain9ois vous fait droiture. 
 Car vous n'aviez rien quand vous fustes nez. 
 
 Ne laissez plus le dormir a grands sommes' 
 
 En votre lit, par nuit obscure et brune, 
 
 Pour acquester richesses a grands sommes : 
 
 Ne convoitez choses dessous la lune, 
 
 Ni de Paris jusques a Pampelune, 
 
 Fors ce qu'il faut sans plus a creature, 
 
 Pour recouvrer sa simple nourriture. 
 
 Souffise-vous d'estre bien renommez, 
 
 Et d' emporter bon loz en sepulture : 
 
 Car vous n'aviez rien quand vous fustes nez. 
 
 Les joyeux fruits des arbres, et les pommes, 
 Au temps que fut toute chose commune, 
 Le beau miel, les glandes et les gommes 
 Souffisoient bien a chascun, a chascune : 
 Et pour ce fut sans noise* et sans rancune. 
 Soyez contents de chauld et de froidure, 
 Et ne prenez fortune douce et sure : 
 Pour vos pertes enfin dueil ne menez, 
 Fors a raison, a point, et a mesure : 
 Car vous n'aviez rien quand vous fustes nez. 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 Si fortune vous fait aucune injure, 
 
 C'est de son droit, ja ne Ten reprenez, 
 
 Perdissiez-vous jusques k la vesture : 
 
 Car vous n'aviez rien quand vous fustes nez." 
 
 ^ nesune, ne ipsum unum, not even one. ' toult, tollit. 
 
 3 somme, somnus. * noise, quaiTel.
 
 CHRISTINE DE PISAN. 49 
 
 Contemporaneous w iili Alain was Christine de Pisan. 
 
 " D' avoir le pris en science et doctrine, 
 Bien merita de Pisan la Christine 
 Durant ses jours." 
 
 Let US not think tliat the hfe of the professed Htterateur 
 is a thing wliolly of modern times. Men have Hved on the 
 fruit of their brains in all ages. When there was no public, 
 there were patrons. Marie de France enjoyed the liberality 
 of Henry the Third of England, Alain Chartier found 
 Charles the Seventh, and Christine de Pisan Henry the 
 Fourth and Charles the Sixth. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how, in those days, a poet 
 grew popular ; how he multiplied copies of his works, and 
 was, so to speak, published and reviewed. There were no 
 slaves, as in Rome, employed in copying for the booksellers 
 and librarians ; the monasteries, one is accustomed to think, 
 were at this time still chiefly employed in effacing the 
 classic trumpery of Livy and Virgil, in order to make room 
 for the lives of the saints ; there was no demand for books, 
 no booksellers, no body of people who could read. On the 
 other hand, all could listen. If the poet sent one copy to 
 his patron it was probably the only one he made. And as 
 the patron in general liked to be read to rather than to 
 read, one copy was sufficient for him and his house. 
 
 Thomas de Pisan, astrologer to king Charles the Fifth 
 of France, left Italy in 1368, taking with him his little 
 daughter Christine for the French court. Whatever know- 
 ledge could in those days be got at was put into the head 
 of the little girl, who grew up a prodigy of knowledge and 
 cleverness. At the age of fifteen she was married to 
 
 E
 
 50 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Etienne du Castel, a gentleman of Picardy. Both father 
 and husband died before she was twenty-five, and she was 
 left almost destitute, with three children. She did what 
 a clever woman of the present day would try to do — she 
 had recourse to her pen, and wrote verses for the support 
 of her little ones. During a long life — she did not die till 
 1 43 1 — she maintained herself by writing, getting a good 
 deal of success, but very little money. The Earl of Salis- 
 bury, who came to France on the occasion of the marriage 
 of Isabella of Valois to Richard the Second, adopted her 
 son and took him to England ; and on his fall, Henry the 
 Fourth, reading a collection of her poems, entreated her 
 to make his court the place of her residence. This offer 
 she refused. A similar offer, made her by the Duke of 
 Milan, Galeas Visconti, met with the same answer. Philip, 
 Duke of Burgundy, took care of her son when the youth 
 returned from England, and engaged her to write " le livre 
 des faits et bonnes moeurs du sage roy Charles." Charles 
 the Sixth in 1411 made her a present of 200 livres, which 
 must have been a most welcome godsend to the poor 
 poetess. 
 
 There exist two portraits of Christine de Pisan ; one in 
 the manuscript in the Imperial Library at Paris, and one in 
 the Harleian manuscript in the British Museum. The latter 
 has been engraved and coloured in Shaw's " Dresses and 
 Decorations of the Middle Ages." 
 
 Here is a ballad complaining of her lonely condition, 
 I give one verse : 
 
 ".Seulette suis et seulette veuil estre, 
 tjeulette m'a mon doulx ami laissiee,
 
 CHRISTINE DE PIS AN. 51 
 
 Seulette suis sans compagnon ne maitre, 
 Seulettc suis dolente et courrouciee, 
 Seulette suis en langiiour maisaissi^, 
 Seulette suis plus que nulle esgaree, 
 Seulette suis sans ami demouree." 
 
 Here are some of the " Diets moraulx" for her son : 
 
 " Fils, je n'ai mie' grand tresor 
 Pour t'enrichir. Mais au lieu d'or, 
 Aucuns enseignements montrer, 
 Te veuil, si les veuilles noter. 
 
 Des ta jeunesse pure et monde, 
 Apprends a cognoitre le monde 
 Si que tu puisses par appendre 
 Garder en tous cas de mesprendre. 
 
 Se as bon maistre, sers le bien, 
 Dys bien de lui, garde le sien, 
 Son secret scelles, quoi qu'il fasse, 
 Soyes humlje devant sa face. 
 
 Trop convoiteux ne soyes mye, 
 Car convoitise est ennemye 
 De chastete et de sagesse, 
 Te garde aussy de foil' largesse. 
 
 Se tu as estat ou office, 
 Dont tu te meles de justice, 
 Garde comment tu jugeras, 
 Car devant le grant juge iras. 
 
 Tiens toi a table honestement, 
 
 Et t' habilles de vestement 
 
 En tel atour qu' on ne s' en mocque : 
 
 Car on cognoist I'oeuf a la coque. 
 
 Ayes pitie des pauvres gens 
 Que tu voys nuz et indigens, 
 Et leur aydcs quant tu porras ; 
 Souviengne toy que tu morras. 
 
 ^ mie (see note, p. 47). It occuis very frequently.
 
 52 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Ne soyes decepveur de femmes, 
 Honoure les, ne les diffames, 
 Souffise toi d'en amer une, 
 Et ne prends cointance a chacune." 
 
 Note. — Eustache Deschamps may perhaps be considered as belong- 
 ing to this early school of poets. He died very early in the fifteenth 
 century. He was a mighty traveller, visiting Egypt and Syria, and for 
 some time being a captive in the hands of the Saracens. He served 
 Charles the Fifth and Charles the Sixth ; was pillaged by the English, 
 and wrote ballads against them. His works, which are voluminous, 
 have been republished by M. Tarbe, with a notice of his life, and 
 a criticism, chiefly eulogistic, of his poems. I subjoin one or two 
 specimens. This is satirical. 
 
 "Franche Dogue," dist un Anglois, 
 "Vous ne faictes que boire vin." 
 "Si faisons bien."— diet le Frangois — 
 "Mais vous buvez le lunequin. 
 
 Roux estes comme pel de mastin. 
 
 Willequot, de moy apprenez, 
 
 Quand vous yrez par chemin, 
 
 Levez vostre queue, levez." 
 
 "Vous n'estres pas de membres fais 
 Comme est Jacques Thommelin, 
 Qui porte si merveilleux fais 
 Que vous n' y pourriez mettre fin : 
 Ce sont deux tonneaux de despin, 
 C est voir, et la queue de lez. 
 Advisez vous," dist Franchequin, 
 Levez vostre queue, levez." 
 
 Here is a Rondeau : 
 
 "Beau fait aler au chastel de Clermont; 
 Car belle y a et douce compaignie, 
 Qui en dan^ant et chantant s'esbanye. 
 Les dames la tres bonne ch5re font 
 Aux estrangiers. Si convien que je dye : 
 Beau fait aler au chastel de Clermont.
 
 EUSTACIIE DESCIIAMPS. 53 
 
 Une en y a qui les autres semont 
 En toute honour ct en pyeuse vie. 
 C est paradis : et pour ce a tous escrie : 
 Beau fait aler au chastel de Clermont : 
 Car belle y a et donee compaignie." 
 
 Here is a prophecy, as yet unfulfdled : 
 
 "Franc et Escot, li ancien Breton, 
 Les fils de Bnith et toute leur lignie, 
 En un conflit feront crier leur nom, 
 Et la sera une bataille establie. 
 Du sang des morts de chascuns partie 
 Fleuves courront : et veritablement 
 Les fils de Bruth mourront la a tourment, 
 Et dts ce jour n' ont espoir de mercy. 
 Destruiz seront : c' est leur definiment ; 
 Tant qu' on dira — Angleterre fut cy." 
 
 Professor Morley suggests that perhaps Chaucer took the hint of his 
 'Flower and the Leaf from a poem of Deschamps, in which he com- 
 pares the flower and the leaf. lie finds however a resemblance in the 
 beginning of Chaucer's poem to the ' Dit de Vergier' of Machault, and 
 in the end to the ' Lai du Trot' of Helinaud. 
 
 Deschamps has two Ballads on the death of Machault, or Machau, 
 as his name is sometimes spelt. I cannot, in the brief space of a note, 
 do justice to these early poets. Deschamps, in particular, is worthy of 
 careful study. His ballads were published at Reims in 1849, and his 
 'Miroir de Manage' in 1865.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 
 
 In the pleasant month of May, anno Domini 1391, there 
 was great rejoicing in the Hotel St. Pol, at Paris, where 
 Valentine, wife of Louis Duke of Orleans, had presented 
 her husband with a fair young son. In the same month 
 the child was baptized, taking the name of Charles, and 
 having for one of his godfathers the very same Duke of 
 Burgundy who afterwards was the murderer of his father. 
 The child was carefully reared and instructed by his mother, 
 from whom he probably inherited that delicacy of thought 
 and expression in which he excels all his contemporaries. 
 At the usual age of seven he was taken from the hands 
 of the women, and put under proper instruction in order 
 to be made, what his tutors succeeded in making him, the 
 most gallant knight and most accomplished gentleman of 
 his own time. 
 
 Again, in the year 1396, there was a splendid royal 
 marriage in London. Richard the Second took a second 
 wife, Isabella of Valois, unto himself She was only eight 
 years old, and after the ceremony was taken back to her
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 55 
 
 nurses and governesses. Three years later came her luckless 
 husband's deposition and death, after which, a widow of 
 eleven, she returned to France and put herself under the 
 the protection of Louis, Duke of Orleans. Efforts were 
 made by Henry IV, to obtain the hand of Isabella for his 
 son, the Prince of Wales, but she would have none of him. 
 It is said that he even offered to abdicate in favour of his 
 son, if she would marry him, but in vain. Then it was 
 that the Duke of Orleans bethought him of his own son 
 Charles, and though he was three years younger than the 
 bride, only fifteen years old, and of lower rank than the 
 Ex-Queen of England, and, in spite of the tears of Isabella, 
 the betrothal was celebrated with the utmost splendour in 
 1406, and the marriage in 1409. It is said that the tears 
 of the bride were soon dried, and that the union, so long as 
 it lasted, was perfectly happy. She died in 141 o, only 
 twenty-one years of age. 
 
 Meantime, grave events had happened in the Orleans 
 family. In 1407, on that fatal eve of St. Clement, Louis was 
 assassinated by order of the Duke of Burgundy ; Valentine, 
 finding the royal authority powerless to punish so illustrious 
 a criminal, died of a broken heart ; and Charles at the age 
 of seventeen was the head of the family, with the duty before 
 him of avenging his father's murder. To strengthen him- 
 self, on the death of Isabella, he married Bona, daughter of 
 the Count of Armagnac, and in the factious war which 
 followed, he naturally belonged to the Armagnac side. 
 Then came the most evil day that ever broke for France, 
 the day of Azincourt. On the evening of the battle, an 
 English esquire named Richard Waller, going round the
 
 56 CHAPTER II. 
 
 heaps of slain, came upon the body, ahnost lifeless, of 
 Charles of Orleans. In the midst of the misfortunes that 
 befel France, this capture was but one additional blow, and, 
 without hope, for the time, of ransom, Charles was carried 
 off to England. Full particulars of his imprisonment are 
 found in letters and papers of the time. He was a 
 captive for twenty-five years, being kept at Windsor, at 
 Bolingbroke, at London, at Wingfield, and lastly at Calais. 
 Many different efforts were made to procure his release, 
 but it was not till 1440 that it was actually effected at 
 the Conference of Gravelines. The price paid was a 
 hundred and twenty thousand crowns of gold. His return 
 was the signal for a grand national fete. The Duke of 
 Burgundy, Philip the Good, was the provider of the money ; 
 partly, let us hope, in atonement for the murder of Louis. 
 
 Among the papers extant relative to his imprisonment 
 there is the following letter from Sir Reynold Cobham. In 
 the original it is in the Anglo-French of the English court. 
 
 " To the King our Sovereign Lord and the other Lords 
 of his most wise Council. 
 
 "The humble petition of Reynold Cobham, knight — 
 That, as our aforesaid Sovereign Lord, by the advice of his 
 aforesaid Council, by his letters of privy seal dated the 12th 
 day of June last, committed to the said petitioner the Duke 
 of Orleans for safe custody, at the same daily rate of 
 payment, so long as the said Duke should be in his care, 
 as the Earl of Suffolk had taken for the cause aforesaid. 
 And since, O sovereign Lord, the said petitioner has 
 not had from the said 12th of June any payment for the 
 aforesaid guard, please your sovereign Lordship, by the
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 57 
 
 advice of your said Council, to consider the great charges 
 and cost that the said petitioner has by reason of the afore- 
 said guard, and therefore to grant letters of privy seal 
 directed to the treasury of England, to pay to the said 
 petitioner that which is owing to him (hiring the time that 
 the said Duke has been and will be in his keeping, etc." 
 
 The charge of maintaining the royal captive was fixed 
 at 300 marks yearly, but as the treasury was very low, the 
 Earl of Suffolk undertook to do it for "quatorze sols et 
 quatre deniers par jour." Considering that this expense 
 went on for five and-twenty years, it does not appear that 
 Charles's ransom was very exorbitant. 
 
 His misfortunes ended with his return to France. He 
 married a third time in 1440, with Marie of Cleves, niece 
 of the Duke of Burgundy. Great rejoicings took place at 
 this event, which effectually reunited the houses, and a 
 special chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece was held 
 to receive the returned exile. After this the newly married 
 pair went on a sort of triumphal tour through France, in 
 which they received so many tokens of popular fiivour that 
 the king became jealous, and refused to receive Charles, 
 unless he came alone, or with a less numerous following. 
 Thereupon he retired in some disgust to his castle at 
 Blois. His royal cousin's jealousy, however, did not pre- 
 vent Charles from interfering in his behalf with the Duke 
 of Burgundy and the discontented nobles, for which he re- 
 ceived the thanks of the king. Xw unsuccessful attempt to 
 get the succession of Milan, through his mother Valentine, 
 was the last political effort of Charles. After his return 
 from Italy he retired to liis castle at Blois, and gave himself
 
 S8 CHAPTER II. 
 
 up entirely to the cultivation of poetry. His residence was 
 the home of all the minstrels, trouveres, and bards in 
 France ; he, the best poet of all, befriended all poets ; he 
 gave an impulse to letters in France that was felt far into 
 the next century, and the immense literary activity of his 
 own age and that immediately following is, doubtless, greatly 
 due to his encouragement, help, and example. He died in 
 1465, of grief, it is said, on account of the reproaches and 
 injurious suspicions of king Louis XI. "Thus," says his 
 biographer, "no calamity is wanting in the life of the 
 Duke of Orleans. Born in a rank, and with natural in- 
 clinations capable of conquering fortune, he is yet almost 
 always unfortunate and persecuted ; he dies of grief, and 
 his memory, pursued beyond the tomb by the cruel power 
 of Louis XL, falls into oblivion for two centuries." For 
 neither in the next age, nor in the age that followed, was 
 there any further mention of the luckless Charles, save as 
 a prisoner in England, and one of the children of France, 
 It was not till 1734 that the Abbe Sallier, keeper of the 
 maun scripts of the king, came upon his poetry, and let the 
 world know that it had one more neglected poet ; a poet of 
 whom Villemain says that he is the only one of the fifteenth 
 century ; that his is the first work that appeared in France, 
 in which the imagination is correct and simple, and in 
 which there is found an elegance of style almost premature. 
 His poems are found in several manuscripts ; of these 
 the most important is that of Grenoble : it is mainly from 
 this that the modern and complete edition of Charles, by 
 M. Champollion Figeac, has been taken. Memoirs and 
 notices of Charles have been made by Sallier, Goujet, 
 Auguis, and Villemain.
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 59 
 
 Three distinct periods are to be traced in his verses. 
 The first, in which he celebrates the beauty of his mistress, 
 probably Bona, his second wife, his love, and her death ; 
 the second, in which he laments the state of France, and 
 his own captivity, and longs for his return ; and the third, 
 in which, returned and married again, he presides over his 
 poetic court at Blois, entertains his friends, proposes sub- 
 jects for their verse, and contests with the peaceful weapons 
 of pen and lute. Here came bards of every degree, from 
 the king of Sicily to Villon, if, indeed, as M. Champollion 
 Figeac asserts, Villon was ever a guest of Charles. 
 
 Charles surpassed them all. " II serait difficile," — I 
 quote M. Champollion Figeac — "de citer un seul de ses 
 vers condamnable pour une expression qui ne serait pas 
 d'une exquise delicatesse, du language le plus e'pure, sans 
 affeterie, digne enfin de ce personnage et de la position 
 eminente qu' il occupait dans 1' dtat." 
 
 "On remarquera," says Villemain, "que 1' expression de 
 Charles d' Orleans est ingenue, familiere, sans avois jamais 
 rien de bas. C est sa grande superiorite que Villon. ... II 
 y a dans Charles d' Orleans un bon gout d' aristocratic 
 chevaleresque, et cette ele'gance de tour, cette fine plaisant- 
 erie sur soi rneme, qui semble n' appartenir qu' \ des epoques 
 trbs cultivees." And in another place he says that, in his 
 poems we find " those expressions which have no date, and 
 which, being always new, do not pass from the tongue and 
 the memor)'- of the people." 
 
 I venture to suggest that the entire oblivion into which 
 Charles's works fell was due to the invention of printing. 
 The first book printed in Paris was in 1469. It was an age
 
 6o CHAPTER 11. 
 
 in which everybody of any cultivation WTOte ; further, most 
 men belonged to a sort of mutual admiration society, and 
 were bound to magnify each other. There were at first, 
 excluding theology, two great fields of labour for the French 
 press ; the publication of Classical Literature, and that of 
 the effusions of living authors. An immense number of 
 romances, poems, ballads, and rhymes of all sorts, issued 
 from the press in France during the first fifty years of print- 
 ing.^ But, just as men know least of that period of history 
 which immediately precedes their own recollection, so 
 students in the time of the renaissance knew least of the 
 time, to them so dark, that came before the great outburst 
 at the end of the fifteenth century. Charles was the most 
 graceful of his school, but he was of the old school ; Charles 
 would have scorned the verbal ingenuity of Molinet and 
 Cretin, but he lacked their modern spirit ; and if he was 
 the best poet of the fifteenth century, it must be owned 
 that he partook of a good deal of the spirit of the four- 
 teenth. He was the first poet of modem French (his 
 language is easier to read than that of Lydgate in English, 
 for example), but he was also the last of the trouveres. 
 Perhaps at his death the displeasure of Louis XL would 
 have made men shrink from proclaiming his poetical merits, 
 but Louis XL lived only eighteen years later, and his own 
 son Louis, afterwards twelfth king of that name, might, had 
 he pleased, have given his father as much popularity as the 
 nature of his works permitted. This he did not do, al- 
 though he collected the poems in one manuscript, because 
 their time had passed. Allegory still held its ground, but 
 ^ The number of books printed at Paris up to 1500 was 751.
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 6 1 
 
 it was allegory in worse taste, and in more elaborate 
 costume. Charles introduces us to Faux Dangier, Bel 
 Accueil, Soussy, and the rest of them, but he does not, like 
 another and a later bard, make Reason present him with 
 a pair of spectacles, engraven with the magic words Pru- 
 dence and Justice on the glasses, through which he is to 
 read dreary discourses from the book of Conscience. The 
 taste of Charles's school was not that of the next generation, 
 and his pure clear style was altogether opposite to the 
 ingenious involutions of those who came after him. More- 
 over, the purity of Charles is not only that of style, but 
 that of thought. I think he was too much of a prince to 
 sully his pages with grossness. People in the rank of 
 Villon, for instance, might do so if they pleased — for, in 
 Charles's eyes, self-respect could only exist with nobility of 
 blood. Indeed, his utter unconsciousness that a villain or 
 a bourgeois could be capable of knightly virtues, though 
 never put into words, breathes in every page of his poems : 
 and that gradual rise of the middle class which first began 
 in the fifteenth century, and Avhich can be nowhere more 
 clearly marked than in France, went on round him, his 
 unconscious eyes seeing nothing of what was going to 
 happen. Let us be charitable to Louis XL, that much 
 maligned monarch, abused by the two greatest novelists of 
 England and France, and by all the historians. Perhaps 
 the astute king had some reason to be vexed when his 
 chivalrous cousin, full of the most lofty sentiments, at once 
 noble, royal, and conservative, could not see, with him, that 
 on the fall of the great Duke depended the welfare of France, 
 and that the days of chivalry were really past and gone ;
 
 62 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 the spirit having departed from the old forms in those bad 
 days when Burgundian and Armagnac cut each other's 
 throats in Paris, when Azincourt was fought, when France's 
 life-blood was wellnigh drained in turning out the invaders, 
 and when England was wellnigh destroyed in her long civil 
 struggles. 
 
 A poet who would only see things through the poetic 
 light shed by Apollo, god of the Sun as well as of Parnassus, 
 who went about the Castle of Loyalty, led by Honour and 
 Fidelity ; who manfully defended his ramparts against the 
 recreant Falsehood, with his minions. Treachery, Deceit, 
 Misrepresentation, and Calumny ; and who would have held 
 to Truth, his mistress, though the whole world crumbled, 
 must have been terribly aggravating to a crafty politician 
 like Louis the Eleventh. No one, I believe, ever heard of 
 Louis writing verses ; wise princes do not write poetry. 
 Richard the First was a great composer of songs, which he 
 sang himself. Philip Augustus wrote none, though he en- 
 couraged poets by retaining a laureate 'on the establish- 
 ment.' Richard ended badly. Charles of Orleans himself 
 made a poor business of life, on the whole. Charles the 
 Bold was a patron of letters, a melancholy example. Louis 
 XIL, also a patron of letters, was but a mediocre king, and 
 unlucky in his wars. Francis the First furnishes a warning 
 of the most dreadful kind to kings ; and poor Mary Queen 
 of Scots wrote the prettiest poems possible. In our 
 own country Charles the Second rhymed prettily, with 
 a certain lamentable freedom of thought, but William the 
 Third is not known as a poet ; and it is certain that none 
 of the Georges had favour from the lyric muse. More
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 63 
 
 examples might be gathered from the pages of history; 
 but let us grant at once that poetry and politics are by 
 no means synonyms, and find some excuse for that un- 
 lucky scene where Louis lost his temper and abused the 
 poor old Duke, then upwards of seventy years of age, in 
 such round terais that he went home, took to his bed, and 
 never got out of it again. And as for Louis's hostility 
 preventing the publication of his poems and the increase of 
 his reputation, I de not believe that Louis would have 
 cared a farthing if all the poems his cousin had WTitten — so 
 harmless, so unpolitical — had run through twenty editions 
 a-yeal*. He was soon forgotten, because, first, as I have 
 shewn, the invention of printing came twenty years too late 
 for him ; and, secondly, which is perhaps an equally good 
 reason, because his reputation was confined to a very small 
 circle, chiefly of well-born poets, and because, despising 
 the people, he never wrote for them or of them. 
 
 It is difficult to make a selection from the poems of 
 Charles. They are all quite short, and each generally con- 
 tains some one concetto, gi'acefully turned, if sometimes 
 quite trifling. The first impression they leave upon the reader 
 is of a mind peculiarly neat and well ordered. Every thing 
 is perfectly finished ; there is no possibility of feeling that 
 with a little more care any one stanza would be improved. 
 Each line is polished ad ungiiem, and Charles must have 
 been a most conscientious, careful, and painstaking writer. 
 There is not much power in his poems, and one suspects 
 more industry than genius. Such rules as he has he fol- 
 lows implicitly, and his own canons of taste he keeps 
 inviolate. Tedium of the worst kind creeps over the
 
 64 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 reader who perseveres too long at one sitting, but a little 
 of him is not without a charm. This charm is difficult to 
 explain. It does not arise from the correctness of his style, 
 which is not always clear to us, owing to his archaisms, nor 
 from the interest we feel in his subjects ; I think it is rather 
 the unexpected refinement of his writing which attracts one. 
 It is so unusual to find in an age generally supposed wholly 
 gross, sentiments which seem to belong peculiarly to our- 
 selves, that one reads on, allured by the novelty, and by the 
 hope, continually gratified, of turning up some new sparkling 
 little jewel of thought or phrase. But the grossness of 
 French literature was not yet a thing to complain of. * The 
 Contes and Fabliaux belonged to the past ; Rabelais, and 
 the times of the later Valois kings, belong to the future. 
 Between them come Charles, that gallant and unlucky 
 knight ; Christine, the virtuous and the prosy ; Alain Char- 
 tier, with his 'beautiful' sentiments, admired by Queen 
 Marguerite ; and Villon, the repentant prodigal. Decidedly, 
 the poetical literature of the fifteenth century was more 
 moral than what had been before, or than what followed 
 after. 
 
 Villemain reproaches Charles with coldness and want 
 of patriotism. In the midst of the misfortunes of his 
 country, he says, Charles only regrets his lost love, the 
 pleasures that he can no more enjoy, the sunshine and the 
 flowers of France. This is not wholly true, though true in 
 part. It must be remembered that reality in poetry, save 
 of the descriptive order, was not yet known. Charles's 
 main theme was his love, imaginary or ideal, probably the 
 latter, though the lady of his songs is generally supposed to
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 65 
 
 have been his second wife, Bona of Armagnac, who died 
 at the early age of twenty-two, in the first year of his cap- 
 tivity. Perhaps his love and his grief for her were genuine, 
 and the ideal lady of his imagination slowly grew in his 
 mind, like, and yet unlike, his dead wife, out of his sorrow. 
 But though his complaint of France, to which Villemain 
 refers, is the least satisfactory of his poems, there are 
 in it touches of real patriotism and indignation, and it 
 cannot be supposed that a duke of Orleans looked on 
 unmoved at the calamities of the Royal House. I would 
 rather believe that his affliction was too great for his pen, 
 accustomed to lighter subjects; and that when he attuned 
 his lyre to higher things, the trembling strings, touched with 
 an uncertain hand, gave forth no responsive strain. But 
 in the lines which follow, I contend, little complaint of 
 coldness can be made. It must be remembered, too, that 
 the whole sense of misfortune comes upon one gradually. 
 Fifty years later he would have written better. 
 
 "France, jadis on te souloit nommer 
 En tous pais, le tresor de noblesse : 
 Car un chacun pouvoit en toy trouver 
 Bonte, honneur, loyaulte, genlillcsse, 
 Clergie, sens, courtoisie, proesse : 
 Tous etrangiers amoient te suir,^ 
 Et maintenant voy, dent j' ay dcsplalsance, 
 Qu' il te convient maint grief mal soustenir, 
 Tres crestien, franc Royaume de France." 
 
 " Knowest thou" — he goes on — "whence come thy mis- 
 fortunes? Knowest thou why thou art in sadness? Let 
 
 1 suir = suivre.
 
 66 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 me relate it : listen to me, and thou wilt be wise. Thy 
 great pride, gluttony, idleness, envy, and luxury have com- 
 pelled God to punish thee, tres crestien, franc royaume de 
 France. 
 
 " Nevertheless, be not altogether cast down, for God 
 is full of mercy a largesse. Go to Him to implore His 
 grace, for He has already promised it to thee ; but make 
 Humility thy advocate, in order that He may be very joyous 
 at healing thee entirely ; put in Him thy trust. For thee 
 and all He was willing to die, tres crestien, franc royaume 
 de France. 
 
 " Remember how He has given order that thou shouldst 
 cry ' Mont joye ! a liesse !' and that thou shouldst bear on 
 a shield of azure three golden fleurs-de-lis, and to confirm 
 thy courage (pour ardiesse fermer en toy) sent thee the Ori- 
 flamme, which made thee lord of all thy enemies. Forget 
 not such great gifts, with which it pleased Him to enrich 
 thee, tres crestien, franc royaume de France." 
 
 Besides (to abridge two or three verses) God has en- 
 riched France with a Dove full of sacred oil, and great 
 wealth of relics ; the court of Rome calls France her right 
 arm ; many great champions of Christianity have been bom 
 of the country — Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver. 
 
 "Et Saint Loys roy, qui fist la rudesse 
 Des Sarrasins souvent aneantir 
 En son vivant, par travail et vaillance. 
 Les croniques le monstrent, sans mentir, 
 Tres crestien, franc royaume de France." 
 
 Therefore, all that France has to do is to repent, and 
 offer many masses.
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. ^'7 
 
 "Dieu a les bras ouvers pour t'acoler,' 
 Prest d' oublier ta vie pecheresse : 
 Requier pardon, bien tc vendra aidier 
 Nobtre Dame, la trcs puissant princesse, 
 Qui est ton cry et que tiens pour maitresse. 
 Les saints aussy te vendront secourir, 
 Desquelz les corps ont en toy demourance. 
 Ne vueilles plus en ton pechie dormir, 
 Tres crestien, franc ro}'aume de France. 
 Et je Charles Due d' Orleans, rimer 
 Voulu ces vers, oil temps de ma jeunesse. 
 Devant chascun les vueil bien advouer: 
 Car prisonnier les fis, je le confesse, 
 Priant a Dieu qu' avant qu' aye vieillesse 
 Le temps de paix partout puit advenir, 
 Comme de cueur j' en ay la desirance, 
 Et que voye tous ces maulx brief fmir 
 Tres crestien franc royaume de France." 
 
 And again, in his exhortation to the people to pray for 
 peace : 
 
 " Priez pour paix, doulce vierge Marie, 
 Royne des cieulx et du monde maistresse : 
 Faictes prier, par vostre courtoisie. 
 Saints et saintes, et prenez vostre adresse 
 Vers vostre filz, requerant sa haultesse 
 Qu' il luy plaise son peuple regarder 
 Que de son sang a voulu racheter 
 En desboutant guerre qui tout desvoye. 
 De pricrez ne vous vueilliez lasscr : 
 Priez pour paix, le vray tresor de joye." 
 
 Priests and prelates, monks and holy men, must pray ; all 
 clerks and teachers must pray, because in war the course 
 of learning is suspended ; they must pray because monas- 
 teries are destroyed, and the service of God cannot be 
 
 carried on. 
 
 * acoler, to embrace.
 
 68 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 Princes and lords, seigneurs and gentlemen must pray, 
 because " meschans gens surmontent Gentillesse", and get all 
 the money, houses, and lands, " which you can see clearly 
 every day." The people, on the other hand, must pray for 
 peace because their seigneurs are too weak to protect them. 
 
 "Dieu tout puissant nous vueille conforter 
 Toutes choses en terre, ciel, et mer ! 
 Priez vers luy que brief en tout pourvoye, 
 En ]ui seul est de tous maulx amender : 
 Priez pour paiz le vray tresor de joye." 
 
 One more plea for his patriotism. It will be allowed 
 that if he did not love his country, he hated the English. 
 
 " Comment voyje ces Anglois esbahis, 
 Resjoys toy, franc royaume de France, 
 On apper^oit que de Dieu sont ha'i's 
 Puis qu'ilz n'ont plus couraige ni puissance. 
 Bien pensoient par leur oultrecuidance 
 Toy sumionter et tenir en sei-vaige, 
 Et ont tenu a tort son heritaige. 
 Mais a present, Dieu pour toy se combat 
 Et se monstre du tout de ta partie : 
 Leur grant orgueil entierement abat 
 Et t'a rendu Guienne et Normandie." 
 
 It is a hymn of triumph for the recovery of Guienne and 
 Normandy, and the last line is the refrain of the ballad. 
 What he says of the civil war in England is very curious. 
 
 "N'ont pas Anglois souvent leurs roys traliis : 
 Certes ouyl, tous en ont congnoissance : 
 Et encore le roy de leur pais 
 Est maintenant en doubtensc balance. 
 D' en parlor mal chascun Anglois s' avance : 
 Assez monstrent par leur mauvais langaige 
 Que voulentiers lui feroient oultraige.
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 69 
 
 Qui sera roy entr' eulx est grant debat : 
 Pour ce, France, que veulx tu ciui te die, 
 Do sa verge Dieu les pugnist et bat 
 Et t'a rendu Guienne et Normanflie." 
 
 Generally, however, his regrets are of a personal nature. 
 
 " En regardant vers le paYs de France 
 Ung jour m'avint, a Dovre sur la mer, 
 Qu'il me souvint de la doulce plaisance 
 Que souloye ou dit pais trouver. 
 Si commen9ay de cueur a souspirer, 
 Combien certes que grant bicn me faisoit 
 De veoir France que mon cueur amer doit." 
 
 His verse is, of course, allegorical. All the virtues and 
 all the vices are personified. The first poem of all is a 
 striking example. " In time past," he says, " when Dame 
 Nature brought me into the world, she put me under the 
 governance of a lady called Infancy ; giving her strict order 
 to nourish and guard me tenderly, without allowing Care or 
 IMelancholy to have any society with me. In this Infancy 
 did her duty loyally, for which I owe her thanks. When 
 I was grown up. Age came bearing a message from Dame 
 Nature, to the effect that I was to be turned over to the 
 care of Jeuncsse, to whom accordingly I went. While I 
 was in her house, one day before the beginning of Spring 
 (it was Saint Valentine's day) she came to my bedside, and 
 woke me up, saying, 'You sleep too much. Wake now, 
 and get ready quickly, for I mean to take you to a Seigneur 
 who holds me his dear and faithful servant, and who, with- 
 out doubt, will make us both welcome.' I answered — 
 'Gracious mistress, with glad heart I am content to obey
 
 70 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 your will, but humbly ask the name and condition of this 
 great Seigneur." 
 
 She tells him that it is the god of Love 'que j'ay servi 
 et serviray tousjours.' At mention of this name he is 
 horribly frightened, remembering the things he has heard 
 of the mischief wTOught by Love ; but being reassured, 
 consents to go. They arrive after a long journey at a 
 " manoir trop bel assis et plaisant a veoir.' Jeunesse in- 
 forms the porter that she has brought Charles of Orleans. 
 That functionary requests them to wait inside, on the hall 
 chairs we presume, while he goes to Venus and Cupid to 
 announce them. He presently returns bringing with him 
 Bel-Acueil and Plaisance, at sight of whom Charles changes 
 colour, 
 
 "Car jeunes gens perdent tost contenance 
 Quant en lieu sont ou n'ont point d'acointance 
 Si luy on dit ; ' Bien soiez vous venue.' 
 
 By these officers of the court he is taken to Amour himself, 
 who receives him kindly, saying that he remembers his 
 father and many others of his lineage. He is greatly 
 abashed, and is assured by Amour that he shall certainly 
 not leave the court till he has done homage and become 
 his servant, to which end Beaute is introduced to him. 
 Thereupon he begins to suffer a good deal, as was to be 
 expected, and continues to suffer till he makes due sub- 
 mission, and takes the oath. The form of swearing fealty 
 consists of several points. These are loyalty, constancy, 
 secresy, fidelity, and humility ; with some minor things, such 
 as politeness ; comeliness, if he can compass it ; honour 
 and courage ; generosity, ' car c' est chose qui avance no-
 
 CHARL,ES OF ORLEANS. 71 
 
 blesse'; avoidance of 'villenie', and diligent study, so far 
 as in him lies, of ' les gracieux tours, qui servent en amours,' 
 to wit, singing, dancing, making chansons and ballads, and 
 all other joyous ' esbatements.' 
 
 All this accomplished, the secretary of Amour, named 
 Bonnefoy, is instructed to draw up a 'lettre de retenue', 
 which is sealed by Loyalty, and delivered to him. The 
 letter follows, which we omit. It concludes : 
 
 " Donne Ic jour Saint Valentin, martir, 
 En la cite de Gracieux-desir, 
 Oil avons fait nostre conseil tenir, 
 Par Cupido et Venus souverains, 
 A ce presens plusieurs Plaisirs mondains." 
 
 Afterwards he pursues the same allegory, which we need 
 not follow any further, by shewing how Age comes to tell 
 him that Reason has made complaint to Nature about him, 
 and that Vieillesse is about to bring him a summons. 
 
 This is not a bad specimen, though rather tedious, of 
 Charles's allegorical powers. The tedium is relieved, as 
 I have said before, by the charm of his language. 
 
 Out of such a mass of verses, almost all on the same 
 topic, it is very hard to make a good selection. Let us, 
 however, by a few extracts, try to shew the character of 
 his poetry. 
 
 His great enemy is Melancholy. He is never tired of 
 abusing that pensive spirit. He says : 
 
 "Fermez lui I'uis' au visaige 
 Mon cueur i Merencolie : 
 Gardez qu'elle n'entie niye 
 Pour gastre nostre mesnaige. 
 
 ^ ujs = huis, door.
 
 72 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Comme le chien plain de raige 
 Chassez la, je vous en prie : 
 Fermez lui 1' uis au visaige, 
 Mon cueur, a Merencolie." 
 Again : 
 
 "Qu'est ce la? — c'est Merencolie — 
 —Vous n'entrerez ja — Pourquoy? — Pour ce 
 Que vostre compaignie acourse* 
 Mes jours, dont je foys- grant folie." 
 
 Again : 
 
 "Allez vous amuser maintenant, 
 Ennuyeuse Merencolie : 
 Regardez la saison jolie 
 Qui partout vous va reboutant." 
 
 Yet again : 
 
 "Pour Dieu, boutons la hors, 
 
 Ceste Merencolie, 
 Qui si fort nons guerrie 
 Et fait tant de grans tors 
 Monstrons nous les plus forts, 
 Mon cueur, je vous en prie : 
 Pour Dieu boutons la hors, 
 Ceste Merencolie." 
 
 And, for once more : 
 
 "Alez vous en; alez ; alez ; 
 Soussi, Soing, et Merencolie, 
 Me cuidez^-vous toute ma vie 
 Gouverner, comme fait avez? 
 Je vous promet que non ferez : 
 Raison aura sur vous maistrie : 
 Alez vous en ; alez : alez : 
 Soussi, Soing, et Merencolie. 
 
 ' abridge. ^ foys = fais. This is rather an unusual form. 
 
 3 cuide, from cogitare, just as croire from credere, to think, to 
 presume.
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 73 
 
 Si jamais plus vous retoumez 
 Avecques vostre compaignie, 
 Je pri a Dieu qu'il vous maudie 
 Et ce par qui vous revendrez : 
 Alez-vous en: alcz : alez." 
 
 His verses, indeed, are full of imprecations, prayers, and 
 abuse directed to M(frencolie, Soing, Soussy, and Ennuy. 
 The last, in a captivity of twenty-five years, must have been, 
 indeed, a very fomiidable enemy. Once he says : 
 
 "Deux ou trois couples d' Ennuy 
 J' ay tousjours en ma maison." 
 
 His similes and figures are very simple. He speaks of 
 "les fenestres de mes yeux": "la chambre de ma pensee": 
 "I'uis de ma pens(fe." 
 
 "Men cueur qui faisoit appareil 
 De Deffence centre I'armee 
 De Fortune." 
 
 He says that the 'hostel' of Nature "de noir de 
 
 Tristesse est tendu": he asks Jeunesse why she has sold 
 
 him : 
 
 "A grant marchie, comme pour rien, 
 Es mains dc madame Vieillesse, 
 Qui ne me fait gueres de bien." 
 
 Occasionally, as all these trouv^res — of whom Charles 
 is certainly the last and best — used to do, he changes his 
 note of gallantry for one of satire. Witness the following 
 out of only tvvo or three in a similar strain, for Charles 
 seldom allows himself a word against the sex; perhaps 
 only when Mdrencolie had him down, with Soussy, Soing, 
 and Ennuy, so that he could hardly help himself
 
 74 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 ** Sera-elle jamais troiivee 
 Celle qui ayme Loyaulte ? 
 Et qui a ferme voulente 
 Sans avoir legiere pensee. 
 II convient qu'elle soit criee 
 Pour en savoir la verite. 
 Sera-elle jamais trouvee 
 Celle qui ayme Loyaulte ? 
 Je croy bien qu'elle est deffiee 
 Des aliez de Faulcete, 
 Dont il y a si grant plante 
 Que de paour elle s'est mussiee. 
 Sera-elle jamais trouvee?"^ 
 
 He has the customary verses on the Seasons, without 
 which no poet's collection was then complete. Here are 
 his ungracious lines to Winter : 
 
 "Yver, vous n'estes qu'un villain; 
 Este est plaisant et gentil, 
 En tesmoing de may et d'avril 
 Qui 1' acompaignent soir et main. 
 
 Este revest champs, bois et fleurs 
 De sa livree de verdure 
 Et de maintes autres couleurs, 
 Par I'ordonnance de Nature. 
 
 Mais vous, Yver, trop estes plain 
 De nege, vent, pluye et grezil : 
 On vous deust bannir en exil. 
 Sans point flatter, je parle plain : 
 Yver, vous n'estes qu'un villain." 
 
 His most beautiful verses, touched with real feeling, are 
 those on the loss of his wife, if it is of his wife he speaks. 
 Read these on her obsequies : 
 
 1 His friend the Duke of Bourbon returned a spirited answer to this 
 ballad, the last line of which is " Due d' Orleans, je I'ay trouvee."
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 75 
 
 "J' ay fait I'obseqiie de madame 
 Dedens le moustier amoureux, 
 Et le service pour son ame 
 A chaiite Penser-Doloreux. 
 Mains sierges de Souspiis-piteux 
 Ont este en son luminaire, 
 Aussy j'ay fait la tombc faiie 
 De regretez, lous de larnies paints, 
 Et tout entour moult lichemcnt 
 Est escript: "Cy gist vrayement 
 Le tresor de tous biens mondains," 
 * « * * 
 
 N'en parlons plus; mon cueur se pasme 
 
 Quant il oyt les fais vertueux 
 
 D'elle qui estoit, sans nul blasme, 
 
 Comma jurent celles et ceulx 
 
 Qui congnoissoyent ses conseulx. 
 
 Si croy que Dieu I'a voulu traire 
 
 Vers lui, pour parer son repaire 
 
 De paradis, ou sont les saints : 
 
 Car c'est d'elle bel parement 
 
 Que Ten nommoit communement 
 
 Le tresor de tous biens mondains." 
 
 And these, on her death, which are still better : 
 
 "Las! mort, qui l' a fait si bardie 
 De prendre la noble princesse 
 Qui estoit mon confort, ma vie, 
 Mon bien, mon plaisie, ma richesse ! 
 Puisque tu as prius ma maitresse, 
 Prens moy aussy, son sei-viteur : 
 Car j'ayme mieulx prouchaincment 
 Mourir, que languir en tourment. 
 En paine, soussy, et douleur. 
 
 Las! de tous biens estoit gamie 
 Et en droite fleur de jeunesse : 
 Je prye a Dieu qu'il te maudie, 
 Faulse-mort, plaine de rudessc !
 
 76 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Se prise I'eusses en \'ieillesse 
 Ce ne fust pas si grant rigueur : 
 Mais prise I'as hastivement 
 Et m'a laissie piteusement 
 En paine, soussy, et douleur. 
 
 Las ! je suy seul sans compaignie : 
 
 Adieu, madame, ma lyesse. 
 
 Or est nostre amour despartie ! 
 
 Non pourtant : je vous fais promesse, 
 
 Que de prieres a largesse, 
 
 Morte, vous servirai de cueur, 
 
 Sans oublier aucunement, 
 
 Et vous regretteray souvent 
 
 En paine, soussy, et douleur. 
 
 Dieu, sur tout souverain seigneur, 
 Ordonnez, par grace et doulceur, 
 A Fame d'elle tellement 
 Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement 
 En paine, soussy, et douleur." 
 
 Whenever, which is seldom, he gets out of his allegories, 
 he is exceedingly simple and touching. For instance : 
 
 "Belle que je tiens pour amye 
 Pensez quelque part que je soie, 
 Que jamais je ne vous oublie. 
 Et pour ce, prier vous vouldroye, 
 Jusques a tant que vous revoye, 
 Qu'il vous souviengne de celluy 
 Qui a trouve peu de mercy 
 En vous, se dire je I'osoye." 
 
 The fashion of the time, which made each song turn 
 upon one fancy, sometimes very small, prevented our poet 
 from achieving any complete lyrical success. For although 
 a lyric should contain one thought, and one thought only, 
 round which the fancy of the poet may weave his charms of
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 77 
 
 verse, yet in Charles's verses one thought is repeated over 
 and over again, and every separate conceit forms a separate 
 chanson. His verses might be classified, something in this 
 manner : 
 
 (i) Against Melancholy, " Soing, Soussy, et Ennuy," 
 
 (2) Prayer that his ' belle' will prove kind to him, 
 
 (3) On the death of his mistress, 
 
 (4) The regrets of exile, 
 
 and so on. Yet there is, in this continual harping on one. 
 strain, a grace which it is difficult to define. Petrarch played 
 but one melody, with the variations of an accomplished 
 musician ; in Shakespeare's sonnets there is one underlying 
 strain ; in the ' In Memoriam' of Tennyson, beneath all the 
 poet's changing moods, we hear the wail of sorrow and 
 bewilderment that Death has caused. I would not com- 
 pare the songs of Charles with these : I only contend that 
 monotony is not always tedious, and that if he is tedious, 
 it is from the unskilful art and unnatural taste of the time 
 in Avhich he lived. 
 
 But the more I read in Charles of Orleans, the more 
 I find in him that perfect knightliness which the teachings 
 of a chivalrous age could only produce on a generous 
 nature. He seems to me to have been, if ever man was, 
 what we call now, a gentleman; what they used to call 
 a knight, sans peur et sans reproche. Most unfortunate 
 of men, as he was, for fifty years, it is pleasant to look 
 on the last fifteen years of his life spent in an atmosphere 
 of poetry and music and noble thoughts, in company with 
 his young wife and his children, and surrounded by friends, 
 poets like himself, who doubtless soothed the old man's
 
 78 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 soul, troubled with sad memories, by kindly praise and 
 pious flattery. But misfortune followed him to the last, 
 and I believe, with his biographer, that the reproaches of 
 his king cut to the quick, and dealt the fatal blow to a soul 
 which held loyalty, truth, fidelity, honour, and courage the 
 only virtues of a prince and a gentleman. All these he 
 had, and Louis the Eleventh had none of them. Never- 
 theless, had Louis been Charles, France might have had 
 a different history, and that 'tres crestien franc royaume' 
 might well have become an appanage to the Dukedom of 
 Burgundy. But what would have been the history of the 
 v/orld, had all rulers been honest, and all kings lovers of 
 truth ? 
 
 Note i. 
 
 The resemblance between the "Enfance et Jeunesse du Prince" de- 
 scribed above, in which he visits the Court of Love, and tlie ' Court of 
 Love' of Chaucer, is too striking to be accidental. Either they have 
 a common origin, or Charles imitated Chaucer during his long captivity. 
 This is very possible. The description of the Court is similar in both, 
 and there are many close points of resemblance. Thus in Chaucer, we 
 find among the statutes of Love, the following : 
 
 "The eighteenth statute, wholly to commande, 
 To plese thy lady, is, That thou eschewe 
 With sluttishness thyself for to offende : 
 Be jollife, fresh, and fete, with thinges newe, 
 Courtly with mann, tliis is al thy due, 
 Gentil of port, and loving cleanlinesse ; 
 This is the thing that liketh thy mistresse."
 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 79 
 
 Compare this with Charles : 
 
 "Le premier est qu'il se tiengne jolis, 
 Car les dames les tiencnt a grant pris. 
 Le second est que trcs courtoisement 
 Soy maintendra et gracieusement. " 
 
 Note ii. 
 
 A graceful rendering into English verse of the lines 'J' ay fait 
 I'obseque de Madame' has been made by Cary. I extract the two 
 verses of which I have quoted the French. 
 
 "To make my lady's obsequies 
 My love a minster wrought, 
 And, in the chantry, sei-vice there 
 Was sung by doleful thought : 
 The tapers were of burning sighs, 
 That light and odour gave : 
 And sorrows, painted o'er with tears, 
 Enlumined her grave : 
 And round about, in quaintest guise. 
 Was carved, 'Within this tomb there lies 
 The fairest thing in mortal eyes.' 
 
 No more : no more : my heart doth faint 
 
 When I the life recal 
 
 Of her, who lived so free from taint. 
 
 So virtuous deemed by all : 
 
 That in herself was so complete, 
 
 I think that she was ta'en 
 
 By God to deck His paradise. 
 
 And with His saints to reign : 
 
 For well she doth become the skies, 
 
 ^Vhom, while on earth, each one did prize, 
 
 The fairest thing in mortal eyes."
 
 So CHAPTER II. 
 
 Note hi. 
 
 Mention is made in the Paston Letters of the release of Charles. 
 (Letter 3, from Robert Repps to John Paston) : 
 
 "Tidings. The Duke of Orleans hath made his oath upon the sa- 
 crament, and used it, never for to bear arms against England, in the 
 presence of the king and all the lords, except my lord of Gloucester . . . 
 God give grace the said Lord of Orleans be true, for this same week 
 shall he towards France."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VIRE. 
 
 "Back and side go bare, go bare." 
 
 Olivier Basselin, a mighty drinker and a good singer, 
 lived in the valley of the Vire in Normandy, somewhere 
 between the years 1350 and 1450. He was, by profession, 
 a FuUing-Miller, but one fears that the real occupation of his 
 life was to drink. Tradition points at his wife as the work- 
 ing partner in the firm. But we have really no particulars 
 about his life on which we can rely. His very existence 
 has been disputed, and all we know of him is from a song 
 by Le Houx, in which, a hundred years after Olivier was 
 gathered to his fathers, he collects all the traditions that 
 remained of hirn. And we gather from his songs certain 
 small particulars which relate to his habits and preferences. 
 Thus, we learn that he preferred wine of Orleans to any 
 other, when he could get it ; tliat he drank cider when he 
 could not get wine, and perry when he could not get cider. 
 And his chief amusement in life was to sing the praises of 
 good drink. Many a lusty song he must have trolled out 
 in his tavern, to the delight of tlie rustics, and the edification 
 
 G
 
 82 CHAPTER III. 
 
 of the village. There remain to this day upwards of sixty. 
 Of his life we can only hesitatingly say, and with some diffi- 
 dence, that his wife objected to his following the bent of his 
 own inclinations — unreasonably, as some may think ; that 
 he became very poor; that his relations had finally to 
 interfere and to sequestrate, alienate, or put into safe keep- 
 ing the fulling-mill — if not the person — of Olivier Basselin ; 
 and that the English wrought him great shame, if not 
 actual deprivation of life. Thus much of his story. Of 
 his personal appearance but one trait remains. Popular 
 history, which loves to store in its memory such facts as 
 Caesar's baldness, Edward's long legs, and Richard's hump, 
 has remembered only of Olivier Basselin, his nose. Even 
 this, so fleeting is the memory of men, only because he 
 sings of it himself And since this nose, so fat, so fair, 
 so comely, so glowing, so Bardolphian, beaming upon us 
 in such Anacreontic joviality through four long centuries, 
 is all that remains in our minds to mark the manner of the 
 man, hear what the owner says of it himself: 
 
 ' ' Beau nez ! dont les nibis ont conste mainte pipe 
 De vin blanc et clairet : 
 Et duquel la couleur richement participe 
 
 Du rouge et violet. 
 Gros nez ! qui te regarde a travers un grand verre 
 
 Te juge encor plus beau : 
 Tu ne resembles point au nez de quelque here 
 
 Qui ne boit que de 1' eau. 
 •Un coq d'Inde sa gorge i toy semblable porte ; 
 
 Combien de riches gens 
 N'ont pas si riche nez ! Pour te peindre en la sorte 
 II faut beaucoup de temps." 
 
 * Query. Were turkeys known in the time of Olivier Basselin ? 
 If not, alas ! the song is not genuine. But the point is disputed.
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VI RE. 83 
 
 Unknown in France, and popular at first only in the 
 retired Val-de-Vire, the hearty poet lived, and sang, and 
 drank. Posthumous fame came to him. For his songs, 
 chanted at all the taverns, handed down from mouth to 
 mouth, were collected, more than a hundred years after his 
 death, and published in 1576 with additions of his own, by 
 the worthy Master Jean Le Houx, under the name of the 
 Vaux de Vire of Olivier Basselin. And from this phrase — 
 the Vaux de Vire — has come by natural corruption of the 
 populace, the modern word Vaudeville. .So, at least, say 
 some ; and as those who deny the derivation can find, no 
 better one to suggest than that of Voix de Ville, let us, who 
 admire the jovial miller of the Vire, abide by the explana- 
 tion which does him honour. 
 
 So much for the miller. But there was, besides, a pilot, 
 a man expert and dexterous in sea matters, who lived also 
 about the same time, in the same neighbourhood, and who 
 was also called Olivier Basselin, or Bisselin. This mariner 
 published a book on the " Right DecHnation, etc.," in the 
 year 1559, and as some think was the original Olivier, 
 author of the songs. I, however, can hardly believe that 
 the author of the Vaux de Vire could also have Avritten 
 a work on Nautical Astronomy. 
 
 Now for Maitre Jean Le Houx. This worthy, born of 
 a good old family in 1550, or thereabouts, was an advocate 
 in Vire. As an advocate it is not probable that he effected 
 great things ; for he was also a distinguished scholar, 
 painter, and poet. He it was who gave to the world, about 
 about the year 1576, the first collection of the Vaux de 
 Vire of Basselin, with others of his own. All that is known
 
 84 CHAPTER III. 
 
 of his life is that he was persecuted for his songs by the 
 priests, on the ground that they corrupted men's morals 
 by instigating them to drink ; that he defended himself in 
 verse; that he made a pilgrimage to Rome, probably in 
 consequence of this little 'difficulty'; and that in 1613 he 
 founded certain masses for the benefit of the poor. The 
 first edition of the Vaux de Vire is completely lost, because, 
 says one editor, it was probably suppressed by Le Houx 
 out of deference to the monks ; or because, says another, 
 the songs were so excessively popular that the books got 
 " thumbed" to pieces. Other editions have been published 
 in the years 1664, 181 1, 1833, and 1858. 
 
 The latest edition contains, first, the so-called Vaux de 
 Vire of Olivier Basselin, from the edition of 1664 ; secondly, 
 the Vaux de Vire of Jean Le Houx ; thirdly, a collection of 
 Norman songs of the sixteenth century ; and lastly, a small 
 collection of older songs from an edition of 161 6. 
 
 The question has arisen, how much of these songs are 
 due to Basselin or others, and how much to Le Houx 
 himself. For it may briefly be stated of this fuUing-miller 
 that we know nothing at all about him. All the parti- 
 culars I have given are out of a song by Le Houx, and 
 may go for nothing. The name of Basselin is first men- 
 tioned, as his French editors have so far found out, in 
 a letter addressed to the secretary of the Duke of Valois, 
 afterwards Francis I., date before 15 15 — where we have 
 these words : 
 
 "Et en ceste bouclie je fmyrai la prcsente disant 
 Olivier Basselin 
 Orrons nous plus de tes nouvelles? 
 
 Vous ont les Angloys mis a fin ?"....
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VIRE. 85 
 
 The rest of this song is given in the editions of Bassehn, 
 but is considered spurious. 
 
 M. Bourgueville, sieur de Bras, born in 1504, says of 
 Vire : " C est le pays d' ou sont procedees les chansons 
 que r on appelle Vaux de Vire, comme les deux." 
 
 "Ilelas! Olivier Basselin." . . . 
 "En la Duche de Normandie 
 II y a si grant pillerie. ..." 
 
 His name is also mentioned by Belleforest, born 1550; 
 by Andre' Duchesne, bom 1584; and by La Fresnaye 
 Vauguelin, born 1534. Le Houx died 161 6. 
 
 There seems then, on the whole, little doubt that there 
 was an Olivier Basselin. The songs edited by Le Houx 
 are in the language of the sixteenth century, or the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth. If, therefore, they are really 
 Basselin's, they have been touched up, altered, put into 
 shape, and changed beyond power of recognition by the 
 original author. And if they are not Basselin's, they are 
 either Le Houx's own, or a collection of popular drinking 
 songs by various authors, and attributed to Basselin. This 
 seems to be the most rational way out of the difficulty. It 
 is easy to understand how to one well-known song-writer 
 all the popular songs would be attributed, and how Le 
 Houx, collecting these, might have printed them with such 
 alterations as were necessary to make them intelligible, and 
 called them all the poems of Olivier Basselin, Unwritten 
 songs that exist only in the memories of men may last a 
 long time, but they die when their diction becomes obsolete, 
 unless changes are made to suit the changes of the language.
 
 86 - CHAPTER III. 
 
 There is no reason to doubt that Le Houx found a large 
 number of spirited popular drinking songs unprinted, and 
 probably unwritten ; there is no reason further to doubt that 
 
 . . . ■ > • 
 
 Olivier Basselin m his day was a famous writer of songs, 
 but we have no means of saying how many in this collec- 
 tion are his, or what alterations have been made. 
 Here is a piece of Le Houx's own verses : 
 
 "Plus est honneste un Van de Vire en table, 
 Qui va louant hautement le bon vin 
 Que, mal parlant, dire de son voisin 
 Quelque propos qui n'est point veritable. 
 
 A faire des discours 
 
 D' impudiques amours, 
 
 Ou quelque autre devis 
 
 Que tiennent les amis, 
 Qiiand ils sont assemblez pour folastre et rire : 
 II vaut bien mieux chanter, en ne beuvant que pire." 
 
 In this sentiment one must agree with him. Better to 
 sing a jolly drinking song than to talk scandal or gossip, 
 or worse. Indeed, in the whole collection of Basselin and 
 Le Houx, there is nothing to offend on the score of 
 morality. 
 
 In another attempt to defend his muse, he loses his 
 temper, and somewhat pettishly tells his opponents that 
 they may just go away and be condemned to drink nothing 
 but water. 
 
 As for the sixty-two songs of the worthy Olivier Basselin, 
 they are right good, well-conceited drinking songs ; songs 
 full of light-hearted abandon, and rollicking laughter. The 
 poet suffers from a perpetual thirst ; his throat is ever dry ; 
 he occupies himself with finding occasions and excuses for
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VIKE. 87 
 
 drinking. If he hears the coopering of a cask, he begins to 
 think of the good wine that will fill it : 
 
 "O tintamare plaisant 
 Et dpucement rcsonnant 
 Des touneaux que 1' on relie ! 
 Signe qu'on boira d'autant: 
 Cela me fait rejouir — 
 
 O belle harmonie ! — 
 Sans toy je m' alloy mourir 
 
 De melancholic." 
 
 If he has passed a whole hour without a single dram, he 
 begins to feel pale, anxious, and apprehensive : 
 
 "J' ay grand' peur d'une maladie ; 
 Une heure y a que je n'ay beu. 
 Tant tarder, — las! — comme ay je peu? 
 Desja ma face en est blesmie." 
 
 His reflections on sacred history inspire him with the 
 deepest regret that Adam did not know the superior attrac- 
 tions of drinking over eating : 
 
 " Adam — {c' est chose trh notoire) — 
 Ne nous eust mis en tel danger, 
 Si au lieu du fatal manger, 
 
 II se fust plus tost pris a boire." 
 
 When he is dry, he says, he cannot talk ; he has no wit, 
 no understanding : 
 
 "Si voulez que je cause et preche 
 Et parler Latin promptement, 
 Tenez ma bouche tousjours fraiche 
 Du bon vin I'arrosant souvent. 
 
 Car je vous dy certainement, 
 
 Quand j'ay seiche la bouche, 
 Je n'ay pas plus d'entendement, 
 
 Ni d' esprit qu'une souche."
 
 88 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Wine is, indeed, a medicine for all sorts of diseases : 
 
 "Me voulez vous giiarir de la berlue? 
 En un verre bien net 
 Faut seulement mettie ma veue 
 
 Ce joly vin clairet : 
 Qui chaleur donne a I'ame morfondue. 
 Encore chopine pleine, 
 Encore chopine. 
 
 Me voulez vous, quand je suis en colere 
 
 Ragaillardir le coeur? 
 Tant seulement il me faut faire boire 
 
 Ceste bonne liqueur 
 Qui le chagrin converte en bonne chere. 
 
 Encore chopine pleine, 
 Encore chopine." 
 
 He is so struck with the brilliancy and manifest utility 
 of this idea, that he repeats it in a dialogue between an old 
 man and a doctor. 
 
 The old man asks his medical adviser to cure him of 
 a cough and cold. 
 
 Quoth the sage : 
 
 '■'■Recipe du jus de la plante, 
 Qui se soutient par echalas, 
 Deux ou trois fois a ton repas." 
 
 " But," says his patient, " my stomach is weak, and my 
 digestion bad :" 
 
 ^^ Recipe pour ton ordinaire 
 Et te donne a travers les dents 
 Du rouge sirop d' Orleans." 
 
 He also suffers from gout at the change of seasons, and 
 from sleeplessness.
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VIRE. 89 
 
 A decoction de vendange 
 Recipe trois veltes, et plus 
 Ne songe tant a tes ecus." 
 
 "Tout vos recipe — c'est le vin — (says the old patient) 
 Le vin est il chose si bonne? 
 Sans hiy ne seriez medecin." 
 
 To whom the healer : 
 
 A touts ceux-la le vin ordonne 
 Qui en humeur me sent egaux : 
 Car le vin guarit tous mes maux." 
 
 Wine is not only a medicine, but a consoler in cases of 
 disappointed love. Thus, seeing Madeleine sound asleep 
 under the shade of a green sycamore by the brink of a 
 fountain, and on a bed of thyme and marjolaine, he cannot 
 resist the temptation of kissing her on the lips. Thereupon 
 la belle wakes up, and looks at him with an " ceil farouche," 
 and scornfully says, ' Biberon (bibber), don't touch me ; 
 never should a pretty girl be loved by a man who does 
 nothing but get drunk.' 
 
 "Je lui reponds. "Ce n'est pas deshonneur 
 D' aimer le vin — unc chose si bonne — 
 Vostre bel oeil entretient en chaleur 
 Et le bon vin en sante ma personne. 
 Pour vous aimer, faut il que j'abandonne 
 Le soin qu'on doit avoir de sa sante? 
 
 Fi de beaute, 
 Qui son amant de desplaisir guerdonne 
 Au lieu de bien qu' il avoit merite ! 
 
 Sus — sus ! qu' on se resveille ! 
 
 Voici vin excellent, 
 
 Qui fait lever I'oreille 
 
 II fait mol qui n'en prend."
 
 90 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Nothing softened, la belle bids him begone and seek 
 another amoureuse. To which he replies : 
 
 " Puisque par toy j'ay perdu mes amours, 
 Tousjours — tousjours : 
 Centre 1' amour et la soif rigoreuse 
 
 Que sois, bon vin, arme de ton secours. 
 Sus, sus ! etc." 
 
 His reflections shew that profundity of wisdom which 
 men in a chronic state of ' drink' sometimes exhibit. Here 
 is a comparison between Noah and Lycurgus ; 
 
 "Que Noe fut un patriarclie digiie ! 
 Car ce fut luy qui nous planta la vigne, 
 Et beut premier le jus de son raisin. — 
 O le bon vin. 
 
 Mais tu estois, Lycurgue, nial habile, 
 Qui ne voulois qu'on heust vin en ta ville. 
 Les beuveurs d'eau ne font point bonne fin. 
 O le bon vin." 
 
 " Apple trees," he tells us in another part, " are planted 
 in cemeteries, in memory of the defunct cider-drinkers, by 
 their pious descendants. They serve to remind us of the 
 holy thought that they who sleep beneath, once, like us, 
 loved to drink. Therefore let us. . ." The usual conclusion. 
 
 I have already intimated that domestic felicity was not 
 one of the blessings of Olivier's life. The red-nosed jolly 
 man, who would do nothing but drink and sing, while the 
 fulling-mill was simply going to the dogs, was certainly not 
 the ideal husband of an industrious young maiden. Perhaps 
 to conciliate her, perhaps with some little malice — your best 
 of men are sometimes malicious if their hobbies are in- 
 terfered with — he makes a song in which his wife represents
 
 OLIVIER BASS ELI N DE VI RE. 9 1 
 
 as the result of her experience, that the only way to make 
 marriage happy is to give tlie Inisband plenty of drink. 
 But as this method of conciliation was not apparently 
 successful, in the next song he says, 
 
 "Ma femme se dit mal poun'eue, 
 Que je perds les biens et la veue 
 A force de boire du bon : 
 Mais ne faut qu'elle s'en tourmente : 
 Car c'est une chose excellente 
 Qu'un venerable bibcron." 
 
 He possesses that perfect self-disrespect which is the 
 whole armour of a dnuikard. He is not good, he says, at 
 feats of arms ; he is not given to much making of love : 
 
 "La bouteille c'est ma cuirasse : 
 Mon casque c'est mon gobelet : 
 Et le jambon mon pistolet. 
 Qu'on me remplisse cette tasse : 
 J'en veulx — le cueur point ne me fault — 
 Combattre la soif qui n' assault." 
 
 And, with greater felicity of expression, 
 
 "Hardy comme un Csesar je suis a ceste guerre 
 Oil I'on combat arme d'un grand pot et d'un verre : 
 Plus tost un coup de rire me perce et m'entre au corps, 
 Qu'un boulet qui cruel rend les gents si tost morts. 
 
 Le cllquetis que j'aime est celuy des bouteilles : 
 Les pipes ces bercaux pleins de liqueurs verneilles : 
 Ce sont mes gros canons qui battent sans faillir 
 La soif qui est le fort que je veux assaillir, 
 
 Je trouve quant a moy que les gents sont bien bestes 
 Que ne se font plus tost an vin rompre les testes, 
 Qu'aux coups de coutelas en cherchant de renom : 
 Que leur chant estant morts si Ton parle ou non?"
 
 92 CHAPTER III. 
 
 But in a brief moment of repentance, he says : 
 
 "Je suis beaucoup irrite 
 Contre toy, vin desloyal, 
 Tu m' as fait beaucoup de mal : 
 Tu m'as mis a povrete, 
 Et nous as fait disputer bien souvent ma femme et moy." 
 
 This is a good specimen of his reasoning powers : 
 " Alas ! I see that my Love has left me ; she says that 
 I drink too much, and that that shortens hfe. • I must go 
 then to some desert place, where, drinking no more cider 
 or wine, I may pass the rest of my age. But if I drink 
 nothing but pure water, very soon shall I finish my days, 
 for such drink is contrary to my nature. This will be hard 
 penance. So shall I die, regretting my love, and practising 
 abstinence like a hennit. Well — well — since in the' desert 
 there is no drink worth anything, don't let us leave any 
 of this good wine in the pot. I drink to you before I go 
 away. After my death write this upon my tomb : ' Here 
 lies a man who dearly loved his drink. Great pity for the 
 taverns of Vire that he died.'" 
 
 In a siege, the only thing that he thinks of is the rescue 
 of the hogsheads : 
 
 "Les ennemis sont en furie. 
 Sauvez nos tonneaux, je vous prie ;" 
 
 or, at least, if they take the town, let them find nothing but 
 empty casks and the dregs : 
 
 "An moins s'il prent nostra cite 
 Qu' il n' y trouve plus que la lie : 
 Vuidons nos tonneaux, je vous prie!" 
 
 He tells the story of a shipwreck in a song of con-
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VI RE. 93 
 
 siderable merit; but the loss of the good wine is the 
 lamentable part of it : 
 
 "J'avois charge mon navire 
 
 De vins qui estoient tr^s bons : 
 
 Tels comme il les faut a Vire, 
 
 Pour boire aux bons compagnons. 
 Donnez par charite a boire i ce povre liomme marinier 
 Qui par tourmente et fortune a tout perdu sur la mer. 
 
 Nous estions la bonne troupe 
 Aimant ce que nous menions, 
 Qui ayant le vent en pouppe 
 Tous r un a 1' antre en beuvions. 
 Donnez etc. 
 
 Desja proche clu rivage 
 Ayant beu cinq on six coups, 
 Vinmes a faire naufrage 
 Et ne sauvasme qus nous. 
 Donnez etc. 
 
 II fut mieux en nostra gorge, 
 Ce vin que d'estre en la mer: 
 Quand chascun chez soy se loge 
 II est hors de tout danger. 
 Donnez etc." 
 
 He attempts a defence of the drunkard : 
 
 " They say that drinking shortens his life. Why, then, 
 so much the less reason to be afraid of the pip, which is 
 really a most fatal disorder to chickens. Then the drunkard 
 is no murderer, because he drowns his wrath in wine ; only 
 take care of the fellow who drinks drop by drop, because 
 he strikes at once without reflection. Alas ! what harm 
 can the poor old toper do? He goes to bed, and kills 
 nobody; or else he tells joyous stories; he does not think
 
 94 CHAPTER III. 
 
 of usury; he does no man any injury. Can any water- 
 drinker be more harmless?" 
 
 Here is a jovial roaring song — were there students at 
 Vire? 
 
 "Louons nostra hostel: 
 (Bibimus satis) : 
 Et I'hoste lequel 
 Nos pavit gratis, 
 Et sans reschigner, 
 
 Onerans mensas 
 De mets delicats. 
 
 II nous aime bien 
 
 (Hoc patet nobis) : 
 Car son meilleiir vin 
 
 Deprompsit cadis : 
 Et nous en a fait 
 
 Usque ad oras 
 
 Remplie nos hanaps. 
 * * « « 
 
 Qu'on se donne done 
 
 Cunctis convivis : 
 A I'lioste beuvons 
 Pateris plenis : 
 Le remercians 
 
 A vingt ans d'ici 
 Puissions fuire ainsi." 
 
 Let us finish by a few specimens of contemporary Nor- 
 man songs. In the edition of P. L. Jacob, they are bound 
 up with the Vaux de Vire of Basselin. Some of them are 
 very light and spirited. Here is one, evidently from the 
 number of repetitions a choral song : 
 
 "J'ai fay une chansonette 
 Depuis que je suys ici ; 
 Depuis que je suis ici.
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VI RE. 95 
 
 Je boy a vous s'il vous hette' 
 
 J' ay fay une chansonette 
 
 Je boy a vous, s'il vous hette: 
 
 Vous plyerez vostre amy. 
 
 Vous plyerez vostre amy, 
 J' ay fay une chansonette 
 Depuis que je suis ici." 
 
 There are three more verses given, but there might as 
 well be three hundred, as the song was probably passed 
 from mouth to mouth, each adding one line or two. 
 
 Here is another. His bottle is his ' amye.' The ' glou, 
 glou' reminds us of the burden in the English song — " which 
 still went gluggity glug." 
 
 "Je ne quitterai jamais ma mye 
 Tandis qu' elle fera glou glou : 
 Je ne quitterai jamais ma mye 
 Qu'elle ne soit vuide de tout. 
 C'est a toy, mon camarade, 
 A qui je livre I'assaut? 
 Si je refrains mon haleine 
 Pardonnez moy — s'il le faut. 
 
 Prend done ton dibedibedou, 
 
 Mon joly capitaine : 
 Prend done ton dibedibedou 
 
 Et vuidez tout d'un coup. 
 Je ne quitterai jamais m'amye, 
 Tandis qu'elle fera glou glou." 
 
 Here is a very curious song, the refrain of which is tiie 
 same as that used at the Feast of the Ass of Sens : 
 
 "My: my: my: my: mon doulx enfant, 
 Revcndrez vous jamais vers my ; 
 
 ' If it please you. The word is derived from hilaritus.
 
 96 CHAPTER III. 
 
 My : my : my : my : mon doulx amy ? 
 J' en ay le cueur si tres doulent 
 Que oucques puys d'oeil ne dormy 
 My : my : my : my : mon doulx amy ! 
 Amy — hin ban ! bin ban ! bin ban ! 
 Or tenez ces cents escuz comptanz : 
 N' espaignez point le desmourant : 
 Per Dieu t'nez men fien' 
 Hin ban ! bin ban ! bin ban ! hin ban !" 
 
 This is pretty : 
 
 ' ' En depit des faulx envieux 
 Qui font aux loyaidx amoureux 
 
 Peine tres dure, 
 Nous irons jouer, vous et moy, 
 
 Sur la verdure. 
 Margot, Bietrix, et Alison, Jouenne, Jouen et Berthelot, 
 Voudriez vous point ouyr le son du flageolet? 
 Et danser sus le muguet, 
 De si bon bet,- 
 Sus la verdure ?" 
 
 And these four lines are graceful in their simpHcity : 
 
 "Royne des fleurs, que je desire tant ! 
 Quand je vous voy mon cueur voile de joye: 
 Las ! dictes moy si vostre amour est moye : 
 Dictes le moy gentil corps advenant." 
 
 Of making of extracts there is no end. Let us stop. 
 These songs, so natural, so gay and lighthearted, want no 
 critic's talk. It has been complained that Basselin was 
 grossly ignorant of all rules. Of course he was. So also 
 was Burns. At the same time, as a collection of popular 
 drinking songs, this of the worthy Master Le Houx seems 
 to me unequalled. There are many good songs in English 
 
 > ma fien, mon enfant. * hilaritas, sometimes written bait.
 
 OLIVIER BASSELIN DE VI RE. 97 
 
 and Scotch, l)ut no one set belonging to one century so 
 rich and spirited as these. They are only drinking songs ; 
 there is very little humour in them ; there are no tears, but 
 there is fun in them ; a dance in the measure, and a clash- 
 ing of rhymes and words that goes well to the clashing of 
 the glasses on the table as the singer trolls out his thirsty 
 strains. We have grown melancholy ; we like the touch of 
 human sadness that stays mirth over mirthful ; we like the 
 smile that comes from humour and cynicism. Only in the 
 days of Basselin men were not so refined ; grave things 
 then were good jokes; the gallows-tree was so familiar 
 as to breed contempt and even ridicule ; war and the 
 chances of war were so much in men's mouths that in- 
 security of life and property was not, after all, such a bad 
 subject for a wit. Above all, men loved then, as they do 
 now, to gather together and forget their troubles in the 
 temporary oblivion of wine and song. 
 
 H
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. 
 
 Time has dealt more kindly with Martial de Paris than with 
 many others of his brethren. The author of Les VigUles de 
 Charles VII. and of the Arrets d'' amour \\2A, it is trae, the 
 advantage of the printing-press at a time when people were 
 too much devoted to publishing their own works and the 
 classics to think of the productions of their fathers. Ac- 
 cordingly, while Christine de Pisan is not yet pubHshed at 
 all, while Villon had little chance of popularity till after 
 his death, while Charles of Orleans lay in manuscript for 
 three hundred years, and Olivier Basselin made his debut, 
 considerably altered, more than a hundred years after he 
 was 'brought to great shame' by the English; Martial printed 
 himself in no less than four editions, if not five, before his 
 death. In some respects he deserves to be remembered 
 above all his contemporaries, and, as my extracts will shew, 
 in clearness and energy of conception, as well as in grace 
 of diction, he may be ranked beside any writer of his own 
 or the following age. 
 
 Of his life we know just this, and no more. His family
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. 99 
 
 came from Auvergne, he himself being a native of Paris, 
 hence he is sometimes called Martial de Paris, sometimes 
 Martial d' Auvergne. He was born in 1440, and died in 
 1508. He wx?, procureiir in the court of the Parliament, 
 and notary at the Chatelet of Paris. The Chronique Scan- 
 daleuse gives the following account of an incident in his 
 life. " In the said year, in the month of June, when beans 
 blossom and ripen, it happened that several men and women 
 lost their understanding, and even at Paris there was among 
 others a young man named Martial d' Auvergne, procureur 
 in the court of Parliament, and notary in the Chatelet of 
 Paris, who, after being married for three weeks to one of 
 the daughters of M. Jacques Fournier, counsellor to the 
 King in the said court of Parliament, lost his senses in such 
 a manner that on the day of Monsieur St. John the Baptist, 
 about nine o'clock in the morning, such a frenzy seized him 
 that he threw himself out of the window of his chamber into 
 the street, and broke his thigh and bruised his whole body, 
 and was in great danger of dying. And afterwards remained 
 a long time in the said frenzy, and then came to himself 
 and was in his right mind." 
 
 He died in 1508, if his epitaph is to be trusted : 
 
 "Sous Jesus Christ, en bon sens pacifique, 
 Patiemment rendit son esprit 
 En mai treize, ce jour Ik sans replique, 
 Qu'on disoit lors mil cinq cent huit." 
 
 The Arrets d' amour are in prose, with an introduction 
 and conclusion in verse. Some of them are very curious 
 specimens of a kind of literature now quite forgotten. They 
 are written in legal phraseology, and with an appearance of
 
 loo CHAPTER IV. 
 
 great gravity. They illustrate a whole literature in prose and 
 verse, of which they are the last examples ; and they have 
 the advantage over the ' Droitz nouveaux' of Coquillart, 
 in being free from the trammels of rhyme and metre, and 
 thereby better able to preserve the forensic gravity and 
 formality which constitute their charai. 
 
 After describing the court and the robes of the officials 
 in a short introductory poem, we go on directly to the 
 Arrets. Of these there are a great many. Let us select 
 one or two. 
 
 " Before the Bailiff de Joye is heard a suit between a 
 young lover, plaintiff on the one hand, and his mistress, 
 defendant on the other. The said lover, the plaintiff, said 
 that after he had taken leave of his mistress to go away, 
 she recalled him in order to speak to him ; that on return- 
 ing she made pretence to whisper, and kissed him with 
 such force that she nearly made his nose bleed ; that she 
 also, in doing this, struck him hard with the corner of her 
 cap, wherein was a pin ; that by this act the pin scratched 
 his cheek, which became inflamed, so that the said plaintiff 
 does not expect to get well for three months. In con- 
 sequence of this he does not dare to shew himself before 
 people, and is still very ill. And because he knows that 
 the defendant did it not from hatred and malice, but by 
 accident, he does not ask for damages, but only demands 
 that she should be sentenced to cure him, and to tend 
 him until he be recovered. 
 
 " On the part of the defendant it was urged that the 
 plaintiff had been the assailant, in order to get the said 
 kiss ; that with regard to the scratch, it was an accident ;
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. lOI 
 
 that there was notliing to cry about, because the said 
 plaintift' had not left off eating and drinking, and yet com- 
 plained of his head. 
 
 " Upon which, both parties heard, the said Bailiff de 
 Joye by his sentence, and with regard to certain reports 
 of the Physician of Love, who had examined the wound 
 and reported it in a dangerous place, condemned the lady 
 to furnish the plaintiff with fit and proper cloths with which 
 to make good poultices. The defendant, not satisfied ^vith 
 this sentence, appeals to the higher court. Finally, all seen 
 and considered, the Court of Love decides in favour of the 
 first sentence, and nonsuits the appellant. Further, since 
 it has appeared that since the first sentence the defendant 
 has openly boasted that if she is obliged to apply the 
 poultices she will bite the cheek of plaintiff, and that so 
 hard that he will remember it for ever after^vards, the court 
 ruled and decided that she should be condemned to thirty 
 livres fine, to be paid to the prisoners of Love, and to be 
 expended on their behalf in banquets and green turf, and 
 in the costs of the appeal. And further ordered that she 
 should be constrained to obey the decision of the court, on 
 penalty of caption of the body." 
 
 Another : 
 
 " Before the Recorder of Love in the province of Beauty 
 is tried a suit between a lover, plaintiff on the one hand, 
 in matter of rescision of a contract, and his 'noble dame 
 at amye' defendant, on the other. And said plaintiff states 
 that from the time that they were first acquainted, they 
 made several promises and alliances of Love. And among 
 other things was this compact between them : that every
 
 I02 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 night on going to bed, before putting on his night-cap, he 
 should tie two knots in the end of it, and should say, * God 
 give my lady good night.' And also that she on dressing 
 in the morning should say, ' God give my tres doulx amy 
 good day.' And, moreover, that it was agreed that the 
 lover should every week go after dark and wait a good hour 
 in order to obtain a bouquet or a violet, which she was to 
 throw out to him as recompense, or to say, ' a Dieu, God 
 give you good night.' Now the plaintiff pleaded that in 
 making the above contract he had been enormously de- 
 ceived. For first of all, with regard to the knots in his 
 night-cap he was obliged every third day or so to buy a 
 new one, such was the havoc and destruction caused by 
 this nightly tying. And besides, the knots made it of no 
 use for its proper purpose, and that several times he had 
 been obliged to take it o'ff all together, which was ' grand' 
 peine' with the illness that he had. And on the other 
 point there was deception, 'outre moitie de juste pris' 
 (deceptio ultra dimidiam partem justi precii). For only 
 to get a paltry bouquet or a violet, the gallant was com- 
 pelled to go and pass once or twice a week before the door 
 of his lady, when he suffered infinite pains. For first or 
 all it generally happened that he did not find her at the 
 door, nor any one else to speak to, and had to walk up 
 and down without fire or light. Secondly, when he wanted 
 to go away, it sometimes happened that he saw the light 
 of her candle through the windows, a sight which so much 
 ravished him that he did not know what would become of 
 him. And because he thought then tliat she was not gone 
 to bed, and that she would soon come, he would wait there
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. 103 
 
 in the street two or three hours, and sometimes all the night, 
 watching and waiting, and looking up at the windows, in 
 which he had great suffering, especially during the time of 
 winter, in frost and cold, by which he was sometimes so 
 afflicted that he could feel none of his limbs, and his teeth 
 chattered one against the other like a stork. Thirdly, that 
 for the rain and bad weather he was sometimes obliged to 
 go back to his lodging wet through, and without having 
 done anything except kiss the latchet of the door of his 
 Amye. And his clothes were often so steeped with wet 
 that he had to change them all, and put on others quite 
 new, a thing of great grief, without counting the risk of 
 being known or caught by Danger, and without mentioning 
 his falls in the mud and gutters, his striking in the dark 
 against big stones, and his running against carts. Therefore 
 he demands that the said contract be declared null and 
 void, and that he should be restored to liberty. 
 
 "On the other part, the defendant pleaded that the 
 plaintiff had no just cause of complaint, for that he had 
 been in no way deceived ; that the said contract was passed 
 at the prayer and request of the said lover; that it was 
 besides arranged that she should think of him when putting 
 on her cap, in the same way as he when putting on his ; 
 that if he tore many night-caps by his method of tying 
 knots, so did she, and that she had frequently to buy new 
 ribands besides. And as for walking up and down before 
 her door once a week, he was very wrong to complain of it, 
 for whenever the said defendant thought he was coming, 
 for three hours before she was 'toute ravie,' and did not 
 know what she was about. And further, she was not her
 
 I04 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 own mistress, but was in fear of Danger, whom she had to 
 consider and to take care of, which was a great deal more 
 trouble than the martyrdom that the plaintiff complained 
 of, for she had to pretend to go to sleep when she would 
 rather have kept awake, and to cry when she wanted to 
 laugh. And as for talking about being cold, it was a great 
 shame to him, for a lover ought never to be cold, no, not 
 if it was freezing enough to split the stones. Besides, there 
 was no better occupation for him than waiting for her, 
 because, while walking about he could repeat his Hours 
 and Prayers with nobody to prevent him. And as for 
 tumbling into the gutters and such accidents, they never 
 happen to those who have full confidence in Love. And 
 more she urged of the same nature. 
 
 " Both sides heard, the Recorder decided that there was 
 no just ground for the rescinding of the contract, and con- 
 demned the lover to go on with it at the pleasure of the 
 lady, and to pay all the costs of the suit." 
 
 In another of these cases, the lady is plaintiff, and brings 
 an action against her lover, because that he, ' tout en un 
 moment, sans dire dieu gard, ni autre chose,' kissed her by 
 force. Plaintiff in this case nonsuited, the court ruling that 
 the defendant did quite right ; that the action was vexatious; 
 that the kiss so snatched shall not be counted; and that 
 the lady shall be bound to give him another, ' de bon cceur,' 
 and that as often as he may ask, always made and provided 
 that there be no one there to see. 
 
 These cases are the most quaint and amusing possible. 
 In one, a process is instituted by a young lady against her 
 friend. Plaintiff states that, whereas she once knew him
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. 105 
 
 the most joyous and pleasant man possible to see, always 
 well dressed, courteous, smiling for everybody, and such that 
 it did one's heart good to see him and to hear him ; now 
 he has become heavy, pensive, dreamy, and melancholy ; it 
 seems that his life bores him, for he takes no more delight 
 in fete or in joy ; if one speaks to him, he thinks ' une grand' 
 pit?ce' before he answers ; when one gives him bouquets, he 
 tears them up bit by bit before they go out of his hands ; 
 and when he hears the minstrels and the tabor, tears come 
 into his eyes, and he does nothing but sigh ; if one speaks 
 of love, he turns the conversation upon death, or some 
 musty old story ; and, in fact, is cold when he ought to be 
 hot, and hot when he ought to be cold. Seeing, then, that 
 the plaintiff has a lively interest in his welfare, she begs that 
 the court will order him to abstain from melancholy company, 
 and make such provision that he return to his former estate. 
 
 This most grievous case receives the fullest consideration 
 from the court, which orders that the defendant be kept 
 a prisoner in the Garden of Love for a whole month, so 
 that the sight of flowers and verdure may gradually rejoice 
 his heart ; that he be not allowed to walk about alone, nor 
 to frequent melancholy society, nor to go dreaming by him- 
 self. And, further, with a view to ensure the right carrying 
 out of this decree, that the plaintiff be ordered to keep him 
 company for the whole of this time, and that no one else be 
 allowed to tend the sufferer. 
 
 I have not much space left to consider * Les Vigilles de 
 Charles VII.' It is in fact a rhymed chronicle of the chief 
 events of the reign of Charles, with occasional funeral 
 lamentations on his death, in the form of a church service.
 
 lo6 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It begins : 
 
 "Venite nunc, et ploremus 
 Pour le trespas du feu bon Roy ; 
 Et ses biens faitz recolemus, 
 Comme conduitz en bon arroy, 
 Sans nous souffrir vivre en desroy, 
 Dont le louer bien debemus. 
 Et si gardoit justice et foy : 
 Venite nunc et ploremus." 
 
 Primus Psalmus begins with an ode on the pains of 
 
 death ; afterwards, the regular chronicle is commenced. It 
 
 is divided into chapters or rations, headed with the contents. 
 
 Thus : 
 
 "La Nativite du Roy." 
 "La Mort du due d' Orleans." 
 "La Tuerie de Paris," etc. 
 "La Bataille d'Azincour." 
 
 Let us take a few verses from this last : 
 
 "Quant les Fran9oys les Angloys virent ; 
 Et qu'ilz estoient plus qu'eulz beaucoup, 
 De leur armee conte ne firent, 
 A ins cuidoient avoir gaigne tout. 
 
 Si furent tant presumptueulx, 
 Qu' ilz ne tindrent mesure ne ordre, 
 Pensans qu'on n'oseroit les yeulx 
 Contre tant lever ne les mordre. 
 
 Les aucuns alloient pourmener 
 Leurs chevaulx et faire repaistre 
 Les autres boy re et desjuner 
 En laissant leur ost et leur maistre. 
 
 Quant les Angloys o leur charroy 
 Virent la maniere de faire 
 Et les Francjoys en desarroy 
 Le prendrent a frapper et braire.
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. 107 
 
 Si y eut de vaillans faiz d' armes 
 Que les ungs et autres si firent, 
 Mais les Fran5oys en piteux termes 
 Toute la bataille perdirent. 
 
 La moururent plus de cinq mille 
 Seigneurs, chevaliers, escuyers, 
 Officiers, aussi gens de ville. 
 Sans y compter les prisonniers. 
 
 Les Dues d' Orleans et Bourbon, 
 Richemont et les chefs de guerre. 
 Si furent tout mis a rancjon, 
 Et puis menez en Angleterre." 
 
 After the account of the death of Charles the Sixth, we 
 have "la premiere legon," chanted by France, with the 
 responses by the people of France. The second lesson is 
 chanted by Noblesse, and the responses by the Nobles of 
 France. The third is by Labour. In this lesson there are 
 some verses of great beauty. 
 
 "Du temps du feu roy 
 N'estois en esmoy, 
 Qui me grevast guere : 
 
 ***** 
 II n'est tel plaisir 
 Que d'estre a gesir 
 Panny les beaux champs, 
 L'herbe verd choisir, 
 Et prendre bon temps : 
 Avec ma houlette 
 Et comemusette, 
 Sur la belle herbette 
 Je m' ejouissoye 
 Avec bergerette, 
 Plaisant jolliette, 
 Baisant la bouchette, 
 Si douce que soye : 
 Dieu salt quelle joye !
 
 io8 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 En I'air je sautoye, 
 Et chansons chantoye 
 Comme une alouette." 
 
 Are not these diminutives pretty — bergerette, bouchette, 
 joUiette ? And what a picture — it would make a charming 
 Dresden china group — of the shepherd and the sheperdess- 
 elet, sitting on the grass with a crook and the bagpipe-ette, 
 he kissing her on her Httle mouth-elet, as soft as any silk, 
 with Heaven knows what joy ! 
 
 ' ' Depuis quarante ans, 
 L'on ne vist les champs 
 Tellement fleurir, 
 Regner si bon temps 
 Entre toutes gens, 
 Que jusqu'au mourir 
 Du roy tres passe. 
 Qui pour lesjouir, 
 Et nous secourir, 
 A maint mal passe." 
 
 After this interruption, we go on again with the Chron- 
 icle. He relates the story of the Maid of Orleans, the 
 coronation of Henry the Sixth ; the defeats of the English. 
 
 Then a fourth lesson is chanted by Merchandise, re- 
 sponses by the merchants ; and a fifth by Clergy, responses 
 by clerks. Their response is : 
 
 " O vray Dieu, pere de science, 
 Qui de tous cas as congnoissance, 
 Vueilles mettre, par ta bonte, 
 L' ame du feu bon roy de France 
 En paix et en tranfiuilHte 
 II a tousjours clergie portc, 
 Fort ayme 1' universite, 
 Parquoy en ayes souvenance.
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. T09 
 
 O vray Dieu, p6re de science, 
 Qui de tons cas as congnoissance 
 Vueilles mettre par ta bonte, 
 L'ame du feu bon roy de France 
 
 En paix et en tranquillite." 
 
 The sixth lesson is chanted by Pity, the Chaplain 
 of the ladies. They are to go into the deepest mourning ; 
 there are to be no more gauds in the way of dress, no veils, 
 no couvrechcfs, no ornaments, no more songs, no more 
 bouquets, no more presents, no more kisses and other 
 mundane pleasures, for Charles the king is dead. If any 
 lady or bourgeoise knelt before him to make of him some 
 request, he received her with his natural sweetness, putting 
 his hand on her cap or on her head, and making answer in 
 words so kind that each one went away from him joyous. 
 
 "Adieu le roy vaillant et vertueux, 
 Charles Septiesme, et juste, et secourable ! 
 Adieu le roy benin, victorieux, 
 Humble, cortois, gracieux, amiable ! 
 Adieu le prince aime et agreable, 
 Qui honora les nobles fleurs-de-lys, 
 Et la couronne insigne et desirable, 
 Dont les fleurons a si fort embellis ! 
 
 Adieu presens, baquettes, afficquets, 
 
 Que I'on donnoit aux dames pour estraines ! 
 
 Adieu roses, armeries, et boucquets,' 
 
 Adieu deesses, chantans comme syraines ! 
 
 Adieu baisers, et plaisance mondaines, 
 
 Dont nous portons les douleurs en ce lieu ! 
 
 Adieu plaisirs, liesses souveraines ! 
 
 Adieu, bon roy ! adieu soit 1' ame ! adieu !" 
 
 These verses run, I think, very easily and gracefully ; 
 the last stanza is particularly good.
 
 no CHAPTER IV. 
 
 After more history we come to the next lessons, the first 
 of which is by Justice, and the second by Peace. 
 Peace says : 
 
 "Paix vient de Dieu, et oil Dieu est Paix est; 
 Paix vient d' Amours, et de Justice naist : 
 Paix hayt guerre, hayne, et division, 
 Paix fait garder peuple d' effusion 
 De sang, meurtres, noises et tempestes : 
 Paix entretient les honneurs et les festes 
 En joye, doulceur, et en toute union, 
 Paix et amour si ont communion 
 A Justice, qui avec eulx s' accorde, 
 De Paix vient grace, pitie, misericorde, 
 Bonte, secours, acueil, benignite, 
 Vertu, lyesse, et toute humilite." 
 
 This is a most elaborate lesson. It dives into the 
 deepest recesses of history, and traces causes which we 
 should not have dreamt of. Thus, we hear that Alexander 
 the Great, ' qui fut si hault et renomme vaillant,' loved 
 peace and followed it, by the counsels of Aristotle, ' et 
 grans gens de science 3' that Julius Csesar, who was a great 
 clerk — who reformed the Calendar — who loved learning — 
 who did not say to his chevaliers, 'vous allez y lc\,' but 
 ' allons y nous tous' — made all his conquests by the acts of 
 peace. These things are worth knowing. 
 
 Then the Church sings a lesson, and the last Psalm 
 follows. It is a sort of imitation, not, I believe, design- 
 edly profane, of the last Psalm, ' O praise God in His 
 holiness.' Here are two or three of the verses : 
 
 "Louez le, dames et damoyselles, 
 Car en tout bien et tout honneur
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. i i i 
 
 II a soustenu, vos qucrelles 
 
 Grandement en vostre faveur. 
 Et vous aussi, doulces pucelles, 
 Qui point n' avez este contrainctes, 
 Par meurdres nc par les sequeles 
 Vous marier en pleurs ne plainctes. 
 Louez le tous en general 
 Avecque ses excellents faitz, 
 Comme protection special 
 Faisant vivre son peuple en Paix. 
 Louez le tous, et priez Dieu 
 En ayant en luy souvenance, 
 Car exaulse a en maint lieu 
 La noble couronne de France, 
 
 Vray Dieu puissant et glorieux, 
 Ottroyez repoz pardurable 
 A 1' ame du tres piteable 
 Le Roy Charles victorieux." 
 
 Besides this piece, ' L'amant rendu cordelier ^ 1 'obser- 
 vance d'Amour^ is also attributed to Martial de Paris. 
 The Abb^ Goujet says of him that he was ' I'homme de son 
 sibcle qui e'crivoit le mieux et avec le plus d' esprit.' Let us 
 take, then, two more extracts, in a somewhat different style, 
 one of them out of les Vigilles. 
 
 The Church has at all times been the favourite subject 
 of satire, but it would be difficult to find lines more bitter 
 than these : 
 
 "Au temps heureux, oil vescurent nos pares, 
 On ne vit one de ces Prothe-notaires, 
 Qui ont huit, neuf dignites ou prebendes, 
 Grans abbayes, prieures et commandes. 
 Mais qu'en font ils? lis en font bonne chere. 
 Qui les dessert ? Ils ne s' en soucient guere. 
 Qui fait pour eux? Un autre tient leur place. 
 Mais ou vont-ils? lis courent ^ la chasse.
 
 112 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Et qui lors chante ? Un ou deux pauvres moines. 
 
 Et les abbes? lis auroient trop de peine. 
 
 De contempler? Ce n'est par la maniere. 
 
 Et du service? II demeure derriere. 
 
 Ou va 1' argent ? II va en gourmandise. 
 
 Et du compte ? Sont les biens de 1' eglise. 
 
 Et les offrandes? En chiens et en oyseaux. 
 
 Et des habits? lis sont tous damoyseaux. 
 
 Et les rentes ? En bains et en luxure. 
 
 De prier Dieu ? De cela I' on n' a cure. 
 
 Et pauvre gens? Ceux la meurent de faim : 
 
 Pour leur donner pas un n' ouvre la main. 
 
 Ou charite ? Est en pelerinage. 
 
 Ou est aumosne ? Elle va en voyage. 
 
 He que fait Dieu ? il est bien aise es cieux. 
 
 Ilequoi ! dorl-il? L' on n'en fait pis ni mieux." 
 
 The scandals of the churchmen, increasing from year to 
 year, reached their height in these years ; and as they grew 
 nearer and nearer to their cUmax and the grand revolution 
 of the sixteenth century, the satire of the laity grew more 
 intensely bitter. Then came the time, a little later than 
 Martial, when to write against the Church was to belong to 
 the new heresy, and popular satire had to hold its tongue 
 or speak low. Erasmus had not yet begun to Avrite, though 
 he was doubtless meditating his Colloquies ; and until the 
 advent of Luther, speech was free. 
 
 These were good days in the reign of the good king 
 Charles the Seventh; it was, according to Martial, the 
 golden age for France ; for then, he says : 
 
 " Chascun vivait joyeusement 
 Selon son estat et mesnage : 
 L'on pouvait partout seurement 
 Labourer en son heritage,
 
 MARTIAL DE PARIS. 113 
 
 Si hardiment que nul outrage 
 N' eust ete fait en place ou voye, 
 Sur peine d' encourir dommage : 
 Helas ! le bon temps que j' avoye ! 
 
 Lors 6tait en la sauve garde 
 
 De paix et de tranquillity : 
 
 De mal ou danger n' avois garde : 
 
 Justice avoit autorite : 
 
 Le pauvre estoit autant porte 
 
 Que le riche plain de monnoye : 
 
 Blcz et vins croissoient h. plante : 
 
 Helas ! le bon temps que j' avoye. 
 
 He ! cuidez vous qu' il faisoit bon 
 En ces beaux pres, k table ronde, 
 Et avoir le beau gras jambon, 
 L'escuelle de poreaux profonde, 
 Divisor de Margot la blonde 
 Et puis danser sous la saussoye? 
 II n' estoit d' autre joye au monde : 
 Hc'las ! le bon temps que j' avoye! 
 
 Du temps du feu roy trespasse, 
 
 Ne doutois brigans d' un festu : 
 
 Je fusse passe, repasse, 
 
 Mal habille, ou bien vestu, 
 
 Qu' on ne m' eust pas dit, d' ou viens-tu ? 
 
 Ni demande que je portoye : 
 
 Chemin estoit de gens bastu : 
 
 Helas! le bon temps que j' avoye." 
 
 Note. — Those who wish for further information on the subject of these 
 cours d' amour, will find a sufficient account of them in Bell's Annotated 
 English Poets, in the introduction to Chaucer's Court of Love. The 
 last court was established by Charles the Sixth, and was a thing of the 
 past when Martial wrote. Probably he collected together decisions and 
 judgments from the courts of France, Provence, and England, and put 
 them into his own form and words.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 
 
 ' ' Peu de Villons en bon savoir, 
 Trop de Villons pour decepvoir." 
 
 From time to time along the line of poets, we light upon 
 one whose works are one long expression of his own sorrows 
 or sufferings. To him life is so great a burden, so great 
 a fact, as to obscure and darken his power of perceiving the 
 importance of other facts to millions of other people. He 
 is not necessarily selfish, but his existence is so mighty 
 a thing that he can think and sing of nothing else. He is 
 ill, he is getting old, he has not had the luck of some men, 
 he has sinned, he is sorry. These are the themes of his 
 song. Looking in the eyes of his muse he sings what he 
 sees reflected there — himself. Absorbed by his theme, he 
 is careless of the outer world. Kings and thrones may be 
 overturned, religions and creeds may change, men and 
 manners may be transformed. He notices nothing, being 
 too busily occupied in considering himself 
 
 Towards the latter half of the fifteenth century there 
 lived, one can hardly say flourished, a great vaurien, by
 
 FRAiVCO/S VILLOiV. 115 
 
 name Francois Villon. His favourite place of residence 
 was Paris, famous for the loving shelter she has always 
 afforded to the race of " truands." 
 
 Little or no hope can commonly he held out to the 
 ordinary rogue of ensuring even a brief and transient 
 memory of his name. Like the nettle by the wayside that 
 stings the children's hands, but is soon forgotten, he 
 commits his petty thieveries and passes away. Nor does 
 any Herrick invite the nettle, as he does the daffodil, to 
 stay, if it be only till the close of day. Long and obscure 
 is the list of these worthies, but it is rare indeed, save in 
 some glorious case like that of Jonathan Wild, that any 
 name or fame remains, to mark the spot where a rogue has 
 lived, and thieved, and died. Sacro vate careiit. They are 
 forgotten. 
 
 But Villon is not forgotten. For, in addition to his 
 natural gifts as a thief, dmnkard, spendthrift, and libertine, 
 he possessed the more singular gift of song. Strange to 
 say, he possessed this most excellent gift in a measure far 
 beyond any of his contemporaries. He is the poet of the 
 streets, the genius of Seven Dials, the glory of Whitechapel. 
 His poetry is inspired by repentance. He has sinned ; 
 he is used up by excesses, debaucheries, and a hard life. 
 At the age of thirty he draws up his final will and testament, 
 a document of the saddest kind, in which he relates the 
 story of his life ; bemoans his wasted opportunities, reflects 
 on the necessity of death, and sadly moralises on the fleeting 
 nature of human greatness. 
 
 He has been called gay, Demogeot, in his brief notice 
 of him, says that he was "toujours gai, toujours railleur et
 
 Ii6 CHAPTER V. 
 
 spirituel, melant aux saillies de sa joyeuse humeur des traits 
 nombreux d'une sensibilite reveuse et quelque fois elo- 
 quente." This is, to my mind, an entire misconception of 
 tlie character of the poet. I have read him throughout, 
 and I protest that I cannot find one single spark of real 
 lightheartedness. All is profoundly melancholy. He piles 
 the bitterest reproaches on himself. If he laughs, it is not 
 mirthfully ; if he smiles, it is sadly. 
 
 But the man so clearly draws himself in his works that 
 one seems to have known him. One pictures a tall thin 
 man, with melancholy deep-set eyes, a long nose — his song 
 of the Gallows-birds proves this to me — stooping shoulders 
 and narrow chest. His chin is short and receding, and the 
 lower part of the face is weak. His forehead is high, but 
 not broad. He is easily depressed by misfortune, and 
 elated by the least gleam of sunshine. His heart is as 
 soft as his will is weak. He gives when he has, borrows 
 when he has not — but forgets to repay ; is always going to 
 reform, but never carries out his resolution ; when he is not 
 sinning, he is repenting ; when he is not crying and smiting 
 his breast, he is drinking and singing with his ruffianly 
 companions. Starting in life with considerable abilities, 
 but no advantages of birth, fortune, or friends ; with a weak 
 will, a melancholy temperament, and that kind of mental 
 dependence on others which drives some men to seek any 
 society they can get ; he fell among friends of the most 
 dangerous kind. How he hated his life among them — that 
 is, in his repentant moods — and how he despised them — 
 when he was not drinking with them — is abundantly clear 
 from his writings. Why he did not separate from them and
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. li? 
 
 take to better courses is not clear, unless we consider that 
 it is the hardest thing possible for a man to break off evil 
 acquaintance, and almost as hard a thing for a man to give 
 up a bad ' me'tier' by which, at least, he gets his bread, and 
 to face starvation. Neither of these courses was possible to 
 the luckless Villon. His easy temper made him yield to 
 the persuasions of his friends, and in his reckless moods he 
 allowed himself to be the idol of the pothouse, the song- 
 writer of thieves, the darling of prostitutes. He sinned in 
 the night, repented in the morning, and sinned again. In 
 a grand fit of repentance, sickness, and sorrow, he wrote 
 the Grand Testament. I am fully persuaded that when he 
 got over this exhausting effort of remorse he went back to 
 his old courses, and died, after three or four years more of 
 debauchery, in some friendly monastery. His deathbed, 
 like that of most weak-willed, easily impressed profligates, 
 would probably be most edifying. One can imagine the 
 repentant sinner on his back, surrounded by the exhorting 
 priests. Tears of real sorrow roll down the furrows of his 
 wasted cheek. No confession can be invented full enough 
 to satisfy his abject submission to Holy Church. He 
 renounces all ; bids farewell to Jehan Cotard and Colin de 
 Cayeux, who indeed were hanged by this time ; shudders 
 at the recollection of Marion and Margot ; begs forgiveness 
 of Thibault d'Aussigny, bishop of Orleans, for the many 
 hard things he has said of him ; makes the firmest resolution 
 to enter upon a new life, and fortunately dies in the full 
 odour of repentance, before he has had time to forget his 
 sufferings and to break his resolutions. 
 
 Theophile Gautier compares him to Lord B)Ton, chiefly,
 
 Ii8 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1 believe, on some fancied resemblance between passages 
 in Don Juan and passages in the Grand Testament. Cer- 
 tainly, in both, there runs a vein of sadness, and with both 
 their mirth is forced and hollow. There is no light-hearted- 
 ness about Don Juan, and none about Villon. But in the 
 English nobleman we find a cynicism at the world, while 
 in the French " truand" the cynicism is all for himself He 
 has written one or two ballads which may fairly be ranked 
 with those of Beranger, but he has neither his gaiety nor 
 his power. I have sometimes been reminded of Skelton, 
 with whom he may, so far as his life, be partly com- 
 pared, but he wants the headlong dash of Skelton, while he 
 far exceeds him in real beauty and power. 
 
 Theophile Gautier again compares him with Panurge, 
 and suggests that Villon inspired Rabelais with the "type 
 delicieux de Panurge." It may be so, but Panurge as a 
 character is wholly inferior to what we conceive of Villon. 
 Gautier admits this. " Tout complet que soit Panurge, 
 Villon, cependant 1' est encore davantage : il a une me- 
 lancolie que 1' autre n'a pas, il a le sentiment de sa misbre. 
 Quelque chose d' humain lui vibre encore sous les cotes : 
 il aime sa mere .... Panurge n'a pas non plus, pour la 
 beaute de la femme, le meme respect amoureux que son 
 prototype . . . ." Villon was a rogue who, in moments of 
 reflection, which were many, hated his own rogueries ; 
 Villon was what every educated man must be who falls into 
 the mud of vagabondage; sensitive as he was to every 
 passing feeling, he could not be hardened to the moral 
 deadness of Panurge. He loved his mother ; he wrote for 
 her a tender little ballad to the Virgin, he speaks of her
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 119 
 
 in terms of real affection, he is grateful to his uncle who 
 brought him up, he is grateful to Charles of Orleans who 
 helped him in his greatest trouble, he is grateful to the 
 King who took him out of prison. 
 
 Now Panurge would never have been grateful or affection- 
 ate to anybody. In the time of the great storm he sincerely 
 laments that he is not with the monks that passed by the day 
 before, so fat and so godly. If there is any danger, he hides ; 
 if any fighting, he nins away \ but if any stuffing, feasting, 
 drinking, he is foremost. Gratitude, like courage, is utterly 
 strange to him ; so are love, filial affection, friendship, and 
 piety. He attaches himself to the great Pantagniel as a 
 powerful protector, and to Friar John as a stalwart comrade. 
 He is as full of tricks as a monkey, and about as trust- 
 worthy; he is outrageously animal, and has no notion of 
 using his brains for any other purpose than to help him 
 to animalize himself still more. If he fails, his first thought 
 is revenge ; if he succeeds, his return to those who helped 
 him is forgetfulness. If the great work of Rabelais be 
 a carefully devised and cunningly wrought-out allegory 
 (which I do not believe), then is Panurge the representative 
 of man without a soul. All is there — desires, wants, passions, 
 reason, and memor}^ Only there is utterly wanting what 
 we call conscience — soul — that side of man, as Professor 
 Newman defined it, by which we see God. God to Panurge 
 was not, because it had never been given him to know God. 
 But Villon — Villon was all conscience. His melancholy 
 soul administered perpetual castigations. Panurge was 
 joyous and free from remorse; Villon was sad and full of 
 self-reproach. Panurge looks ever for what may be ; Villon
 
 I20 CHAPTER V. 
 
 looks back at what might have been. Panurge was im- 
 perfect only on the side of conscience ; Villon only on the 
 side of will. Panurge was anything in the world, except 
 Francois Villon. 
 
 The real story of Villon's life is briefly this. 
 
 He was bom at Paris in 1431, the same year that saw 
 the burning of Joan of Arc. He was of poor origin, his father 
 being a ' cordonnier.' Shewing, one may suppose, evidences 
 of ability he was entered at the University of Paris, where at 
 an early age he became riotous, debauched, and indolent. 
 He appears to have left the University, and joined a troop 
 of wandering gallants, who lived, from hand to mouth, a life 
 of lawless vagabondage. In 1456 he went to Angers, where 
 he wrote " Le Petit Testament," a work to which we shall 
 return presently ; the next year he returned to Paris, where 
 he was shut up in the Chatelet for some unknown offence, 
 and condemned to be hanged. Luckily he thought of 
 making an appeal, which proved successful, through the 
 good offices of Charles of Orleans, a firm friend to his 
 brother poets of whatever degree. While in prison he 
 wrote one of his best ballads, the " Song of the Hanged." 
 He was pardoned, but banished, and we hear no more of 
 him until we find him arrested by Thibault d'Aussigny, 
 bishop of Orleans, no one knows why, and kept in prison 
 a whole summer by that dignitary on a diet of bread and 
 water. The bread and water diet was never forgotten by 
 Villon, who was little accustomed to either, except on com- 
 pulsion, and in his " Grand Testament" he remembers his 
 ancient enemy. Louis XL took him out of prison, and 
 then he wrote his " Grand Testament." After that— no one
 
 FRAN'COIS VILLON. I2I 
 
 knows. Rabelais says that he retired "sur ses vieux jours 
 soubs la faveur d'ung homme de bien ;" also that he went 
 to England and enjoyed the protection of Edward the 
 Fourth, I have given above my own belief about his death. 
 Still there are two pieces in his style attributed to him, one 
 of which mentions the defeat of Charles the Bold at Nancy 
 in 1477, and the other must have been written after 1480, 
 when the corps of archers was abolished. But, like all 
 popular poets, he had a great many imitators, and a number 
 of poems were attributed to him in which he probably had 
 no share at all. 
 
 The only works of his about which there is no doubt, 
 are the Petit and the Grand Testament, with the songs and 
 ballads of the latter ; half-a-dozen ballads may be appended, 
 and the Jargon, which is written in ' argot,' and which no 
 man can understand. There are also the Replies Franches, 
 which are in his style, but probably not by him ; the Dia- 
 logue between MM. de Mallepayc and De Baillevent, and 
 the Monologue of the Free Archer, which must have been 
 written after Villon was sixty years of age. Now I think 
 it very improbable that our deboshed poet got much past 
 his thirtieth year. 
 
 His great popularity is certain from the fact that 
 bet^veen 1489 and 1542 there were no less than thirty 
 editions of his works. He was revived tAvo hundred years 
 later and published in 1723, again in 1742, then in 1832, 
 and lastly in 1867. 
 
 The secret of his popularity was his reality ; he was the 
 first poet who sung of life as it was ; he chanted the streets, 
 the sufferings of the poor, the villainies of the thieves, and
 
 122 CHAPTER V. 
 
 the repentance of a vulgar sinner. He accidentally dis- 
 covered — he, the first — the poetical side of misery, and, as 
 Demogeot says, he sings it not " pour nous apitoyer, mais 
 parcequ' il e'tait poete." Nothing is too low for his muse. 
 Hear what he says on himself and his companions, waiting 
 to be hanged. There is a sort of forced laugh about it, 
 somewhat horrible to listen to. 
 
 " Brother mortals who live after us, harden not your 
 hearts against us, for if you have pity on us poor men, God 
 will have more mercy towards you. Here you see us 
 tied up, five — six. As for the flesh that we took too much 
 care of, that is long since devoured and rotted ; and as to 
 our bones, we are becoming cinder and powder. Let no 
 man laugh at our misfortunes, but pray God that He may 
 absolve us all. 
 
 " If we call you brothers do not on that account disdain 
 us, although we were slain by justice ; you know that all 
 men have not got good natural sense. Intercede then 
 without bitterness towards the Son and the Virgin Mary, 
 that His grace may not be tarnished for us, preserving us 
 from the flames of hell. We are dead ; let no one insult 
 us, but pray God that He may absolve us all. 
 
 " The rain has soaped us and washed us, and the sun 
 has dried us and blackened us. Pies and crows have 
 plucked out our eyes, and torn away our beards and eye- 
 brows. Never do we sit down to repose at all. Here and 
 there, just as the wind changes, at its own pleasure it carries 
 us about. Pecked at by birds, more than the thimble by 
 the needle. O men — here, at least, do not mock, but 
 pray God that He may absolve us all."
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 123 
 
 With what a rueful smile must the condemned prison- 
 bird have pictured the last stage of his and his companions' 
 sojourn on the earth ! Here we are, half-a-dozen in a row, 
 all tied up together, swinging about, and we never sit down. 
 Pray God absolve us all ! 
 
 But the man who could so write could not possibly have 
 been a wholly bad man. 
 
 Here is another piece, when he moralizes on death. 
 
 He goes into a charnel-house — " Ah !" he says, " here is 
 no laughter and no play. What is it worth to these to have 
 lain in warm beds, to have dmnk good wine, to have lived 
 joyously in fetes and dances ? ... All these heads — what were 
 they? Bishops and judges, street-porters and servants. 
 Some Avho bullied, some who crouched ; here they are, all 
 in a mass, pele-mele. Well, they are dead. God have 
 their souls ! As for their bodies, they are rotten — although 
 they have been lords and ladies delicately nurtured on 
 cream, and meal, and rice. And their bones are turned 
 into powder, where there is neither warmth, nor pleasure, 
 nor laughter. Please, Sweet Jesus, absolve them !" 
 
 Here is his philosophy ■} 
 
 " Looking through a chink in the wall I saw a fat canon 
 sitting on a soft couch, in a warm and comfortable room, 
 drinking Hypocras day and night ; and by his side the 
 lady Sydoine, white, tender, and polished. . . . il n'est trt^sor 
 que de vivre a son aise. If Franc Gontier and his com- 
 panion Helen had enjoyed this pleasant life. . . w^ould they 
 have praised sleeping under a rose-bush — and is it not 
 better to sleep in a bedl il n'est trdsor cjue de vivre h son 
 ' Les contredits de Franc Gontier. See below.
 
 124 CHAPTER V. 
 
 aise. ... I don't care if all the birds from here to Babylon 
 live on coarse bread, oat and barley cake, and drink water 
 all the year round — they would not keep me to such a life 
 a single day — no, nor a single morning. Oh ! let Franc 
 Gontier, and Helen with him, please themselves under the 
 eglantine, in the name of God, if they so wish — it is no 
 business of mine — but whatever be the metier of labourers 
 in the fields, il n'est tresor que de vivre a son aise." 
 
 Before proceeding to a consideration of his productions 
 in detail, I am reminded of an anecdote of Villon, related 
 by Rabelais. The story, of which I should like not to 
 believe one single word, is so illustrative not only of the 
 peculiar notions of fun prevalent in those joyous times, but 
 also of the opinion which the world had of Villon, that I 
 extract it at length. The significance of the thing is not so 
 much in its truth, as in the fact that such a story could have 
 been told of such a man as Villon. There are (to quote the 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table) three Johns, namely, John 
 as he appears to his friends, John as he is, and John as he 
 would be. Villon shows us in his writings John as he was, 
 and John as he would be ; but he has not shown us John as 
 his friends thought him. This is what Rabelais shows us. 
 
 "Master Francis Villon, in his old age, retired to St. 
 Maxent in Poictou, under the patronage of a good honest 
 abbot of the place. Then, to make sport for the mob, he 
 undertook to get ' the Passion' acted after the way, and in 
 the dialect of the country. The parts being distributed, 
 the play having been rehearsed, and the stage prepared. . . . 
 there only wanted properties and necessaries, but chiefly 
 clothes fit for the parts.
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 125 
 
 "Villon, to dress an old clownish father grey-beard, 
 begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Fran- 
 ciscan friars of the place, to lend him a cope and stole 
 
 Tickletoby peremptorily bid him provide himself elsewhere, 
 if he would, and not to hope for anything out of his monas- 
 tical wardrobe. Villon gave an account of this to the 
 players as of a most abominable action, adding that God 
 would shortly revenge Himself, and make an example of 
 Tickletoby. 
 
 " The Saturday following he had notice given him, that 
 Tickletoby, upon the filly of the convent, was gone a- 
 mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be back about two in 
 the afternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his 
 devils of ' the Passion' through the town. They were all 
 rigged with wolves', calves', and rams' skins, laced and 
 trimmed with sheeps' heads, bulls' feathers, and large 
 kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles, where- 
 at hanged dangling huge cowbells and horsebells which 
 made a horrid din. . . . Having led them about, to the 
 great diversion of the mob, and the dreadful fear of little 
 children, he finally carried them to an entertainment at 
 a summer-house, without the gate that leads to St. Ligarius. 
 
 " As they came near the place, he espied Tickletoby 
 afar off, coming home from mumping, and told them in 
 macaronic verse : 
 
 " Hie est de patria natus, de gente belistra, 
 Qui solet anticjuo bribas portare bisacco." 
 
 '* * A plague on his friarship,' said the devils then ; ' the 
 lousy beggar would not lend a poor cope to the fatherly 
 father. Let us fright him.'
 
 126 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " * Well said,' cried Villon, ' but let us hide till he comes 
 by, and then charge him home briskly with your squibs and 
 burning sticks.' 
 
 " Tickletoby being come to the place, they all rushed 
 on a sudden into the road to meet him, and in a frightful 
 manner threw fire from all sides upon him and his filly 
 foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like 
 so many real devils : ' Hho, hho, hho, hho, rrou, rrours, 
 rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hho, hho, hho i. Friar Stephen, don't 
 we play the devils rarely ?' 
 
 " The filly was soon scared out of her seven senses, and 
 began to start, to funk it, to trot it, to bound it, to gallop 
 it, to kick it, to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk 
 it, to leap it, to curvet it, with double jerks, insomuch that 
 she threw down Tickletoby. . . Now his straps and stirrups 
 were of cord, and on the right side his sandals were so 
 entangled and twisted that he could not for the heart's 
 
 O 
 
 blood of him get out his foot. Thus was he dragged about 
 by the filly through the road ... she still multiplying her kicks 
 against him, and straying for fear over hedges and ditches, 
 insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so, that his 
 cockle brains were dashed out near the Hosanna, or high 
 cross. Then his arms fell to pieces, one this way and one 
 that ; and even so were his legs served ; and she being got 
 to the convent, brought back only his right foot and twisted 
 sandal, leaving them to guess what had become of the rest. 
 
 "Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he in- 
 tended, said to his devils : 
 
 " ' You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act 
 rarely. I dare engage you will top your parts.'"
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 127 
 
 Poor Tickletoby ! in this unexpected manner, and on 
 his way home from mumping ! 
 
 One wonders if Villon really did it. But this was the 
 notion entertained by the world generally of the long-nosed, 
 melancholy poet. 
 
 The Petit Testament, written at the age of twenty-five, 
 consists of forty-five eight-lined stanzas, and contains some 
 twenty-five legacies. I confess I find it rather dull. 
 
 He begins by saying that in order to get out of the way 
 of love and of a cruel mistress, who causes him more than 
 the average amount of torture, he intends going to Angers, 
 there, if necessary, to die the death of a martyr to love. 
 
 To Master William Villon he leaves his reputation — a 
 most valuable gift. To his mistress, of course, his heart. 
 He orders that his three poor little adopted children, all 
 without shoes or clothes — 'as naked as worms' — shall be 
 provided for, at least till winter. He directs that one 
 friend, in prison for a bill of six sous, shall be released — 
 when he has paid it ; that another shall be presented with 
 his old breeches, out of Avhich he humorously suggests that 
 a headdress may be made for the said friend's mistress ; 
 that another shall receive an acorn from a willow, and 
 other equally attainable things ; to two more he offers the 
 choice of a half of his personal property, or a farthing each, 
 whichever they please; to poor and distressed prisoners 
 he offers the gallows, with a daily quart of the best Seine 
 water, and recommends them to the good graces of the 
 jailor's wife ; the hospitals may have his chests, full of 
 spiders' webs ; his barber may have the cuttings of his hair ; 
 and the orders of Mendicant Friars and the Beguines are to
 
 128 CHAPTER V. 
 
 have lots of good cheer, with a strong recommendation to 
 preach, on a full stomach, the signs of the end of the world. 
 
 Then he finishes. " Made at the hour above named, by 
 the famous Villon, who eats neither figs nor dates ; who is 
 as dry and as black as a baker's broom ; who has neither 
 tent nor pavilion, but nothing at all save a little copper 
 money, which will soon come to an end." 
 
 Much of the satire has evaporated out of this production, 
 by reason of age and the mortality of his friends, Villon 
 being the only one of the confraternity now remembered. 
 Some little remains, however, and I dare say at the time it 
 was a masterpiece of wit. 
 
 Let us, however, turn to the Grand Testament, a very 
 much superior production. 
 
 " Le Grand Testament" consists of no less than one 
 hundred and seventy-three stanzas, interspersed with sixteen 
 ballads. 
 
 He begins by abusing the bishop of Orleans, who had 
 put him in prison. As, however, it is right to pray for one's 
 enemies, and as Villon, if not a Christian, is nothing, he 
 promises to recite for him the seventh verse of the Psalm 
 Deus laiidem. The seventh verse of this Psalm (109) 
 is, according to our Prayer-Book version, " Let his days be 
 few, and let another take his office." Lat. episcopatiim. 
 
 As King Louis the Eleventh took him out of prison, he 
 cannot help devoting three or four stanzas of gratitude to 
 that monarch. These really appear to be heartfelt thanks 
 to the memory of the bread and water. Among other 
 blessings, he prays that the good king may have twelve 
 children, all sons, and all as puissant as Charlemagne.
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 1 29 
 
 He then laments his own sins, and relates the story of 
 the pirate Diomedes and Alexander (which he says he got 
 out of Valerius, but which is not there) by way of some 
 small excuse for himself; then resumes his theme. "I 
 lament," he says, " the time of my youth in which, more 
 than any other man, I have acted the libertine, up to the ' 
 commencement of old age, for my youth has left me. It 
 has not gone away on foot, nor on horseback. Alas ! how 
 then ? It has suddenly flown away, and left me nothing at 
 all. 
 
 " Gone it is, and I remain poor in sense and in knowledge, 
 sad, discouraged, blacker than a Moor. I have no money, 
 no rents, no possessions. The meanest of my family, I say 
 the truth, hastens to disown me by reason of my want of 
 
 a little fortune Ah, God ! if I had studied in the time 
 
 of my foolish youth, and given myself to good manners, 
 I should have had house and soft bed ; but what ? — I ran 
 away from school like a truant child. In UTiting this, my 
 
 heart almost is breaking Where are the joyous gallants 
 
 whom I followed in days gone by — who sang so well, and 
 talked so well, so pleasant in deeds and words ? Some are 
 dead and stiff; is there anything left of them now? May 
 these have respite in paradise, and God save the remainder ! 
 And others are become great seigneurs and lords, thank 
 God — others are naked beggars, and only see bread through 
 the windows; while others, again, are entered into the 
 cloisters of the Celestines and the Chartreux, booted and 
 shod like oyster-fishers. See the different conditions be- 
 tween them !" 
 
 After this he consoles himself under his poverty, by the 
 
 K
 
 13° CHAPTER V. 
 
 reflection that after all it is better to be a living beggar 
 than a dead seigneur. As for that, we must all die. 
 
 " Certainly I know I am not — I consider it well — the son 
 of an angel bearing a diadem of this or that star. My father 
 is dead ; God keep his soul : as for his body, it is in the tomb. 
 I know that my mother will die, and the poor woman knows 
 it too very well, and her son will not remain. I know that 
 rich and poor, foolish and wise, priest and layman, noble and 
 villain, generous and sordid, little and big, ugly and beautiful, 
 ladies with high collars, of whatever condition, wearing 
 ornaments and hoods, death seizes all without exception. 
 Whether Paris dies, or Helen — whoever dies, dies with 
 pain. He who loses breath, the bitterness of gall breaks 
 over his heart ; then he feels heaven knows what sweat 3 
 and there is no one who may alleviate his sufferings, for he 
 has neither children nor brother nor sister, who then could 
 be his pledge . . . Oh ! woman's body, so tender, so polished, 
 so soft, so precious, must thou these pains expect? Yes, 
 or else go to the skies alive." Then follows a delicious 
 ballad, in which he asks where are the fair women of old. 
 
 I give it in the original : 
 
 I. 
 "Dictes moy, ou, n'en quel pays, 
 Est Flora la belle Romaine? 
 Archipiada, ne Thais 
 Qui fut sa cousine germaine ? 
 Echo parlant quand bi-uyt on maine 
 Dessus riviere, ou sus^ estan : 
 Qui beaulte eut trop plus qu'humaine? 
 Mais ou sont les neiges d'autan-? 
 
 ' sus = sur. 
 " autan, ante annum, " Where are last year's snows?" It is a pity
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 131 
 
 II. 
 
 Oil est la tres sage Helois — 
 
 Pour qui fut battu et puys Moine, 
 
 Pierre Esbaillart, \ sainct Denys? 
 
 Pour son amour eut cest essoyne. (malheur). 
 
 Semblablement ou est la Royne, 
 
 Qui commanda que Buridan 
 
 Fut jette, en ung sac, en Seine? 
 
 Mais ou sont les neiges d' autan ? 
 
 III. 
 
 La Ro)Tie blanche comma ung lys, 
 Qui chantait u voix de Sireine : 
 Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys : 
 Harembourges qui tint le Mayne : 
 Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine, 
 Qu' Angloys bruslerent a Rouen : 
 Oil sont elles, vierge souveraine? 
 Mais ou sont les neiges d' autan ? 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 Prince, n' enquerez de sepmaine, 
 Oil elles sont, ne de cest an. 
 Que ce refrain ne vous remaine, 
 Mais oil sont les neiges d' autan?" 
 
 Two more ballads, similarly conceived, follow, but this 
 is certainly the most musical of the three. Some of the 
 fair women of Villon are not so well known as those of 
 Tennyson. Prompsault, in his edition of Villon, gives notes 
 of these names. "La reine blanche" was Blanche of 
 Bourbon, wife of Peter the Cruel. " Berthe au grand pied" 
 
 that this word is obsolete. Panurge being asked where his diamonds are 
 which the bashaw gave him, says, "By St. John, they are a good way 
 hence, if they always keep going. But where is the last year's snow ? 
 This was the greatest care that Villon took."
 
 132 CHAPTER V. 
 
 was the mother of Charlemagne, and the subject of a well- 
 knoAvn romance. She was six feet in stature. Esbaillart 
 is his way of writing Abelard. " La bonne Lorraine" is 
 of course Joan of Arc. 
 
 Since, then, Popes, Kings, Princes, all die, Villon sees 
 really no reason for doubting that he himself will die. 
 Then he bethinks him of old age, and especially what 
 a thing old age must be to women who have been beautiful 
 and young and happy. His repentance is only skin-deep 
 after all, and in the midst of his own lamentations his 
 thoughts fly to the old women in rags squatted round a fire, 
 and to their past days of love and joy. So that he stays 
 his breast-smiting to write a ballad, which, to my mind, has 
 hardly been surpassed in his own line, except by Be'ranger. 
 He calls it " Les Regrets de la belle Heaulmiere, j^ 
 parvenue k la Vieillesse." 
 
 It cannot all be quoted. Read a little of it : 
 
 "Advis m'est quej'oy regretter 
 La belle qui fut Heaulmiere : 
 Soy jeune fille souhaiter, 
 Et parler en ceste maniere : 
 Ha ! vieillesse felonne et fiere, 
 Pour quoy m' as si tost abattue ? 
 Qui me tient ? qui ? que ne me fiere (frappe) 
 Et qu' a ce coup, je ne me tue?" 
 
 "Thou hast taken away the rights and privileges that 
 beauty had given to me over clerks, merchants, and eccle- 
 siastics, for there was no man bom who would not have 
 given me all his wealth, whatever repentance followed after, 
 if only I had given to him what prudes refuse. 
 
 " Many a man who was not greatly to my liking I have
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. I33 
 
 refused, for the love of a crafty lad, to whom I made great 
 largesse. By my soul I loved him well, and he never did 
 anything for me but rudeness, and only loved me for what 
 I had. Yet he could never illtreat me enough to prevent 
 my loving him ; even if he dragged me along the ground, 
 if he told me to kiss him and forget all my troubles, if the 
 villain only embraced me, I was better pleased than ever. 
 What remains to me of it ? Shame and sin. Well, he is 
 dead thirty years ago, and I am old and white. When 
 I think, alas ! of the good time, what I was, what I am 
 become — when I look at myself and see myself so changed, 
 poor, dry, shrivelled, and thin, I am almost driven mad. . . 
 
 "Qu'est devenu ce front poly, 
 Ces cheveulx blonds, sourcils voultyz, (arched) 
 Grand entr'oeil, le regard joly 
 Dont prenoye les plus subtils : 
 Ce beau nez droit, grand ni petit : 
 Cez petites joinctes oreilles : 
 Menton fourchu, cler vis, traictis 
 Et ces belles levrcs vermeilles?" 
 
 " My front is wrinkled, my hair is grey, my eyebrows gone, 
 
 the eyes extinct that darted looks and smiles, by which so 
 
 many merchants were attracted ; my nose is hooked, once 
 
 so beautiful ; my ears are hanging and spotted, my face 
 
 pale, dead, and discoloured, my chin projects, and my lips 
 
 are skinny 
 
 "Ainsi le bon temps regrettons 
 Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes, 
 Assises bas, i croppetons, (squatted down) 
 Tout en ung tas comme pelottes : 
 A petit feu de chenevottes 
 Tost allumees, tost estainctes :
 
 134 • CHAPTER V. 
 
 Et jadis fusmes si mignottes ; 
 
 Ainsi en piend a maintz et maintes." 
 
 Poor old creatures ! squatting round a fire of hemp stalks 
 that goes out as soon as lit. Well may they regret " le beau 
 temps, quand elles furent si mignottes." Will age ever 
 cease to look back on the spring-time of youth, and hope, 
 and love, and careless squandering? Villon barely hides 
 the belief common to all spendthrifts, that a joyous youth is 
 worth a poor and comfortless old age. This unlucky ne'er- 
 do-well has found the chord which, touched with ever so 
 unskilful a hand, moves all men's hearts. 
 
 Now, getting altogether astray from his first good and 
 edifying meditations, he gives a ballad of advice addressed 
 by the old Heaulmiere to her younger sisters, in which one 
 remarks that affliction only makes the poor old thing more 
 worldly and more wicked. He then offers a sort of apology 
 for the frailty of women, a subject in which he was only too 
 deeply versed. Recovering from this temporary backsliding, 
 he sets forth a ballad on love, of which the burden is " bien 
 heureux est qui rien n' y a." In this he fortifies his position 
 by examples drawn from history ; quoting Solomon, Samson, 
 qui " en perdit ses lunettes ;" Orpheus " le doux menestrier," 
 Narcissus, Sardana, the preux Chevalier, who conquered the 
 kingdom of Crete — probably Saladin ; David, that sage 
 Prophet ; Herod, and, finally, himself and his o\vn misfor- 
 tunes when he was beaten, like the linen in the stream, 
 for the sake of Catherine of Vauselles. 
 
 Then he speaks of the sufferings and deceits of love ; 
 renounces love ; has another ' dig' at his enemy the bishop ; 
 and commences a bran-new Will, revoking his first.
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 1 35 
 
 In the name of God, he begins, but stopping to mention 
 that, before the coming of our Lord, all souls were lost, he 
 makes exception in favour of patriarchs and prophets, prov- 
 ing his exception, which was against the teaching of some 
 of the preachers of his time, in this curious way. If, he 
 says, Dives and Lazarus were both in flames, and if Dives 
 had seen that Lazarus's finger was burning, he would not 
 have asked him to dip it in water and put it in his mouth. 
 " Bad place," meditates Villon, gravely, " for hard drinkers." 
 
 He gives his soul to the Holy Trinity, his body to mother 
 earth, where he says the worms will not find very much 
 fat, for hunger has made too hard war upon it ; to his 
 more than father, William de Villon, he leaves his library ; 
 to his mother, who has had for him so much bitter grief, 
 God knows, and many a sorrow, he leaves a ballad to the 
 Virgin, having no castle, nor fortress, nor place of retreat 
 to go to when affliction falls on him ; and his poor mother, 
 he says, has none either. 
 
 Here are the first and third stanzas of the hymn. The 
 third is perfect in its way. 
 
 " Dame des cieux, regente terrienne, 
 Emperierc des infernaulx palux, 
 Recevez moy vostre ^lumble chrestienne, 
 Que comprinse soye entie vos esleuz, 
 Ce non obstant qu' onqiies rien ne valuz. 
 Les bienz de vous, ma dame et ma maitresse, 
 Sont trop plus grans que ne suis pecheresse: 
 Sans lesquel biens ame ne peult merir' 
 N'entrer es cieulx ; je n'en suis menteresse, 
 En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir. 
 
 Femme je suis povrette et ancienne, 
 
 Ne riens ne sgay : oncques lettre ne leuz ; 
 
 ^ morir, meriter.
 
 136 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Au moustier voy, dont suis parroissienne, 
 
 Paradis painct, 011 sont haqies et luz, 
 
 Et ling enfer, oii damnez sont boulluz, 
 
 L' ling me faict paour, 1' autre joye et Hesse. (Isetitia) 
 
 La joye avoir faict moy haulte deesse 
 
 A qui pescheurs doivent tous recourir, 
 
 Comblez de foy sans faincte ni paresse : 
 
 En cette foy je veiiil vivre et mourir." 
 
 Observe the singular religion shewn in this hymn. It 
 was written some fifty years before the dawn of the Re- 
 formation. The ^^Titer has no notion of religion, but as an 
 escape from the pains of sense to the pleasures of sense ; 
 no chance of escape but in the good offices of the Empress 
 of the Infernal marshes. But the hnes "Femme je suis . ." 
 are exquisitely simple and touching. 
 
 To his Rose he leaves no money, but a ballad, which 
 I confess I cannot appreciate. 
 
 Then comes a long list of small legacies resembling 
 those in the Petit Testament. Then a Ballad and Prayer 
 for Maitre Jehan Cotard. 
 
 Then more legacies, and a pretty little song for a gentle- 
 man newly married, which he may send to his bride, won 
 by the sword. 
 
 The next Ballad is a furious curse on venomous tongues. 
 Most persons of Villon's mode of life have suffered greatly 
 from venomous tongues. 
 
 Then we have the ' Contredits of Franc Gontier,' which 
 I have partly translated above. Franc Gontier had written 
 in praise of a pastoral life, which Villon here contemns. 
 
 Then follows a very curious little poem, ' Des femmes 
 de Paris,' which trips along with such a gay and pleasant 
 air, that I copy it out.
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 137 
 
 "Quoy qu'on tient belles langagicres 
 Genevoises, Veniciennes, 
 Assez pour etre messaigeres, 
 Et memement les anciennes : 
 Mais soient Lombardes, Rommaines, 
 Florentines, a mes perilz, 
 Pymontoises, Savoysiennes, 
 II ' est bon bee que de Paris. 
 
 De beau parler tiennent chargeres, 
 Ce dit-on, les Appolitaines, 
 Et que bonnes sont cacquctoeres 
 Almansas, et Bruciennes : 
 Soient Grecques, Egyptiennes, 
 De Hongrie ou d' autre pays, 
 EspaignoUes, ou Castellaiies, 
 II n' est bon bee que de Paris. 
 
 Brettes, Suysses n'y scavent gueres 
 Ne Gasconnes et Tholouzunnes : 
 De Petit Pont deux harangeres 
 Les concluront : et les Lorraines 
 Anglesches, ou Callaisiennes : 
 Ay je beaucoup de lieux compris? 
 Picardes : de Valenciennes : — 
 II n' est bon bee que de Paris. 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 Prince aux dames Parisiennes 
 De bien parler donnez le prix ; 
 Quoy qu'on die d' Ilaliennes, 
 II n'est bon bee que de Paris." 
 
 Note here the long Hst he gives, chiefly from different 
 parts of France. Gascony, Calais, Brittany, Thoulouse, 
 Picardy, Valenciennes, Geneva, — all mixed up together as 
 his geographical knowledge served him, or the rhjTne de- 
 manded. Lafigagiires explains itself; ?nessaigieres probably 
 means bearers of love messages; tiennent chargeres, give
 
 138 CHAPTER V. 
 
 lessons ; cacqiictocrcs is interpreted talkers, and Appolitaincs 
 is Neapolitans. Villon's knowledge of names is especially 
 weak, as when he speaks of Sardana, meaning, I suppose, 
 not Sardanapalus, whom he names at full length in another 
 part of his writings, but Saladin, as has been suggested. 
 
 Apropos of his own song, he says : 
 
 " Come and look at the women sitting two and three 
 together on the lower fold of their gowns, in the convents 
 and the churches ; come close and don't change your place. 
 You will find that never did Macrobius make such fine 
 decisions. Listen ; carry away something of what they say. 
 It is all good advice." 
 
 Of ' la grosse Margot' he says : 
 
 "Je r ayme de propre nature, 
 Et elle moy, la doulce sade, 
 Qui la trouvera d' adventure, 
 Qu' on luy lise leste ballade. " , 
 
 The ballad, one of the most remarkable that he has 
 written, cannot be quoted. It is a half-bold, half-ashamed 
 description of a life which poor Villon knew only too well. 
 He brazens it out, he does not pretend to hate it, but 
 though he is ashamed of himself, he puts on his most 
 reckless air, folds his arms, and sings out, breaking down 
 a little at intervals of his life " dans la taveme ou tenons 
 nostre estat." 
 
 After a few more legacies, in which he remembers Marion 
 1' Ydolle, and la grande Jehanne de Bretaigne, formerly 
 friends of his, he reads what he calls a ' Belle Legon de 
 Villon aux enfants perdus,' followed by a ballad of good 
 doctrine to persons of bad life.
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 139 
 
 This is very good. The first verse is thus : 
 
 " Well, be a smuggler of Bulls if you like, or a cheat and 
 blackleg at dice, or a coiner of false money — you only bum 
 yourself like those who are put into the boiling cauldrons^ 
 — perverse traitors, void of faith ; be a thief, robber, and 
 pickpocket — where go your gains, think you? Tout aux 
 tavernes et aux filles." 
 
 The last line is the burden of the song. 
 
 Then, getting very serious, he goes to the cemetery of 
 the Innocents, and seeing the piles of bones heaped in the 
 charnel-house, he moralizes on them. But I have already 
 given these lines above. 
 
 Then follow the concluding words of his testament. 
 
 Here is a sort of Requiescat : 
 
 " Repos eternal donne a cil, (cclui) 
 Sire, clarte perpetuelle, 
 Qui vaillant, plat n' y escuelle 
 N'eut oncques, n'ung brin de percil. (parsley) 
 II fut rez, chef, barbe, sourcil, 
 Comme ung navet qu' on racle et pelle. 
 Repos, etc." 
 
 And in the last Ballad, finishes : 
 
 "Ici se clost le testament, 
 Et finist le pouvre Villon. 
 Venez a son enterrements, 
 Quant vous orez le carillon, 
 Vestuz, rouges com vermillion, 
 Car en amours mourut martyr : 
 Ce jura il, sur son chaignon 
 Quand de ce monde voult partir. " 
 
 ^ A cheerful punishment adopted at that time for the more effectual 
 striking of terror into false coiners.
 
 I40 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Besides these poems there are a few ballads remaining, 
 one of which on the hanged men I have already quoted. 
 The rest do not offer anything very remarkable. 
 
 The " Jargon et Jobelin de Villon" has never been dis- 
 puted to be his, but it is written in wholly unintelligible 
 " argot." Even Marot confesses that he cannot understand it. 
 It is printed in the edition of Prompsault, with notes which 
 he confesses to be only conjectural. The curious may find 
 it in that edition, and may essay to read it. For myself, 
 I tried to read the first stanza of the first ballad, and gave 
 it up. But there is very little profit in trying to decipher 
 Thieves' Latin. 
 
 Printed with Villon's poems is a curious little collection 
 called " Les Repues Franches," or, as we may translate it, 
 " The Free Feeds," shewing how Villon and his companions 
 obtained, without gold or silver, fish, tripe, bread, wine, and 
 roast. 
 
 The purchases are made very ingeniously. Thus, he 
 goes to the baker and orders half-a-dozen of his best loaves 
 to be prepared immediately. As soon as half the quantity 
 is ready, he bids the baker's man follow with the basket. 
 Arrived at the door of a nobleman's house, he tells him 
 that this is the place, and that he may leave the first half 
 and go back for the rest. As soon as the man has turned 
 the corner, he takes off the basket to his companions 
 joyously. 
 
 But they want wine. He gets two jars exactly alike, 
 and fills one with water. At the merchant's he demands 
 the jar full of his best red wine, which is given him. But 
 he then pretends that he ordered white wine, and will not
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 141 
 
 take the red. Giving them back the jar full of water, he 
 shoulders the other and exits hastily. 
 
 It took two to get the meat ; one had to buy, and the 
 other to come up and quarrel with the purchaser. In the 
 scuffle they carry oft' the beef. 
 
 I cannot avoid quoting the words of St. Beuve on Villon. 
 He says : " Under a favourable climate, among a childish 
 people poetry commences by having herself the candour of 
 childhood ; she believes for a long time in the golden age ; 
 she continues always to believe in the charms of a clear sky 
 and in the delights of nature. With us, on the contrary, 
 Villon hurries off the muse to the cabaret and the gallows ; 
 at the very hour of her birth he disenchants her of those 
 darling illusions, teaches her his own easy morals, and 
 fashions her to those manners, just a little bold, that she 
 will never henceforth lose. Some modesty will come upon 
 her perhaps with age ; but familiarity, mischief, and a 
 penchant for raillery, will always recur at moments. Dignity 
 and nobility of tone will have their turn, but the old French 
 gaiety will have its relapses, and sentiment will not ex- 
 tinguish mockery." 
 
 The influence of Villon on Marot, and of INIarot on 
 La Fontaine, is so great, and the fact that Villon begins 
 a new school is so important, that these remarks are well 
 worthy of attention. Still, one cannot help feeling that the 
 'penchant pour le badinage' of the French muse is due 
 more to the French spirit than to the influence of Villon. 
 
 But, if he was not without imitators, he was without 
 predecessors. His style is his own ; he is no copyist, no 
 disciple of a school. He was the poet of the people, but
 
 142 CHAPTER V. 
 
 not the advocate of the people. He had the most profound 
 ignorance of any theories, poUtical or social. The only 
 problem he attempted to solve was that simple difficulty 
 of getting meat and drink for himself, and a little money 
 for Margot ; he described what he saw, and had no thought 
 that the old state of things would alter. Even printing was 
 not introduced into Paris till after his death, and perhaps 
 Villon never even saw a printed book. Had he lived in 
 these days, he would have been a clever literary Bohemian ; 
 probably would have written for the magazines, smoked 
 strong Cavendish, drunk beer, and gone to bed late. And 
 I should say that at no possible period would life be suc- 
 cessful for a man of Villon's character. 
 
 As for the story told by Rabelais, there is this to be 
 said. Early in the fifteenth centuiy was established what 
 was called the " Confre'rie de la Passion." The society 
 used periodically to enact the mystery of the Passion of our 
 Lord. An account of this, for which we have no space, 
 is given in any work on the French Literature of the time. 
 The mystery was an extraordinary favourite. Devils, who 
 occupied the lowest stage, expressed their rage and terror 
 at the Suffering of our Lord, while this was actually set 
 forth before the folk.^ In course of time the enacting of 
 the play causing some scandal, it was forbidden, except at 
 New Year's day. Now such a man as Villon would find 
 a huge pleasure in taking an active part in any such thing 
 as this. The coarse contrast between the Heaven and the 
 Hell of the stage ; the humorous antics of the devils ; the 
 
 ^ Judas was once or twice actually finished off and hung in earnest, 
 through the pious zeal of the actors.
 
 FRANCOIS VILLON. 143 
 
 semi-religious nature of the ceremony, apt to comfort the 
 soul of a sinner, all would have their charms for him, and 
 I am half-disposed to think that there may have been some 
 grounds for the story of the signal example of Friar Tickle- 
 toby. 
 
 The great dramatic rage, however, during the life of 
 Villon was for moralities. These pieces, at which our poet 
 must have yawned drearily, were allegorical and elaborate. 
 The virtues and vices contended with each other. Nothing 
 so vulgar as a devil daintily hung round with tenter-hooks, 
 calves' skins and suchlike ornaments was admitted. The 
 performances appear to have been strictly moral, and fear- 
 fully, inexpressibly dull. 
 
 Then came a livelier time, and an indignant populace, 
 weary of moral allegory, demanded something in a ligliter 
 style. But this was after Villon. Would that he had been 
 in the prime of his years, when Patelin inaugurated a new 
 era for popular dramatic literature ! 
 
 Was Francois Villon the actual prototype of Pierre 
 Gringoire ? Did Victor Hugo, when he wrote Notre Dame 
 de Paris, take Villon for his Gringoire, and find his vocabu- 
 lary of Parisian slang in Villon's Jargon ? Certainly, all his 
 words, and an immense number more, are in the Jargon. 
 And there are many points of curious resemblance between 
 Gringoire and Villon — only, Villon would not, could not 
 have earned his livelihood by balancing chairs on his chin. 
 I leave this point for the investigation of the curious. 
 There was, however, a Pierre Gringoire of the sixteenth 
 century, who wrote much poetry, of a sort now forgotten, 
 and curious plays, still remembered.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ROGER DE COLLERYE— BAUDE— GUILLAUME ALEXIS. 
 
 CoLLERYE was the great poet of the Fete aux fousj the 
 friend of Basochiens and the Clercs du Chastelet ; the joyous 
 spirit of a small country circle ; the illustrious Roger Bon- 
 temps. Time has somewhat tarnished the lustre of his 
 fame, but he is not yet without an admirer, and he has 
 found in these latter days an editor who does him more 
 than justice. Hear what M. Charles de Hericault writes 
 of him. " He has left," he says, " a mark in history which 
 will never be effaced ; his is the most singular personality 
 among the poets of the commencement of the sixteenth 
 century; his life and his genius furnish documents most 
 useful to the philosophy of the literary history of his time. 
 He has created a national type, a type dear to the French 
 esprit; that which represents this esprit in its condition 
 of calm and joyous leisure, the type of Roger Bontemps. 
 In this personage he has introduced, so to speak, the 
 symbol of joy among the vine-growers of Burgundy. All 
 the followers of the Abb^ des Fous of Auxerre; all the 
 BasochieiiSy clerks of the Chastelet, enfans sans souci ; all
 
 ROGER DE COLLERYE. 1 45 
 
 the grand family of philosophers, shoeless and hungry ; all 
 the acolytes of the Mere Folle were his comrades ; and 
 all those fools, arch-fools, lunatics, heteroclytes, poets of 
 nature, and the rest of the legitimate children of Roger 
 Bontcmps recognised their idol in the joviality and joyous 
 poverty of Roger de Collerye." 
 
 Thus far M. Charles d' He'ricault. Less enthusiastic 
 readers of Roger de Collerye may be disposed to think 
 this praise exaggerated. Certainly, in the town where 
 he lived, and his own district, he seems to have enjoyed 
 great reputation, and to have been the leader of all those 
 country fetes when rough wit and license had their full 
 swing. But when he deserts his own line, when he tries 
 to fall in with the fashion of tlie time, and to write after 
 the style of Marot, he fails. He is Roger Bontemps, or 
 he is nothing. His life is soon told. He was a genuine 
 Bohemian ; one of that happy class who love to feast one 
 day, if they have to starve six ; to be Perpetual Grand of 
 the Glorious Apollos, the roystering leader of all the songs, 
 and the chief maker of all the jokes, careless that next 
 day will bring headache and repentance, dry bread and 
 cold water; with bitter accusations against Fortune, who 
 will not let men eat their cake and have it. Poor Rocer 
 could not endure with jiatience the e\'il which naturally 
 fell upon him, and bellowed loudly when his credit failed 
 him. Like almost all the verse-writers of his time, he 
 laments, in his old age, the sins of his youth, and bewails, 
 not without reason, the folly of his misspent time. 
 
 He appears to have been a native of Paris, though he 
 says himself: 
 
 L
 
 146 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "Je suis Bontemps, qui d' Angleterre 
 Suis ici venu tie grant erre 
 En ce pays de 1' Auxerrois." 
 
 Which must be taken dramatically. But why should Bon- 
 temps be said to come from England? Was it from some 
 popular rumours of the plenty and good cheer of the 
 English ? 
 
 He spent most of his life at Auxerre, where he Avas 
 secretary to two successive bishops. This semi-ecclesias- 
 tical post did not inspire him with gravity. Quite the 
 contrary. His youth was reckless, joyous, orageuse; enemies 
 Plate Bourse and Faulte d' Argent not yet being in sight. 
 At Gurgy, the residence of a patron, Monseigneur de Gurgy, 
 whom he calls Bacchus, he fell in with some of the members 
 of la Basoche, for whom he made his cris in after time. 
 There, we may understand, were great roysterings and sing- 
 ings. There was arranged in verses, for the grand day of 
 the iSth of July, the fete aux Fous, all the little gossip of 
 the town, to be spouted in front of the cathedral by my 
 Lord the Abbe des Fous and his band. This day Roger 
 called Debride-gosier, or Tongiie-let-loose. At Auxerre Roger 
 falls in love. His love M. Hericault declares to have been 
 of the purest and loftiest order. I do not know why, except 
 that he addresses his mistress an acrostic and sundry verses 
 in the modern style. Her name was Gilleberte de Beaure- 
 paire. But, alas ! ambition, ever the most fatal to the 
 purest and the loftiest souls, stung our Roger, and not 
 content with the distinctions he had won in the country, 
 he must needs sigh for the good things of the court. The 
 way of it was this. In an evil moment Roger indited a
 
 ROGER DE COLLERYE. lAI 
 
 letter to Marot, tlic king of poets, as he calls him. He 
 congratulates him on his works, which he styles d, peu pres 
 dcificques^ and especially commends his fortune, because " le 
 roy ne manque "k bien remplir sa bourse." Marot answered 
 affably, even with compliments, and Roger, giving up his 
 secretaryship, packed up his poems — one easily imagines 
 that he had not much else to pack — and went off to Paris. 
 Here the usual story has to be told ; waiting, hope, flattery, 
 and disappointment. M. d' He'ricault finds that he fell 
 from what he would have us believe was his pristine purity ; 
 that he contracted a new love, by no means so pure as that 
 of Gilleberte, and that his mind, degraded by this alliance, 
 lost its old ideal of woman, and fell back upon material, 
 coarse, and vulgar notions. The truth, as I apprehend it, 
 was that Roger never had that lofty ideal ; that, in writing 
 to Gilleberte, he wrote in the fashion of the day, and not 
 from his own heart ; and that his ideas on all subjects were 
 coarse and material, in youth as well as in age. Then he 
 went back, in disgust and poverty, to Auxerre, where, Plate 
 Bourse and Faultc iV Argent finding him out, he lost credit 
 at the taverns, had no money to buy him wine, and began 
 to lament over his empty coffers and thirsty throat. As his 
 editor says : " Roger n'a connu que cette sorte de souf- 
 france qui pique le corps . . . . les combinaisons mate'rielles 
 qui peuvent produire la souffrance font le siege de sa 
 maigre echine." 
 
 His writings are not. very numerous. Doubtless a great 
 number have perished. There remains, however, a collec- 
 tion of Epistles, Rondeaux, Complaints, Ballads, Epithetons, 
 Dictions, and Epitaphs ; a Satyre for the people of Auxerre,
 
 148 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Le Blason des Dames," a Sermon for a Marriage, and 
 some other pieces. 
 
 Let us begin with the Satyrc. It is a sort of presentation 
 of characters, without plot or incident. Peuple Francois 
 commences. 
 
 This is what he says : 
 
 ' ' Puisqu' apies grant mal vient grant bien, 
 
 Ainsi qu'on dit en brief langage. 
 
 D' avoir soulcy n' est que bagage : 
 
 Qu' il soit ainsi, je 1' entens bien. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Quant est de moy, sur toute rien, 
 Desormais me veidx resjouir : 
 Et aussi, de va et de vien 
 Se je puis recouvrir le mien, 
 Pourray de mon plaisir jouyr." 
 
 Enter Joyeiiset'e : 
 
 "Peuple Fran9ois se faict ouyr, 
 Je r entends bien a sa paroUe, 
 D' autant qu' il veult soucy fouyr 
 Et chagrin en terre enfouyr. 
 II fault qu' il me baise et accolle ; 
 Pour bien donner une bricolle, 
 II en s9ait bien la maniei'e." 
 
 She is come, she says, to abohsh all care and trouble. 
 
 Quoth the People : 
 
 "Or 9a, Joyeusete jolye, 
 Que diet-on en court? 
 "Joyeusete. Qu'on y dit? 
 
 Du tout tristesse est abolye, 
 Et Joyeusete recueillye, 
 Quand on m'y voit, sans contredit. 
 P. F. Qui sont ceulx qui ont le credit ? 
 y. Noblesse principalement.
 
 ROGER DE COLLERYE. 149 
 
 P. F. Et puis apres ? 
 
 J. Par ung esdit, 
 
 Cculx qui sont au faict ct au dit, 
 Loyaulx en cueur entiurement." 
 « • « « 
 
 A Vigneron next comes in ; lie complains of the deamess 
 of wheat, and the shameful conduct of bakers. 
 
 Jenin ma Fluste {accoustre en Badin, a kind of clown or 
 jester) comforts him. He says that the bakers are as big 
 robbers as the Scotch, who go about pillaging the villages. 
 (Could this possibly allude to the Scottish Guard ? One 
 would be loth to think that Quentin Durward in his old age 
 had betaken himself to these illegalities.) 
 
 Peuple Francois goes on grumbling : 
 
 " Boullengiers payez de leurs gaiges 
 Seront, pour vray, quelque matin. 
 yeuin. Se je s^avois parler Latin 
 
 Ainsi que font ces Cordeliers, 
 
 J' aurois de ble les plains garniers, 
 
 Et si en ferois bon marchie." 
 
 The conversation gets dreary about this time. Then 
 
 they sing a song : 
 
 ' ' Par Joyeusete, 
 En honnestete, 
 Comme ja pensois, 
 Vivra en seurte, 
 Yver et este, 
 Le peuple Fran9oys : 
 Des princes et roys 
 Verra les arroys^ 
 Mieulx que bien vena 
 Et sans dessarroys 
 Et sans nulz desroys 
 Tousjours souslenu." 
 
 * arroys, the splendour.
 
 150 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Now comes Bontemps in high spirits : 
 
 "Vive le roy — vive le roy — 
 Et tous compaignons et moy ! 
 Je suis Bontemps, qui d' Angleterre 
 Suis ici venu de grant erre 
 En ce pays de 1' Auxerrois. 
 J' ai gouveme princes, dues, roys, 
 Dega, dela, en plusieurs lieux. 
 Et ay veil des cas merveilleux 
 Qui n' est ja besoing de les dire." 
 
 Then they all rejoice and embrace. 
 Peuple Francois plucks up a little courage, and leaves 
 off grumbling at bakers and cordeliers. 
 
 " Puisqu' avons Bontemps, sans tarder 
 II nous fault mener bonne vie ; 
 Et dorenavant nous garder 
 De faire mal avoir envye. 
 Joyeusete. Je suis en cueur presque ravye, 
 
 De veoir Bontemps devant mes yeubc. 
 Or, a tousjours je me convye 
 De n' estre jamais assouvie 
 De vous aymer de mieulx en mieulx. 
 Bontemps. Demeurer avec vous je veulx ; 
 
 Mais un mot vous diray, non plus : 
 (Se vous n' estes bon — se m' eist Dieux) 
 Je m' en iray en aultres lieux, 
 Vela que je diz et conclus." 
 
 The Satyre ends. All the interest in this popular piece 
 lies in the allusions ; no doubt the hit at the bakers was well 
 received, and the covert allusion to the use made by the 
 cordeliers of their Latin would be caught by the gods. Dress, 
 music, and action assisted the performance materially, and 
 we all know, by recollection of Richardson's Theatre, how
 
 ROGER DE COLLERYE. 151 
 
 very rude contrivances are able to touch the hearts of 
 country-folk and children, and to carry their imaginations 
 far away. 
 
 The next most remarkable piece of Roger's is entitled 
 " Le Blason des Dames." It is a dialogue between Beau 
 Parler and Recueil Gracieux. 
 
 B. P. (begins) Honneur aux dames ! 
 
 R, G. C' est raison. 
 
 />. r. II leur est deu. 
 
 R. G. Toute saison. 
 
 B. P. Dames doibt on aymer, pryser. 
 
 A'. G. rVen dire tout bien y viser. 
 
 P. P. Je ne sache meilleur blazon. 
 
 R. G. Aux dames n'a comparaison. 
 
 B. P. Es champs, es villes, en maison, 
 
 Chascun en doibt bien deviser. 
 
 R. G. Honneur aux dames, etc. 
 
 R. G. Dames doibt on aimer, pryser. 
 
 B. P. Qu' en dirons nous plus ? 
 R. G. Advison. 
 
 B. P. Ceulx qui en mesdient ? 
 R. G. Desprison. 
 
 B. P. Ceulx qui les blasment ? 
 R. G. Deviser. 
 
 B. P. Ceulx qui les diffament ? 
 R. G. Brizer. 
 
 B. P. Voi9a bonne terminaison. 
 
 R. G. Honneur aux dames, etc." 
 etc., etc 
 
 But they have by no means finished. They go to 
 history, and quote the examples of Helen and Medea : 
 
 "La chose est clerc et bien certayne, 
 Que les dames, au temps passe, 
 Ont en louange souveraine. 
 
 « « « •
 
 152 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 B. P. Avant que venir au refrain, 
 
 Du propos auquel je me fonde. 
 
 Qui fut cause, a pur et a plain. 
 
 Que Saturne, sage et humain, 
 
 Fut le premier roy en ce monde ? 
 R. G. Dame Vesca. 
 B. P. Parolle ronde." 
 
 The examples of Danae, of Judith, and of Agnes Sorel 
 are quoted : 
 
 La Bible amplement nous desduyct 
 De Rebecca la diligence. 
 R. G. Des Cibilles la sapience 
 
 Plusieurs beaulx motz en sont dictz. 
 B. P. De Suzanne la continence, 
 
 Et d' Hester la benivolence. 
 
 Qu'en diet la Bible? 
 Ji, G. De beaulx diets. 
 
 There are a great many more : Griselda, Lucretia, 
 Sydoine, of the romance of Ponthus et la belle Sydoine; 
 Vienne, from the romance of the Destruction de Troie; 
 GaHenne, from the romance of the Conquest of the great 
 king Charle?nagne ; Rachel, Anne, and Thobye. 
 
 Recueil Gracieux says that the favour of ladies is not 
 to be got by stupid and impertinent people. " Nor," returns 
 his companion, " by menace." " Nor yet," says R. G., " by 
 'veullez ou non'." "Nor," says Beau Parler, "by pre- 
 sumption." 
 
 " Sans falace 
 Leur grace on a par bon renom." 
 
 Back to history again, and notably to Phaon and Sappho. 
 Recueil Gracieux then makes the profound remark that if
 
 ROGER DE COLLERYE. 153 
 
 you want to be loved, you must Legin by being in love 
 yourself. Finally (omitting a good deal) he says : 
 
 "Beau Parlcr, pour fouyr soulcy, 
 
 Nous concluons et la et cy : 
 
 D' ung franc voulloir, non vicieulx 
 
 Que les dames juscjues aux cieulx 
 
 Avons exaulsees par bons termes. 
 B. P. Nos cueurs ne sont falacieux. 
 R. G. Ce Iraicte court, solacieux, 
 
 Nommerons le Blason des Dames." 
 
 The lamentations of a bourgeoise for her lover are 
 headed by the Hebrew Alphabet, or some of the letters, 
 Alcph, Gimel, etc., and each verse ends with a very odd 
 refrain. Here is the first verse. 
 
 " Comme pourray, nicy triste et desolee, 
 Porter 1' ennuy que jour et nuyct j' endure 
 Four vous, dont tant j' ay este consollee 
 Et doulcement baisee et accollee? 
 Las ! las ! ce m' est une tristesse dure ! 
 Chaleur me poingt, si faict aspre froidure, 
 Incessamment cueur et corps me fremye, 
 Pour r absence de vous, ma cliere amye. 
 
 Jherusalem — ^Jherusalem — 
 
 Vous aussy fille de Syon ; 
 
 Plourez, gemissez mon mal an 
 
 Actainct de desolation." 
 
 An ' epitheton' on the four kings — Louis XI., Charles 
 VHL, Louis XH., and Francis I., preserves their favourite 
 oaths : 
 
 "Quant la 'Pasque Dieu' deceda, 
 Le 'Bon Jour Dieu' luy succeda
 
 154 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 All 'Bon Jour Dieu' deffunct et mort 
 Succeda le ' Dyable m'emport': 
 Luy decede, nous voyons comme 
 Nous duist la ' P^oy de Gentilhomme, ' " 
 
 He also makes a prediction, singularly falsified : 
 
 "L'an mil cinq cens et treute neuf 
 L' on verra ung monde tout neuf; 
 Et Lutheriens confondus, 
 Et Payens et les Turcs fondus." 
 
 Henri Baude, who lived from 1430 to 1495, "^^^ ^ P^et 
 of the same school as Villon. Unluckily, Villon was 
 remembered, and he was forgotten. Marot published 
 Villon, and only stole from Baude. The theft was, how- 
 ever, of no great value. He was li/e of Limousin. A 
 selection of his writings has been recently published. They 
 are obscure in their allusions, and though some of his 
 critics find in them that ' sel gaulois et ce tour vif which 
 give life to Villon, I confess to being unable to appreciate 
 their value. He spent his long life in Paris, doing the 
 duties of his post by deputy. He fell into disgrace for 
 a morality of his, in which the Royal power was repre- 
 sented by a fountain of water. Unluckily, the water came 
 up mudded with grass, roots, sand, and earth. Allegories 
 may mean something quite different from what the author 
 intends. By the sand and grass he meant to signify the evil 
 counsellors who always surround a king; but it appeared 
 to the king as a reflection on the purity of his justice, and 
 the author got three months' imprisonment. 
 
 Among Baude's verses are some curious mottoes for 
 designs in tapestry. Here is one.
 
 HEKKI BAUDE. I55 
 
 The design is— a lighted candle between a courtier and 
 
 a labourer. 
 
 Quoth the courtier : 
 
 "Maint homme monte sans eschelle 
 Jusques au feu, pour ce qu' il luit, 
 Comme le papilloii de null 
 Qui chiet, quant il s' est brusle d'elle." 
 
 The candle says : 
 
 "Cliacun vient sans que je 1' appelle, 
 Et je brule ce qui me suit : 
 Pour tant qui est sage me fuit, 
 La fa9on de court est y telle." 
 
 And the rustic : 
 
 "On prent du riclic la querelle, 
 On flatte celui qui a bruit, 
 On fait ainsi que se conduit 
 Le papillon a la chandelle." 
 
 Here is a riddle of the period. It is the cure for a 
 
 drunken man : the numerals refer simply to the letters of 
 
 the alphabet : 
 
 "Pour en giicrir, prenez la quinte, 
 La vingtieme apres la premiere : 
 De guerir trouvcrez maniere 
 Si vous en beuvez une pinte." 
 
 Here is a logogriphe, the answer to which is cnvie : 
 
 "Par la sonime des douze mois, 
 Et le contraire de la mort. 
 Pent on vin qui a mis discort 
 Entre les Bretons et Francois." 
 
 He has the customary 'fling' at the Church, and at
 
 156 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 society in general. It was before the bad days when 
 men's tongues were tied. 
 
 "Nothing in the Church," he says, "but vices; and 
 in the nobles pride, haughtiness, and pleasure; in the 
 labourers ' faulse condicion ;' in the merchants every kind 
 of deception ; very few rich men willing to study ; in 
 doctors no care about health ; in champions, their harness 
 * en paniers' ; usury among Lombards ; the service of 
 Bacchus and Venus ever)rwhere. 
 
 "Brief tons estatz sont la ou j' ay este, 
 Ambicieux, confuz en vanite," 
 
 It is very odd to find this constant strain among the 
 poets of this time. They all sing the same moralizing 
 refrain. Charles of Orleans rebukes France for her sins; 
 Villon, Octavien de Saint Gelais, even Collerye, Alain 
 Chartier, all think it incumbent on them to become moral 
 teachers, and to lament the vices of the age. There is, 
 indeed, a sad lack of joyousness about them all. Coquil- 
 lart's mirth is cynical, and the subject of his mirth disgrace- 
 ful. Our jolly miller of the Vire alone has no regrets, 
 no moralizing, no blubbering over the past, no invective 
 against the present. And the next to him in jollity, the 
 only other poet who really seems to have had that merri- 
 ment of heart which is so great a constituent of happiness, 
 is Clement Marot. It is needless to say that as the 
 poets get worse, they grow more melancholy; Meschinot, 
 without the least excuse for melancholy, takes us down to 
 the tombs, just like Villon in his most abject moments. 
 I think that these early poets considered it necessary to 
 keep up their character by repressing their spirits. And
 
 GUILLAUME ALEXIS. 157 
 
 in spite of the many French humourists who have laughed 
 and made us laugh — Rabelais, and La Fontaine, and the 
 rest — it must be owned that French literature, as a whole, 
 is of a far graver cast than our own. But there is very little 
 fun in any early literature. Jokes, as Charles Lamb said, 
 came in with candles. 
 
 A very different person from Baude was his contemporary, 
 Guillaume Alexis. Alexis has partly escaped from the 
 oblivion which until lately fell upon Baude. He was 
 imitated by La Fontaine, and is praised by St. Beuve. 
 He was a monk who lived about the end of the fifteenth 
 century, and who wrote a good many works of an edifying 
 character. Of these, the best known and the most accessible 
 poem is that called " Le Blason des faulces Amours." It 
 is printed in a little volume with the " Quinze Joies de 
 Mariage." It is a dialogue between a gentleman and a 
 Monk. The gentleman is riding along singing. The Honk 
 is riding with him, "paisible et coy." "Sing," says the 
 gentleman, 
 
 '* Car en chantant 
 En s'esbatant , 
 
 Le temps se passe." 
 
 The Monk says he can sing a little, but does not al- 
 together approve of the other's style of song : 
 
 "Venus frivole 
 En son escole 
 Vons a faict grand praticien." 
 
 As for singing in praise of love, that is quite out of the 
 question.
 
 158 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "Mais vos chansons et vos redites, 
 Ce sont values authotitez, 
 Que Salomon n' a pas escrites. 
 « « « * 
 
 Scavoir voudroye 
 S'en ceste voye 
 Pourrions nous 
 Tant trouver joye, 
 Qu' Amour u' envoye 
 Plus de courroux. 
 L' amer tousjours 
 Passe de doux. 
 Pourtant si chanter je vouloye 
 Le chant dirois meilleur de tous ; 
 Faulces Amours, reculez vous 
 De moy que jamais ne vous voye. 
 
 Qui diet qu' amours 
 Ne sont que flours, 
 II se de9oit ; 
 Qui tous les jours 
 En voit les tours, 
 Bien 1' apper9oit : 
 Voire et Dieu scait 
 Quel mal congoit 
 Qui d' Amour veut suivre les tours 
 Dont s' aucun dit qu' ainsi ne soil 
 Soustenir vueil qu' on y re9oit, 
 Pour un plaisir, mille douleurs. 
 
 Dueil, jalousie, 
 Puis frenaisie, 
 Puis sonspe9ons, 
 Jours de folic, 
 Melancolie, 
 Regrets, tensons, 
 Pleurs et chansons, 
 Sont les fa9on3
 
 GUILLAUME ALEXIS. i59 
 
 D' atnoureuse Chevallcrie 
 Micux vauclroil scrvir les Massoiis, 
 
 Que d' avoir au coeur tels glassons : 
 C'est une tres mauvaise vie." 
 
 It will be seen that the poem is written in stanzas of 
 twelve lines each, turning upon two rhymes only. Although 
 the rhymes are not regulated by so strict a rule as in 
 English verse, yet the ease of these verses, fettered by so 
 hard a condition, is very remarkable. 
 
 He goes on to discourse of the wickedness and folly 
 of love. 
 
 The gentleman answers him with the usual arguments. 
 
 Boys will be boys : ' in the spring a young man's fancy 
 
 lightly turns to thoughts of love' — what would the monk 
 
 have ? 
 
 "Nous aymerons — 
 Nous chanterons — 
 En noz jouvences." 
 
 The Monk goes on moralizing : 
 
 "Le personnage 
 Doncque est tressage, 
 Qui de bonne heure 
 Pour le passage 
 Son cas asseure, 
 De ce voyage. 
 Ceste demeure 
 N'est pas bien seure. 
 Ce n' est cy qu' un pelerinage 
 Et qui s'endort et ne labeure, 
 Ses negligences apres pleure : 
 Et Dieu S9ait quel pitcux mesnage!" 
 
 The gentleman has got nothing to say but the same
 
 i6o CHAPTER VI. 
 
 thing over and over again, — and the Monk is down upon 
 him with history. Who can resist history ? 
 
 "Quan^ la Toison 
 
 Comme lisoii 
 
 Fust conquestie, 
 
 Sire Jason, 
 
 Par son blason, 
 
 Ravit Medtfe: 
 
 O la journee, 
 
 Mai fort line e, 
 Que de douleur rendit foison ! 
 Car la cruelle forcenee 
 Mist tous ses enfans a I'espee, 
 Quand elle vid sa mesprison. 
 
 Ceux que Venus 
 
 A detenus 
 
 En son domaine : 
 
 Quand sont venus 
 
 Vieux et chenus, 
 
 Tousjours le&-maine : 
 
 Mort est prochaine, 
 
 La peau les traisne : 
 De vdeillesse sont tous chenus. 
 Quoiqu'ils n' aient force ou haleine, 
 Coustume envoie les ramene 
 Aux vices qu' ils ont maintenus." 
 
 As for women, they care about nothing in the world but 
 
 dress and money : 
 
 "Soit ung amant 
 Frois et plaisant 
 Et diligent : 
 Soit plus luysant 
 Qu' ung diamant 
 Jolys et gent : 
 Soit plus pendant 
 Que Buridant,
 
 GUILLAUME ALEXIS. r6i 
 
 Parlant aussi beau qu' iin Rommant, 
 S' il n' a de 1' or et de 1' argent, 
 Et ne cognoist son entregent, 
 On lui dit adieu vous comment. 
 
 « « « * 
 
 II faut ceintures, 
 
 II faut brodures, 
 
 Et niirelifriques ; 
 
 II faut fourreures, 
 
 II faut serrures, 
 
 Baques et nicques, 
 
 Joyaux afficques j 
 
 Telz cornificques ; 
 Rebras, chaperons et bordures : 
 Et Dieu sgait par quelles pratiques 
 Bien scavent mener leurs trafiques, 
 Et comment bien trouvent leurs heurs." 
 
 The gentleman, who must have been easily open to 
 conviction, is converted by the arguments of the Monk. 
 
 "Je croy que vices 
 
 Plaisirs, delices, 
 
 S' ils out credit, 
 
 Font leurs coulices 
 
 Lasclies et nices 
 
 Comme 1' on diet. 
 
 Dont maint beau diet 
 
 II a predict, 
 Blasonnant d' Amours les malices, 
 Amour de fcmme nous perdit, 
 Et hors franchise nous rendit, 
 Subjects a cents mille malices." 
 
 He wrote, besides, the " Passetemps de tout homme et 
 de toute femme." I have not seen this work, for which 
 there has been, of late years, small demand. The title 
 would appear to have been a sort of practical joke of the
 
 1 62 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 author, in order to seduce light-minded youth into buying 
 it, as holding forth promise of amusement. It is a transla- 
 tion of a book by Pope Innocent the Third, explaining 
 to mankind how everything from youth to age should act 
 as a deterrent from vice. Guillaume Alexis went on a 
 pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was a time when pilgrimages 
 were gone out of fashion, except in allegories. He went 
 however, and, according to some, did not come back. 
 While there, he wrote " Le Dialogue du Crucifix et du 
 Pelerin." 
 
 In this work, the author interrogates Christ on the Cross, 
 and receives answers on all sorts of moral topics. 
 
 There are other works attributed to him. " Le Miroir 
 des Moines" — " Le Loyer des folles Amours" — " Le Passe- 
 temps du Prieur de Bussy," etc. But the only poem 
 undoubtedly his, that I have seen, is his Grand Blason, 
 which I have described.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GUILLAUME COQUILLART. 
 
 A COMPLETE edition with a most careful etude on the man 
 and his time has been published by M. Charles d' Hericault, 
 from whose work I extract almost all the information I 
 have been able to collect of this poet. 
 
 Coquillart was essentially the poet of the bourgeoisie. 
 He represents their patriotism, their morality, their pre- 
 judices. He is gross in his ideas, being a bourgeois, and 
 gross in his expression. His editor calls it the grossness of 
 cynicism ; it seems to me the grossness of nature. 
 
 The few facts of his life are these. He was born at 
 Rheims in 142 1 ; studied at Paris, and became a lawyer; 
 returned to his native town, practised there ; late in life 
 took orders, and died canon of the Cathedral. His first 
 work was written, or at least published, when he was fifty- 
 seven years of age, a time of life which leaves not the 
 smallest excuse for licentious writing. He died about the 
 end of the fifteenth century — exact date unknown. 
 
 Out of these few details, M. d' Hericault has constructed 
 a life of the most interesting nature. He takes us to the
 
 1 64 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 countiy town, surrounded by walls, and guarded by stout- 
 hearted burghers ever ready to turn out on a sudden alarm 
 and protect their homes from wandering bands of robbers. 
 He shews us the home life, where by the fire-side sat every 
 evening the grandfather in the seat of honour, prosing over 
 the good old days that France knew before Charles the 
 Sixth ; the mother careful of her little ones and busy with 
 household duties, the maids with the spinning-wheel, the 
 nurse with her songs and her old-wife tales, the children 
 clustered round her knees, and the father returning late from 
 a sitting of the councillors, pondering the chances and dangers 
 of the town. He shews us Rheims on its great day when 
 the new king rode in to be anointed with the sacred oil ; 
 and on its fete days when the town turned out, spite of evil 
 times and national disgrace, to do its periodical pleasuring. 
 Of what sort this popular pleasuring was, Coquillart fur- 
 nishes us with abundant examples. Briefly, it was gross. 
 The bourgeois mind, unable to comprehend the chivalrous 
 honour and respect with v/hich the noblesse loved, in words 
 at least, to surround their ladies, could conceive of nothing 
 more respectable in woman than good housewifer}^ For 
 the things we call love, honour, virtue, nobleness, tender- 
 ness, grace, were to them words without meaning, or simply 
 beneath contempt. In Coquillart's pages we see exactly 
 what the popular belief on this subject actually was. A 
 hard-handed and practical race of artisans, without culture, 
 ignorant of any virtues but industry and courage, acting 
 chiefly on the law of self-preservation, which prompted them 
 to live together in walled cities, and to unite for purposes 
 of defence, and having little patriotism but for their native
 
 GCILLAUME COQUILLART. 165 
 
 town, could liardly be expected to look upon the world 
 with the eyes of a Charles of Orleans. The earliest lesson 
 taught by external refinement is the beauty of respect for 
 woman ; and on the first downward step to rudeness and 
 poverty brings the first step of woman's transformation to 
 the household chattel. As yet, in the city of Rheims, the 
 wife of the bourgeois might be a good mother and a careful 
 housewife ; she must be a drudge, and could expect the 
 consideration generally given to a drudge. Doubtless, the 
 women were themselves happy enough, knowing no higher 
 lot. The bourgeois character is summed up by M. Hericault 
 as gross, brutal, simple, full of life, and of a * sensualisme 
 gaillard,' an expression which so exactly fits the verses of 
 Coquillart, and which is so utterly untranslateable, that 
 I adopt it. 
 
 It is a curious thing that whenever a clever man degrades 
 liimself by printing what ought ne^•er to have been written, 
 but which, being the work of a clever man, is generally 
 readable and amusing, a sort of apology is set up for him, 
 on the ground that he did it, not because he liked it and 
 laughed at it, but with loathing and disgust, and out of his 
 strong desire to paint the manners of the age. Thus Swift, 
 who loved grossness for grossness' sake, has been defended ; 
 Hudibras, though Butler on the whole w^as a clean-minded 
 man, could not possibly, we are told, have steered clear of 
 unpleasant allusions; and even Rabelais has been pitied 
 for the blindness and ignorance of the age which would not 
 permit him to write his allegorical history without some 
 occasional recreation in the fields of popular humour ; and 
 obliged him to veil his satire, else too withering, under the
 
 1 66 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 broadest possible disguise. So Coquillart, we are gravely 
 informed, was one of those men who cannot "write otherwise 
 than of things as they are, and who, being compelled to 
 treat of things unholy, do yet so shrink from their task 
 with such mighty reluctance to begin it, that it moves a 
 Christian's pity. Further, the works of Guillaume, says the 
 editor, are never wantonly licentious, only cynical. 
 
 All this is sheer nonsense ; the real fact, as I read it, 
 being that this old sinner, getting leisure when he entered 
 the Church, and giving up practising law, began to beguile 
 his hours with the pleasant memories of bygone sins, and 
 found that they dropped easily and pleasantly into rhyme 
 of a gaillard and joyous nature ; that there was no cynicism 
 at all in the case ; that the poet was no better and no 
 worse than his neighbours; that, without disgust of any 
 kind, but with considerable delight, he began to set forth 
 the manner of life of his countrymen, and relate their jokes, 
 and this in a manner whose lightness and dexterity have 
 rarely been surpassed. 
 
 The works of Coquillart still extant are as follows : 
 
 " Le Plaidoyer entre la simple et la rusee." This is 
 a lawsuit about a man whom each claims as a lover. It 
 is argued in the regular legal manner. It is' followed by 
 the " Enquete" on the same subject, when witnesses are 
 heard, and the case decided. 
 
 The " Blason des dames et des armes," where the poet 
 examines which ought to have the preference. 
 
 " Les Droictz nouveaux" is a collection of questions on 
 love matters in the style to which allusion has already been 
 made. This poem is written in a natural spirited way which 
 must have made it very popular at the time.
 
 GUILLAUME COQUILLART. 167 
 
 Besides these, we have the " Monologue de la botte de 
 foing"; the "Monologue du puys," and a few smaller 
 pieces." 
 
 A few extracts will be sufficient to shew the style of 
 Guillaume Coquillart. 
 
 "Les dames par aultre moyen 
 Dient qu'ung prince aymant honneur 
 Tant soit noble ou grant terrien 
 Doit aux Dames mettre son cueur. 
 La raison ? car toute doulceur 
 Y gist, toute benignite, 
 Et aux armes toute rigueur, 
 Tout desroy, toute austerite. 
 Dames font croistre honnestete ; 
 Dames font les cueurs resjouyr : 
 Dames font aymer loyaulte : 
 Dames font cruaulte fouyr : 
 Veiller, oreiller, taire, ouyr, 
 Estre prompt, prest, prudent, et saige ; 
 Cela faict les Dames jouyr 
 Ung noble et vertueux couraige." 
 
 And, on the other side, hear what he says of the school 
 of Love : 
 
 ' ' Ne suivons plus d' Amour 1' escole : 
 On n' y lit que des tromperies ; 
 La science est folle parole ; 
 Les grands jurements, menteries ; 
 Les statuts, ce sont joncheries; 
 L' universite, c' est malheur ; 
 Les hedeaux lardons, mocqueries ; 
 Faute de sens— c' est le recteur; 
 Traliison en est le docteur ; 
 Faussete en est le notaire ; 
 Avarice, conservateui ;
 
 1 68 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Suspection — c' est le greffier : 
 Dire tout — c' est le secretaire : 
 Desdain — c'est le premier huissier, 
 Qui garde les huis et fenestres ; 
 Refus est le grand chanceUier ; 
 C'est celui qui passe les maistres." 
 
 On the quarrels of lovers : 
 
 "Tel a promis : telle se plainct : 
 Tel fringue a la mode nouvelle : 
 Tel est ruze : telle se faint : 
 Tel ou telle en est le mieux saint. 
 Tel et telz brassent telz ouvraiges. 
 Tel est menasse : tel est craint : 
 Telz et telz sement telz langaiges. 
 Telz sent farouches et sauvages. 
 Tel est riche : tel se marie" . . . and so on. 
 
 Here is an example of the style of question raised in the 
 Droictz nouveaux : 
 
 " Un galant mignon, certain soir, 
 Se presentant a 1' huis derriere, 
 Pour sa douce amie aller voir, 
 Ne trouva que la chambriere". 
 La chambriere, qui fut belle, 
 . Bien usa de 1' occasion ; 
 
 Elle prit ce bien la pour elle, 
 
 Et eut cette provision ; 
 
 Assavoir, si punition 
 
 Doit souffrir, comme larronesse, 
 
 Et quelle restitution 
 
 Elle doit faire a sa maistresse?" 
 
 The last extract I give is particularly light and easy, and 
 is perhaps the best illustration I could give of the style of 
 Coquillart :
 
 GUILLAUME COQUILLART. 169 
 
 "Mais elle — pouac ! — c'est line fee, 
 Ung bon petit corset bien prins, 
 Qui fait aussi bien la saffee (coquette) 
 Que femme qui soit au pays : 
 Tousjours ung tas de petiz riz, 
 Ung tas de petites sournettes, 
 Tant de petits charivaryz, 
 Tant de petites fa5onncttes : 
 Petits gans, petites mainettes, 
 Petite bouche ^ barbeter'; 
 Ba — ba — ba — font ses godinettes 
 Quant elles veulent cacqueter." 
 
 It is said that Coquillart died of grief at losing the best 
 part of his fortune at the game of morra. Probably, when 
 he was not engaged in the offices of the Church, or on the 
 Droictz nouveaux, gambling offered a grateful means of 
 recreation to this reverend moralist and venerable soul. 
 
 The elaborate criticism of Coquillart by M. d' Hericault 
 is very curious. Words, says his editor, had not then the 
 influence they have now, owing to the partial development 
 of the imagination. What we, therefore, consider now as 
 beyond measure demoralising, in those times was simply 
 somewhat free. The bourgeoisie was essentially coarse, 
 sensual, and materialistic. We must remember that the 
 poems of Coquillart were received with enormous applause, 
 and that his life, subsequent to their publication, was a 
 series of honours. " II etoit devenu 1' oracle, le representant 
 de 1' esprit des Remois." His whole talent was in observa- 
 tion ; things strike him more than ideas ; characters present 
 themselves to him, not with the thoughts which they have, 
 
 ^ barbeter. "parler gentillement — en rcmuant les lovrcs avec 
 vivacite, mais sans guere les ouvrir."
 
 I70 CHAPTER VI I. 
 
 but dressed up with the colours they wear. Many of the 
 infamies that the Church could not reach, many of the 
 corruptions that a mother's tears could not wash away, and 
 much of the ridicule which belonged to social sores of the 
 time, were lashed, we are to believe, by this ' fouet brutal' 
 which had to pass through the mud to find and reach 
 them. He was essentially a realist ; he makes each of his 
 personages speak his own language, and he speaks to the 
 people of his time the language which they like to hear, 
 without asking himself if it is cynical or not. 
 
 Hear, on the other hand, what the Abbe Massien says 
 of him. " I confess that having read his works with care, 
 I perceive nothing in them which is deserving of remark ; 
 and it appears to me that what is good in them is choked 
 by what is bad. . ." 
 
 And Goujet says: "This poet seems to have taken up 
 his pen only to decry women .... but I do not know 
 whether he has not dishonoured himself more than them by 
 the licentiousness of his writing. . . . We perceive in his 
 works a man who makes a merit of forgetting what was due 
 to his character and his position. I am perfectly aware 
 that he has always had, and has still, partisans and even 
 admirers. ... I have read his poems, and have found 
 hardly anything in them worthy of remark." 
 
 The words of Dryden, 
 
 "Old as he is, for ladies' love unfit, 
 The power of beauty he remembers yet, 
 Which once inflamed his soul, and still inspires his wit," 
 
 contain, I believe, the real secret of the writings of this 
 disreputable, clever old man.
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 
 
 In these early days of literature, a sort of Arcadian sim- 
 plicity of criticism reigned over the slopes of Parnassus. 
 There were as yet none of that pestilent carping brood who 
 sit in judgment on the singers, and tell the world when they 
 sing out of tune. All was honest delight. Unconsciously, 
 out of the innocence of a pardonable vanity, the poets 
 formed a grand mutual admiration society; turn by turn 
 they applauded and performed. And whatever the per- 
 formance, the applause was genuine ; it was measured out 
 in no niggardly spirit; there was no stint, no stopping to 
 draw envious comparisons, no withholding of what was due. 
 Every man was a Virgil, a Homer, an Ovid. It was for- 
 tunate for the world that he had lived. Future ages would 
 read him for ever. He was the delight of the present, and 
 would be the delight of the coming years. He was the 
 prince of eloquence, the master of rhetoric, the teacher 
 of virtue, the first of poets. 
 
 Hear how Marot sums up the glorious band : 
 
 "Adoucques Molinet 
 Aux vers fleuriz, le gran Chastelain,
 
 172 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Le bien disant en rythme et prose, Alain, 
 
 Les deux Grebans au bien resonnant style,' 
 
 Octavian a la veine gentile, 
 
 Le bon Cretin au vers equivoque, 
 
 Ton Jehan Le Maire, entre eulx hault colloque." 
 
 Here, too, is a part of his epitaph on Cre'tin — Guillaume 
 Cretin, the most illustrious of all : 
 
 "Seigneurs passans, comment pourrez vous croire, 
 De ce tombeau la grand' pompe et la gloire ? 
 II n' est ne painct, ne polly, ne dore, 
 Et si ce dit haultement honore, 
 Tant seulement pour estre couverture 
 D' ung corps humain cy mis en sepulture : 
 C'est de Cretin, Cretin qui tant s9avoit. 
 
 O dur tombeau, de ce que te encceuvres, 
 Contente toi, avoir n' en peuz les ceuvres : 
 Chose eternelle en mort jamais en tombe, 
 Et qui ne meurt n' a que faire de tombe." 
 
 Meschinot to Chastelain : 
 
 "O George! des aultres le maistre 
 En la Rhetorique science .... 
 Prince parfaict en eloquence, 
 Ne regardez aulcunement 
 En ce de mes sens 1' indigence, 
 Mais donnez y amendement." 
 
 And Jean Bouchet on Meschinot : 
 
 "Si vous lisez des Princes les Lunettes 
 Vous n' y verrez que matieres tres nectes. 
 Pour acquerir les vertus Cardinals 
 Semblablement les trois Th^ologales." 
 
 ^ Amoul and Simon Greban. Arnoul put into verse the Acts of 
 the Apostles, but dying before he completed the task, Simon finished 
 it. The work is thrown into some kind of dramatic fonn, but how, 
 I do not know, as I have not seen it.
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 1 73 
 
 This galaxy of poets, the greater lights of whom we are 
 about to notice, formed a sort of stellar republic, the head 
 or president of which \vas the illustrious George Chastelain, 
 'prince parfaict en eloquence.' The band of immortal 
 bards who twanged tlieir lyres round this great man con- 
 tained the imperishable names of Jean Molinet, Jean 
 Meschinot, Guillaume Cre'tin, Jean Bouchet, Andre de la 
 Vigne, and Jean le Maire. 
 
 "Jean le Maire belgeois 
 Qui cut r esprit d' Homere le Gregeois." 
 
 They had their poetical names and devices, thus : one 
 was "le banni de Liesse," another was "le traverseur des 
 voies perilleuses," and they were gifted with the highest 
 possible esteem for themselves, their friends, and their 
 age. One reason of this self-conceit would be their popu- 
 larity and the rapid diffusion of their writings by the new 
 art of printing. The older poets were nearly forgotten, 
 only their spirit remaining ; a printed book was much easier 
 to read than a manuscript, and immensely cheaper. For 
 most of the older poets were not yet published; Charles 
 of Orleans did not get published for three hundred years. 
 There was plenty of room on the stage for everybody, and it 
 was not till far on in the sixteenth century that this precious 
 mine of rhyme shewed signs of exhaustion, and the miners 
 began to find fault with each other. Meantime we are in 
 the age of gold. Every hill is a Parnassus, every minstrel 
 an Orpheus, every listener weeps tears of ecstacy. 
 
 But the years have rolled over, and other bards have 
 piped on other hills, and to newer tunes. These, the never-
 
 174 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 dying, are clean forgotten and past out of mind, only to be 
 found in some great library, or some musty old collections 
 of poetry. Truth compels us to say that they deserved their 
 fate, and worse than their fate. Oblivion was the most 
 merciful punishment that could befal them ; to be forgotten 
 better than to be remembered. Their compositions are 
 tedious, their taste execrable. What is to be thought of 
 the following? Jean Molinet is the offender. He is sing- 
 ing the praises of Saint Anne. It must be premised that 
 the word a7i7ie was in some parts used instead of aune, 
 
 an ell. 
 
 "Ton nom est Anne, et en Latin Anna: 
 Dieu tout puissant qui justement t' anna, 
 Veult qu' a 1' anne tu soies comparee : 
 Quatre quartiers une tres juste anne a, 
 Quatre lettres en ton nom amena, 
 Par quoy tu as juste et bien mesuree : 
 Quatre vertus sont dont tu es paree." 
 
 Another example of the same style may be taken from 
 the same poet : 
 
 "Molinest n'est sans bruyt, ne sans nom non, 
 II a son son, et comme tu vois, voix : 
 Son doulx plaid plaist mieulx que ne faict ton ton, 
 Ton vif art ard plus cler que charbon bon. 
 Tes trenchants chants perchent ses parois roids, 
 D'entregent gent ont nobles rran5ois choix, 
 Je ne doibs doigts doubter en sou laict laid. 
 Car soubvent vent vient dcs Molinet net." 
 
 Meschinot, too, composed an oraison — I sincerely wish 
 I could give it, but I have not been able to find it any- 
 where — of eight lines. This could be read, either as eight 
 or as sixteen verses, backwards or forwards, in no less than
 
 THE IMMORTALS. I75 
 
 thirty-two different ways, and all — it is said, though it is 
 difficult to believe — with sense. Could one discover the 
 Principle or Law of Formation of this kind of verse, it 
 might prove useful to some of our modern poets. 
 
 George Chastellain begins a poem in this style : " Blow, 
 Triton, on thy silver trumpet ; Muse, while playing on thy 
 sweet pipe, give praise and heavenly glory to Phoebus the 
 god with the red beard ; when from the orchard where grows 
 many a nut, and where lilies spring up by millions, etc." 
 
 They were all allegorical, to a man. Meschinot — who 
 was Maitre d' Hotel to five Dukes of Brittany in succession 
 — goes to sleep and has a dream. He does not forget to 
 give us the prayers he said before he lay down. In his 
 dream, Reason appeared to him and presented him with 
 a book, called Conscience, and a pair of spectacles. The 
 two glasses of his spectacles were named respectively Pru- 
 dence and Justice ; the ivory in which they were set was 
 Force, and the bar which joined them was Temperance. 
 Through these spectacles, called Les Lunettes des Princes, 
 he had to read the book and transcribe what he found for 
 the benefit of the world. This he did most faithfully, and 
 the world was so grateful that it bought twenty-two editions 
 of his work in fifteen years. Since that time there has been 
 no great demand for Maitre Meschinot. 
 
 Andre de la Vigne, too, had a dream. In his vision he 
 found himself with Dame Christianity, who was in a ver}' 
 low way, crying and lamenting that no one cared for her, 
 that the Turks and Jews insulted her, and that her own 
 subjects abandoned her. Dame Nature hearing these 
 plaints comes to comfort her with the assurance that better
 
 176 CHAPTER VI 11. 
 
 times are in store. It appears that the Sybil has lately 
 made a prophecy, to the effect that a prince is shortly to be 
 born who is to arm for her defence. This prince, if we 
 may anticipate to satisfy the reader's curiosity, is none other 
 than Charles the Eighth of France. Noblesse further 
 promises to animate the hearts of all who depend on her, 
 and to make them followers on the right side. The next 
 step is for all to go together to the garden called the Vine- 
 yard of Honour, where Royal Majesty is holding her court. 
 She assembles a council and they discuss the projects of 
 Dame Christianity. It is supposed that by this time the 
 prince is born and gro^vn up. After some opposition from 
 an inconnu, which is overruled by Bon Conseil, a resolution 
 is passed in favour of the war, and the poet leaving the 
 allegory plunges into the details of the Conquest of Naples. 
 The expedition is described with all the precision of a 
 Journal. 
 
 Under the title of the " Chevalier delibere " Olivier de la 
 Marche, a Burgundian of some position, and in great favour 
 with both Duke Philip and Duke Charles, wTOte an account 
 in allegory of the life and death of Duke Charles. As 
 a knight-eiTant he meets a Hermit, called Entendement, who 
 shews him the relics of a certain Accident. These relics' are 
 the broken arms of valiant men who have made a name 
 in the world. He fights against Accident, but is compelled 
 to give way, and goes to the Palace of Love. Here Desire 
 urges him to enter, but Recollection keeps him back. Thence 
 to the manor of Bonne Aventui-e, where lives Fraiche Me- 
 moir e ; she shews him the burial-places of the ancient dead, 
 and he reads their epitaphs. Some have been killed by
 
 THE IMMORTALS. IJI 
 
 means of Debile, i.e. weak old age, and some by Accident. 
 Then he finds himself at the palace of Airopos, where 
 Accident and Debile are at work. Over the gates is written 
 in golden letters — 
 
 "Cy fine le chemin mondain, 
 Ce fine la sente' de vie. 
 Cy se fiert^ le pas inhumain, 
 Dont Atropos juge soudain 
 A la pouvoir et seigneurie. 
 Nul n'y entre qu'il ne desvie' 
 Deux champions, et si tres forts 
 Qu'ils sont tons les ancestres morts." 
 
 A fight ensues between Debile and Duke Philip of Burgundy, 
 in which the former gets the best of it. 
 
 The Parement des Dames is another work of this author's. 
 Goujet describes it; it must be most insufferably dull. De 
 La Marche was a friend of Chastelain's. He died in 1501. 
 
 Another tremendous allegorist is IMartin Le Franc. 
 It is difficult to say why so much that has been written 
 on the subject of les dames has proceeded from priestly 
 pens. But the fact is so. They have made the theme 
 their owii. Ecclesiastical lances have been ranged on 
 both sides. Priests and monks have been the defenders 
 and the assailants of woman's honour. I suppose that 
 a contemplative spirit, fostered by solitude, fasting, and 
 much pondering on lofty themes, enabled them to approach 
 tliis subject, at once attractive and difficult : or perhaps 
 the nature of their duties as confessors and directors gave 
 them opportunities for probing the feminine heart not open 
 
 ^ sente = sentier, path. - se fiert = s' elance 
 
 ^ desvie, dcsvoyer (de via), turns aside, defeats. 
 
 N
 
 178 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 to laymen. It is gratifying to find that the defence of 
 les dames has been ably conducted by these tonsured and 
 saintly recluses. Martin Le Franc was secretary to Felix 
 the Fifth, and afterwards to Nicolas the Fifth. In the 
 intervals of his official labours he penned the work entitled 
 Le Champion des Dames, livre plaisant, copieux et abondant en 
 sentences, contenaitt la Defense des Dames cojitre Afalebouche et 
 ses consorts, et victoires d'' icelles. This book has two objects, 
 first to counteract the pernicious doctrines in the Roman 
 de la Rose, and second to compliment the ladies of the 
 House of Savoy. 
 
 He begins abruptly : 
 
 A 1' assault, Dames, a 1' assault, 
 A r assault dessus la muraille ; 
 Cy pres est venu en sursault 
 Malebouche en grosse bataille : 
 A 1' assault. Dames, chascune aille 
 A sa deffence, et taut s' efforce 
 Que 1' envieuse villenaille 
 Ne nous ait d'emblee ou de force." 
 
 In fact, Malebouche and his army are already advancing 
 to assail the Castle of Love, which is fully described. 
 Franc Vouloir, irritated at the insolence of Malebouche, 
 sallies forth to undertake the defence of the ladies. He 
 challenges Malebouche, not to a duel with arms, but with 
 arguments. The latter accepts, sends Brief Conseil 1' Es- 
 tourdi for his advocate, and the battle begins. Brief Con- 
 seil exposes the tyranny of love and the many evils caused 
 by him. Franc Vouloir replies, and the argument goes 
 on for a long time without issue. Both parties agree in 
 accepting Truth as their Judge. As usual, when wanted,
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 179 
 
 she is out of sight, but is ultimately discovered in a dark 
 comer " without any candle," and is installed as arbitrator. 
 Then to it again. Franc Vouloir shews the dreadful effects 
 of hatred as compared with Love, and illustrates his 
 argument by a reference to the distracted state of France. 
 Malebouche, feeling that he is getting the worst of it, puts 
 on Vilain Penser, a terrible fellow. He takes history and 
 begins from the begining, even from Eve herself: 
 
 " Telle la mere fut et telles 
 Les filles furcnt et seront, 
 De I'homme ennemies mortelles, 
 Et jamais ne s' amenderont. " 
 
 This formidable antagonist attacks their charms, their 
 beauty, and their attractions, as being only so many threads 
 with which to catch and lead captive men. He gives a 
 long list of names from history of women who have been 
 famous for their vices or their crimes. He not only curses 
 the bad, but will not allow that there are any good : he 
 attacks the institution of matrimony, and will not believe 
 that any woman exists who sincerely mourns her departed 
 husband. 
 
 Franc Vouloir answers by saying that Eve was not so 
 bad as Adam ; that there have been as many good Avomen 
 as bad ; that we owe our existence to their sufferings ; that 
 gentleness, modesty, and tenderness are theirs ; that a man 
 cannot do better than unite himself in marriage to a good 
 woman, and be guided by her counsels ; that when a 
 marriage turns out badly, it is generally the fault of the 
 man ; and that virtuous love is the best thing possible for 
 young men. Then he tells the following storj' :
 
 i8o CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 "Cy vous conterai d' ung novice 
 Qui oncques veu femme n' avoit ; 
 Innocent estoit et sans vice, 
 Et rien du monde ne scavoit, 
 Tant que celluy qui I'ensuivoit 
 Luy fist accroire par les voies, 
 Des belles Dames qu' il veoit, 
 Que c'estoient tous oysons et oyes. 
 
 On ne pent nature tromper : 
 En apres tant luy en souvint 
 Qu'il ne peilt diner ne soupper, 
 Tant amoureux il en devint : 
 Et quant des Moines plus de vingtz 
 Luy demanderent qu' il musoit, 
 II respondit comme il convint, 
 Que veoir les oyes lui plaisoit." 
 
 This Story is found in Boccacio ; it is referred to by 
 Chaucer in his Court of Love. 
 
 " As soon as Nature maketh you so safe, 
 That ye may know a woman from a swan." 
 
 Franc Vouloir goes on to enumerate his good women, 
 among whom he places the Maid of Orleans. To this 
 name exception is taken by Malebouche, who endeavours 
 to prove that Joan of Arc was an adventuress. 
 
 "L'on m'a dit pour chose certaine, 
 Que comme ung page elle serrit 
 En sa jeunesse ung Capitaine 
 Oil 1' art de porter harnois vit : 
 Et quant jeunesse la revit, 
 Et voulut son sexe moiistrer, 
 Conseil eut qu' elle se chevit 
 A harnois et lance pourter. 
 
 Puis force advisant la maniere 
 Qu' a Orleans elle viendroit,
 
 THE IMMORTALS. l8l- 
 
 Et comme simplette Bergiere 
 Demanderoit et respondioit, 
 Et comment enseigiies rendroit 
 Au Roy et a son Parlement, 
 Par lesquelles on entendroit 
 Qu'elle venist divinement." 
 
 This passage is curious, as shewing that even in these 
 times there were men who could not understand the miracle 
 of Joan's mission, save on the ground of imposture. 
 
 Then Franc Vouloir, treating all this as calumny, turns 
 the tables by giving a list of bad men, a thing by no means 
 difficult. Malebouche throws Pope Joan at his head, burst- 
 ing out into a strain of pious indignation ; and Franc Vouloir, 
 instead of shewing that the whole story is a fable, which 
 one would think he might easily have done, being at the 
 time Secretary to the Pope, argues that, in respect to laws 
 and institutions, she did more than many other Popes. 
 
 Truth interposes at last and gives the victory to Franc 
 Vouloir, whom she crowns with laurel : 
 
 " Lors au Champion s'en vient elle, 
 Dont tout le monde est esperdu : 
 Disant, pour ce que la querelle 
 Des Dames as bien deffendu, 
 Et vers oil tout debvoir rendu 
 Qui est de tons bicns tresorier, 
 Franc Champion tu n' as jierdu 
 Le Chappelot verd de lorier." 
 
 The unfortunate Malebouche dies of grief. We are 
 not told what becomes of Vilain Penser. Perhaps he dies 
 too. 
 
 Martin Le Franc thus finishes :
 
 1 82 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Et vous Dames et Damoyselles, 
 Qui estes naturellement 
 De graces pleines, ausquelles 
 Voiie me suys enti^rement, 
 Si je n' ay assez haultement 
 Conte et loiie vostre affaire, 
 Pardonnez nioi courtoisement, 
 Car j' ay fait ce que j'ay S9eu faire." 
 
 This piece had a great success at the time, but when 
 a taste for a more natural style grew up, was gradually- 
 forgotten. He wrote another piece, called U estr'if de For- 
 tune^ in the same prolix style. He died about 1460. The 
 last edition of his works was published in 1530. 
 
 Christine de Pisan left one son, at least, who followed 
 in her steps. This was Jean de Castel, a Benedictine 
 monk. He wrote the Mb-oiicr des Pkheurs et Peche- 
 resses. The mirror is death, in which if men look con- 
 stantly they are prevented from sinning. The poem is 
 divided into three parts, called Le Speaile des Pecheurs ; 
 P Exhortation des Mondains, taut gens d^ eglise, comme secu- 
 liers : and Z' Exeniple des Dames et Damoyselles et de tout le 
 sexe femi7iin. It has never been printed so far as I know. 
 
 Pierre Michault, a countryman of Chastelain, " the ad- 
 venturous George," was secretary to Charles, Duke of Bur- 
 gundy when he was Count of Charolois. 
 
 Michault has left a wonderful allegory. He meets 
 Virtue in a forest. She has fled from mankind, who no 
 longer merit her presence ; but in this wood she has come 
 upon a school — a subterraneous school, where they actually 
 teach " de pernicieuses maximes :" she wanted to enter, but 
 the porter would not let her. Pierre and she go together.
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 183 
 
 It is the school of Vice. Disdain is the porter; he will 
 hardly condescend to look at them as they go in. There is 
 a Rector and twelve assistant Masters and Mistresses. 
 Their names are Detraction, Vain Glory, Deception, Am- 
 bition, Rapine, Corruption, Adulation, and others whose 
 names are known to us by their subsequent connection with 
 Vanity Fair. 
 
 Virtue and Michault go from chair to chair, taking notes 
 of the teaching. He publishes these with brief reflections 
 of his own. 
 
 Virtue, not being able to stand these dreadful lessons very 
 long, runs away, and is followed by Pierre. They go to 
 the old school of Virtue. Alas ! the very road is over- 
 grown, the school is half in ruins, the Professors' chairs are 
 covered with dust, and the lessons written on the walls are 
 half defaced. 
 
 He ends with verses in the most approved style of 
 Cretin and Molinet : 
 
 "Le monde fait de tout services vice. 
 D'amer amer, et de rebelle belle 
 Pour de9epvoir : fait de malice lice 
 Et de droit tout soubs sa police lice, etc." 
 
 A better idea prompted the writing of the Danse des 
 Avcnglcs. Here men are all represented as following their 
 blind guides, Love, Fortune, and Death. The two first 
 draw after them most of mankind ; the third, all. 
 
 Love says : 
 
 "Je fais Rondeaux et Ballades parfaire ; 
 Je fais courir et faire mains grans faulx :
 
 1 84 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Je fais fonder edifices moult haiilts : 
 
 Je fais voler trompettes et chcvaulx : 
 
 Je fais donner bagues, robes et dons, 
 
 Dont les donnans en souvent faulx guerdons." 
 
 Another, and perhaps the most iUustrious, of this band, 
 was Guillaume Cretin. 
 
 He also was a chronicler, being appointed historiographer 
 to Francis the First. His history is in verse and begins 
 \vith the siege of Troy, then the commencement of a good 
 many histories. His poems, consisting of the usual ron- 
 deaux, etc., were published by his friend Frangois Char- 
 bonnier in 1527, after his death. Like Molinet, he was 
 enormously praised. His rhyming chronicle is a second 
 Iliad; he is a second Homer; his verses are models of 
 taste, elegance, and poetic ease. Above all, his rhymes are 
 even more ingeniously doubled, trebled, and twisted than 
 those of Molinet. Here is a specimen : 
 
 "Par ces vins verds Atropos a trop os 
 Des corps humains ruez envers en vers, 
 Dont un quidam, aspre aux pots, a propos 
 A fort blasme ses tours pervers par vers. ..." 
 
 Rabelais ridicules Cretin in his Pantagruel. Panurge, 
 in that dreadful doubt of his on the subject of marriage, 
 was advised by Pantagruel to go and consult the dying 
 poet Raminagrobis. " We have," says Pantagruel, " near to 
 the town of Villanmere, a man that is both old and a poet, 
 to wit, Raminagrobis, who to his second wife espoused my 
 lady Broadsow, by whom he begot the fair Basoche. It 
 hath been told to me that he is dying, and so near unto his 
 latter end, that he is almost upon the very last moment,
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 185 
 
 point, and article thereof. Repair thither as fast as you 
 can, and be ready to give an attentive ear to what he shall 
 chant unto you. It may be that you shall obtain from him 
 what you desire, and that Apollo will be pleased by his 
 means to clear your scruples." Whereupon Panurge, ac- 
 companied by Epistemon and Friar John, goes to visit the 
 old poet, whom they find, indeed, almost in artictdo mortis. 
 They make oblation of a fair white cock, in imitation of 
 Socrates, and propose to him their difficulty. Whereupon, 
 Raminagrobis, ' the honest old man,' calls for pen, ink, and 
 paper, and gives them the following answer : 
 
 "Prenez la, ne la prenez pas. 
 Si voiis la prenez, c'est bien faict. 
 Si ne la prenez, en effect, 
 Ce sera ouvre par compas. 
 Galloppez, mais allez le pas : 
 Recullez, entrez y de faict : 
 Prenez la, ne. 
 
 Jeusnez, prenez double repas : 
 Deffaictes ce qu' estait refaict, 
 Refaictes ce qu'estoit deffaict. 
 Soubhaitez luy vie et trespas, 
 Prenez la, ne." 
 
 He then begs them to go and leave him in peace ; and 
 warns them against monks, whom he calls by such a string 
 of evil names that the pious Panurge is of opinion that he 
 is ' going infallibly to thirty thousand panniers-full of devils.' 
 However, he gets small comfort by the response of the 
 dying poet, which is exactly the answer made by Guillaume 
 Cretin to Christopher de Refuge, who consulted him on his 
 intended marriage.
 
 1 86 CHAPTER VI IT. 
 
 The great advantage that accrued to France from this 
 
 laborious mass of versifiers was the increased flexibility 
 
 they gave to the language. Their power over words was 
 
 prodigious. It fairly ran away with them, and they seem 
 
 to have \\Titten, not so much because they had something 
 
 to say, for they generally had very little, but because they 
 
 must needs be saying something. Language was their 
 
 plaything. By twisting and turning it about, it shewed, 
 
 like a kaleidoscope, endless varieties of shape and colour. 
 
 They played with the tools that Marot was destined to use, 
 
 and by fashioning their ingenious tasteless toys, they shewed 
 
 at least what might be done by the hands of a skilful 
 
 workman. 
 
 The best of them was Jean Le Maire. He ^vTOte an 
 
 enormous quantity both in verse and prose. He first 
 
 perceived the weakening effect of employing the e mute at 
 
 the end of the first hemistich; and Clement Marot owed 
 
 more to him than to all his contemporaries together. His 
 
 most important work, which appeared in 1503, the poet 
 
 then being thirty years of age, is called the Temple of 
 
 Honour and Virtue ; it is a mixture of prose and verse, 
 
 and is dedicated to Anne of France, daughter of Louis XL 
 
 Most of his other pieces are vers d' occasion ; on the death 
 
 of some royal personage, the departure of- some other. 
 
 It is said that he died in a hospital, having lost his reason, 
 
 in 1524. 
 
 Hear the three tales of Love and Atropos. 
 
 " Oyez, mortels, un bien nouveau propos 
 De Cupido, le dieu des amourettes, 
 Et de la Mort qu'on appelle Atropos." 
 
 Love, flying ' par voies indiscretes,' meets Atropos also
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 187 
 
 flying along ; accidentally jostles her, and finding her sides 
 too hard to run against, complains — 
 
 "O vieille aveugle et folle ! 
 Voir ne te puis, car j'ai les yeux bandez, 
 Dont en heiirtant contre toi je m'affolle," 
 
 " Beau sire dieu," replies Death in low and deep voice, 
 " trbs mal vous 1' entendez. I have business of my own, 
 and you retard me." 
 
 " Well," Cupid returns, " one is not obliged to be always 
 doing mischief: if you have no objection, belle dame, let us 
 stop and drink." 
 
 Saying this, they arrive at a tavern. Here La Mort 
 drinks like a cistern, boasting all the time of her deeds, 
 while Cupid "redressait sa banniere", telling how many 
 people he sends mad, 
 
 " Et leur fait perdre et maintien et maniere." 
 
 Disputing thus, they drink " a tous coups" ; Atropos 
 
 pledges, and Cupid at last gets drunk. Finally, the host 
 
 getting tired of his noisy guests, turns them out of doors, 
 
 and they depart, one at one side, and one at the other. 
 
 But see the effects of intemperance. Love has taken 
 
 Death's bow and arrows ; Death, Love's : 
 
 "Voulez vous plus beaux tours? 
 Sans y viser et sans autre record, 
 S'en vont ailleurs, tirant fleches sans nombre. 
 Mort fait lumiere et Cupido fait ombre. 
 A cbacun coup que Cupido descoche, 
 II attaignoit de mortelle sagette 
 Ou homme ou femme a qui la Mort approche : 
 Et i tous coups que fausse Atropos jette 
 Elle faisoit homme ou femme amoureux. 
 Maint beau jeune homme alaigre ou vigoureux
 
 i88 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Y vis je cheoir atteint de mortel dard, 
 
 Et maint vieillard, d' amour tout langoureux." 
 
 Thus far the first tale. The second resumes the story. 
 
 After doing an incomparable amount of mischief, the 
 luckless Love, still drunk, but very tired, makes the best 
 of his way home to the lap of his mother. She is lying on 
 a bed of feathers, and around her are the Nymphs and 
 Graces, ' bien refaites et grasses,' and when this " fol 
 dieu qu' on maudit" came staggering back, all were sound 
 asleep except Volupte, the niece of Venus. She was 
 amusing herself by playing with the little naked children, 
 making a banquet for them, "plein de joie et d'amoureux 
 caquet," and welcomed her intoxicated cousin by three 
 bumpers of wine, to make him sober again, I suppbse ; then 
 she took a harp and played and sang for him, till he went 
 asleep in Venus's lap, snoring and sighing. He had dropped 
 his bow and arrows on a cushion near the bed, whither 
 Volupte most unfortunately went to recline. She pricks 
 herself with the point of an arrow, and falls back with 
 a piercing shriek which wakes everybody. She is found 
 senseless, cold, and stiff. Venus in great alarm implores 
 the help of Jupiter, and Volupte is brought to life again by 
 the application of a balm by the Nymph Pasithe. Venus 
 kisses her : 
 
 "Las! qui t'avoit, 6 ma niece, ma mie, 
 Ainsy navree, et en mort endormie? 
 Que je le sache, enfin de m'en venger." 
 
 Volupte shews the fatal bow, which Venus recognises 
 at once as the bow and quiver of Death. She is furious.
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 189 
 
 '"Gardez, pour Dieu,'" dit elle, "d'y toucher: 
 Fillcs, gardez. Ah ! le notable archer 
 Qui a change son tres bel arc d'yvoire 
 A cestui-cy d' Atropos pasle et noire ! 
 Qu' il soil porte hors de nostre chastel, 
 Avec son arc et son carquois niortel. 
 Mais gardez bien de toucher u main nue, 
 Ni arc, ni fleche : O quel disconvenue ! 
 Je S9ay de vray qu' il en a fait du mal.'" 
 
 Mischief, indeed, he has done. While they were throw.- 
 ing the bow and arrows out of the window of the castle into 
 the foss, a horrible noise saluted their ears. It was the cry 
 of a vast tribe of people imploring pity from Death, who 
 was driving them and beating them, " vers le chastel ou de 
 dames a tant". When Venus saw them them through the 
 window, she cried out, " A la barrifere !" 
 
 "Portiers, fermez, levez le jiont levis. 
 "Oncques le jour tel tumultc ne vis." 
 
 "These are old men, coughing and bent, whom Death 
 is driving in great heaps towards this castle of love and 
 pleasure, against the law of natural usance ; and every one 
 carries on his back the dead body of a youth." 
 
 About this time, too, Love catches it, as he well deserves : 
 
 *'*Ah! niauvais fils," dit elle, 'es tu delivre 
 De ton fort vin? seras tu toujours yvre? 
 Oil est ton arc si noble et triomphant? 
 Qu'en as tu fait? dis, malheurcux enfant, 
 Qui pour tuer tons ceux de nostre hostel 
 As apporte cy-dedans Tare mortel." 
 
 To whom Love : 
 
 "Ha! madam, 
 Certainement je suis digne de blasme :
 
 I90 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 J' en ai regret, et le coeur m' en remord 
 Tant d' avoir bu avec 1' horrible Mort, 
 Comme d' avoir par erreur pris 1' arc sien, 
 Car bien j'entends qu'elle a ores le mien ; 
 Mais je suis seur bientost le recouvrer, 
 Et desormais plus sagement ouvrer." 
 
 He mounts a tower and addresses Atropos, calling upon 
 her to restore his property, and threatens to kill her with 
 her own arrows if she refuses. 
 
 "Ah! ivrognet," respond la Mort immonde, 
 Je Grains autant tes menaces folettes. 
 Comme je fais roses et violettes : 
 Finir ne puis, ne jamais ne mourray : 
 Ains apres toy eternelle seray. 
 Mais puisqu' ainsi t' es mis en ce danger 
 Que de mon arc a cestuy-cy changer, 
 Je veuil aussy que nous changions de noms, 
 Et que le nom de 1' un 1' autre prenions : 
 Car desormais en tons cris et clamours 
 Tu seras dit la Mort, et moy Amours." 
 
 Explicit the second part. In the third, Venus in despair 
 appeals to Jupiter, who promises to help her, and with this 
 object summons by his herald Mercury both parties to send 
 ' gens de bon entendement' for the pleading of the cause. 
 
 Atropos sends ' la cruelle Megere,' Venus sends Voluptd, 
 and Mercury holds the court. Volupt^ makes demand of 
 restitution on the ground that Cupid is a child of tender 
 years, and was, moreover, drunk when he effected the ex- 
 change. Megere refuses, saying that the exchange was free 
 and voluntary, that drunkenness can never be pleaded in 
 excuse, and that they are making a great fuss about nothing, 
 because everybody has seen Cupid causing the martyrdom 
 of young people with his own bow.
 
 THE IMMORTALS. IQi 
 
 "Je n'en dis plus et finis pour cela : 
 Pourtant chacun se tienne a ce qu' il a." 
 
 Voluptc is about to reply, which would have been the 
 beginning of a long series of quarrels, when Mercury stops 
 them and pronounces his award, "par Jupiter, roy des 
 dieux et des hommes." He gives to Volupte' a new bow 
 for Cupid, with strict injunctions not to do it again. And 
 to Meg^re he hands a new bow, with which Atropos can 
 exercise her old office. " But," he says, " if she wants to 
 use the bow of Cupid, and draw the old into Love, let 
 ever)' one know that — 
 
 A tous ceux la qui en seront attaints 
 
 Telle rigueur leur sera impartie 
 
 Qu' ils aimeront, mais sera sans partie : 
 
 Tous ces vieillards toussans, crachans, chenus, 
 
 Ne seront point aux dames bien venus, 
 
 Et s'ils le sont, ce sera pour I'addresse, 
 
 Non point 1' amour, mais plutost la richesse." 
 
 And this is the reason why young men die, and old men 
 fall in love. 
 
 " The legend of Master Pierre Faifeu, or the Gests and 
 Joyous Sayings of Master Pierre Faifeu, scholar of Angers," 
 is a collection of stories, tricks, and shifts. It appeared 
 early in the sixteenth century, and was the work of one 
 Charles de Bordigne, of whom all we know is that he was 
 a priest, that he "flourished" about 1530, and that he was 
 the panegyrist of Cre'tin, whom he admired hugely. He 
 was a great admirer, too, of his own work, unless the follow- 
 ing advice to give up reading Ovid, Virgil, and the rest, and 
 to study Faifeu, is not part of the fun of the book.
 
 1 92 CHAPTER VI 11. 
 
 "De Pathelin n'oyez plus les cantiques, 
 De Jehan le Meun la grant jolyvete, 
 Ni de Villon les subtilles traficques, 
 Car pour tout vrai ils n'ont que nacquette.i 
 Robert le Diable a la teste abolye, 
 Bacchus s' endort et ronfle sur la lye, 
 Laissez estre caillette le folastre, 
 Les quatre filz Aymon vestuz de bleu, 
 Gargantua qui a cheveulx de piastre, 
 
 Voyez les faits Maistre Pierre Faifeu. 
 * * * * 
 
 Le Prince Ovide a dechiffre Baratre 
 Du Roy Pluton tout 1' enorme Theatre, 
 Ce n' est rien dit, mettez tout dans le feu, 
 Mesme Virgile en plaignant sa marastre,'' 
 Voyez les faits Maistre Pierre Faifeu." 
 
 I think it was in one of Marryat's novels that I first 
 read the story of the Flea Killing Powder. It may be re- 
 membered that the mountebank — either Japhet or Timothy 
 — offers for sixpence a packet, an infallible powder, war- 
 ranted to confound and instantly kill any flea in the world ; 
 having sold his packets, he proceeds to explain the method 
 of use. It is this : " You catch your flea," he says, " and 
 then, holding him firmly by the fore-finger and the thumb, 
 you tickle him in the ribs till he laughs. As soon as the 
 action of laughter commences, the mouth involuntarily opens. 
 You throw a pinch of the powder in, and your flea dies." 
 
 One meets so many of these wellknown stories in older 
 forms, that one wonders where the narrators of the present 
 day get them from. This one is found in M. de Bordigne 
 almost in the same words. Faifeu makes a lot of little 
 
 1 naqueter, to serve slavishly. ^ rnarastre = belle mere.
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 193 
 
 packets of saw-dust, which he proclaims as his "poudre 
 aux puces." Everyone runs to buy it. 
 
 " lors en fist bonne vente : 
 
 Car pour tout vray publiquement se vantc 
 Que les puces toutes fera mourir. 
 La eut argent, pour son fait secourir, 
 Tant et si hien qu' il fut assez content. 
 L' im des presens s' advisa tout content, 
 Que bien sont fous de-14 s'estre amuses, 
 Sans qu' il ieur dist la maniere d' user 
 De la poudre que il Ieur a vendue, 
 A Faifeu va sans faire autre attendue, 
 Luy demander la maniere et la sorte 
 Qu' il faut user de la poudre qu' il porte. 
 II luy respond, sans faire long caquet, 
 Que mettre faut les puces en paquet, 
 Puis les prendre chacune seule k seule 
 Et Ieur pousser la poudre dans la gueule : 
 Toutes mourront sans faire long sejour. 
 Lors cliacun rit d' avoir en celuy jour 
 Tel passetems et si bonne responce : 
 Mais tout soudain le gaillard fist esponce 
 Avec 1' argent qu' eut par son plaisant jeu : 
 II s'en alia, et sans Ieur dire adieu," 
 
 I suppose that few readers could be found now for Simon 
 Bougouinc. This excellent man was ^■alet-de-chambre to 
 Louis XII., and in that most moral and proper court wrote 
 an allegorical poem, entitled, " L' espinette du jeune Prince 
 conquerant le Royaume de bonne renomme'e." It is written 
 for all princes, not for any one in particular, and is intended 
 as a sort of Moral Handbook. The prince is confided to 
 six chevaliers, namely, Cueur Attrempe, Sens Pourveu, 
 Conseil Me'sure, and three others. Unfortunately, he meets
 
 194 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Jeunesse and Folic, who disgust liim with his friends, and 
 with whom he goes oft'. There is no need to go through 
 the history of this allegory. The prince has all sorts of 
 adventures, gets an immense amount of sermonizing, and 
 ends well, which is more than one could expect after 
 Simon's five books. 
 
 It is difficult to approach Jean Bouchet without fear and 
 trembling. There was never such a voluminous wTiter on 
 the face of the earth. One would think that if he had written 
 continuously from five years of age to seventy-five, at which 
 age he died, he would hardly have been able to achieve all 
 his productions. He was a lawyer, too, by profession, and 
 doubtless spent some of his time in law work. He wrote 
 histories, chronicles, biographies, letters, allegories, ballads, 
 rondeaux, books of advice and instruction, and epitaphs. 
 And he never rises above a tame mediocrity of style. He 
 belongs to the period of Cle'ment Marot, rather than to that 
 of the poets who precede him. He was mixed up in the 
 quarrel between Clement and Sagon, the latter addressing 
 him a letter in which he complains of Marot. Bouchet, 
 however, would take no active part in it, saying : 
 
 "Mais, las! Marot pour cuider hault voller, 
 Et les secretz d' evangile accoller, 
 Et repugner aux preceptes d' Eglise, 
 S' est par sa faulte en tres grant peine prise : 
 II me desplaist le veoir infortune, 
 Parce qu' il est un vray Poete ne." 
 
 This Bouchet certainly was not ; but he was a man of 
 sound sense, and his verse is infinitely above that of Cretin 
 and the rest. Read, for instance, this Rondeau :
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 195 
 
 "Quand il lui plaist, Fortune fait avoir 
 Gloire et honneur, richesses et avoir, 
 Et quelqiies uns met au liaut de sa roue, 
 Lesquels soudain fait descendre en la boue, 
 Tant qu' ils en sont pitoyables a voir. 
 De patience il se convient poun'oir, 
 Quand resister on veut k son pouvoir ; 
 Car elle rit, puis soudain fait la mine, 
 Quand i! lui plaist. 
 
 Elle ne peut les humains decevoir, 
 Qui ont le sens rassis et bon s^avoir : 
 Car aucun d'eux de ses biens ne sc loue, 
 Bien avertis que la dame s' en joue 
 En les baillants, pour apres les ravoir 
 Quant il lui plaist." 
 
 When shall the good time come again ? 
 
 "Quand prestres sans iniquite, 
 En r eglise, Dieuserviront : 
 Quand en spiritualite, 
 Simonie plus ne feront : 
 Quand benefices ils n' auront, 
 Fors comme il leur appartiendra ; 
 Quand plus ne se deguiseront, 
 Alors le bon temps reviendra. 
 
 Quand ceux qui ont autorite, 
 Leurs sujets plus ne pilleront ; 
 Quand nobles sans credulite, 
 Et sans guerres en paix vivront ; 
 Quand les march ands ne tromperont, 
 Et que le juste on soutiendra : 
 Quand larrons au gibet iront, 
 Alors le bon temps reviendra." 
 
 Men of low origin at all times have consoled themselves 
 with the reflection that true nobility does not depend on
 
 IC)G CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 the accident of birth. In those days tlie pressure of ignoble 
 birth must have been very heavy, and tiie privilege of 
 nobility almost too much for the patience of the middle 
 classes. Let us hope that these words of Bouchet con- 
 veyed comfort to some. 
 
 " Iphicrates, d'un couturier enfant, 
 Qui par vertus fut un roi triomphant, 
 Reponse fit au seigneur Hermodie 
 Qui lui disoit, en parole etourdie, 
 Qu' ignoble etoit : "Je vois," dil il," en toi 
 Finir noblesse et commencer en moi." 
 Dire voulant — "noblesse perds par vice, 
 Et je 1' acquiers par droiteur et justice." 
 
 II vaudroit mieux estre fils Thersites, 
 Lasche et couard, et etre un Achilles, 
 Que d' estre fds d' Achilles et de suivre 
 Ce Thersites, et folles mceurs poursuivre." 
 
 We are nearly at the end of our list of poetasters. 
 Gringore, whose device was, " Tout par raison, raison par- 
 tout, partout raison," wrote allegories, of which we have 
 had enough, and, dramatic pieces which do not concern us 
 in this place. 
 
 Jean Regnier, a Burgundian, being taken prisoner by the 
 French, employed the time of his captivity in writing a great 
 quantity of lais, ballads, and songs. We may pass him over.* 
 
 Of Guillaume Alexis, who deserves special notice, we 
 have si)oken in another place. 
 
 Michel d'Amboise can hardly be called a predecessor 
 
 ' lie must not be confounded with his nmch greater namesake, 
 Mathurin Regnier, who was not born till 1573.
 
 THE IMMORTALS. I97 
 
 of Marot. He was born in 1500, and died in 1547; was 
 an illegitimate son of Charles d' Amboise, admiral of 
 France ; called himself Z' esclave Fortune; and wrote erotic 
 verse. 
 
 Of Blaise d'Auriol, Avho was a great Doctor in Law, 
 it is only necessary to say that he stole wholesale from 
 Charles of Orleans ; and that, astrologers having predicted 
 a second Deluge in 1524, he took steps to ensure his own 
 safety by building a boat for himself in his courtyard. 
 
 Massien enumerates others whom he dismisses with a 
 line or two. They are Guillaume Vincent, Guillaume 
 Boivin, Pierre Danthon, Robert Gaguin, Mesdames Dant- 
 ragues, and Monnier, Robertet, and Margaret of Austria. 
 
 It must not be supposed that this list is exhaustive. 
 On the contrary, poetry was the fashion, and everybody 
 with the least pretensions to wit and education made verses. 
 A century later it was much the same in England ; certainly 
 more versifiers wrote for us between the years 1600 and 
 1700 than either before or since, whose works, now for- 
 gotten, rest on the shelves of great libraries, only disturbed 
 by the curious. These rhymers of the day form the great 
 imitative throng. "\\^hen taste is good, mediocrity lifts up 
 her head, and for a time seems something like genius ; 
 when taste is bad, she is very bad indeed. In those days 
 men imitated Molinet ; they aimed at the " Rime Em- 
 peri^re," or at least at the "Rime Couronnee." If they 
 could succeed in the " Rime Retrograde," their reputation 
 was made. And bad as the model was, the copy was 
 worse. When Marot came, all began to imitate him, 
 and, for a time at least, good taste reigned, to fall again
 
 198 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ■• 
 before the pedantries of Ronsard, and to rise once more 
 
 when Malherbe reopened the undefiled well of French. 
 
 So, now, dozens of men and women write verses which in 
 
 the last century would have placed them in the collections 
 
 of British poets, but which are, nevertheless, only copies in 
 
 a style due to Tennyson, Bro\vning, or Wordsworth, 
 
 These lesser bards, the imitators of Molinet, Cre'tin, and 
 
 company, followed blindly after their leaders, worshipping 
 
 at the shrine of Dulness. 
 
 "The gathering number, as it moves along, 
 Involves a vast involuntary throng ; 
 Who, gently drawn, and struggling less and less, 
 Roll in her vortex, and her power confess." 
 
 There is something touching about these forgotten poets, 
 their vanity, their self-satisfaction, their laborious monuments 
 of industry and patience. They have necessarily fallen 
 into obhvion, but one would willingly spare them contempt. 
 Like better men, they followed Literature as their mistress. 
 They had no rules except what they made for themselves, 
 but they had learning enough to know that there were styles 
 of writing far higher than had yet been attempted in France. 
 They aimed at being sublime, and fell into bathos ; at being 
 artistic and polished, and became ridiculously involved and 
 clumsy. Let us give them credit for their aims. Their 
 great fault was a fault growing out of the disproportion, 
 peculiar to the literary history of France, of language to 
 thought. The instruments were too delicate for the work- 
 men ; the art of the mechanic unequal to the material he 
 worked upon. They found a language ready for the reception
 
 THE IMMORTALS. 1 99 
 
 of a Dante, and they offered a Molinet. They confounded 
 the facility with which they wrote with genius, and where 
 they could produce words, were careless about the matter. 
 But they were still lovers of literature, and nourished a flame 
 which they handed down to better men. To keep the light 
 burning is something. It is worthy of praise even to cr}', 
 to a careless world, 
 
 "Nay but you — who do not love her — 
 Is she not pure gold, our mistress?"
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATHELIN. 
 
 This, the earliest French comedy, worthy the name, is too 
 remarkable a piece to be passed over in any mention of 
 early French poetry. In some respects it is certainly the 
 most note-worthy production of the fifteenth century. If 
 we compare it with the earliest efforts of English comedy 
 — with Gammer Gurton, for instance — it is impossible not 
 to admire the extraordinary superiority of the French 
 language, the French versification, and, above all, the 
 French humour. There is absolutely none of that clownish 
 uncouthness which distinguishes all our earliest attempts 
 at comedy, there is no horse-play, there are no Fescennine 
 jokes, there needs no Hircius or Spongius to tickle the 
 fancy of the country audience who first heard it — if, indeed, 
 it was acted first at Poitiers, as seems probable. Where 
 the English bufibon tumbles and roars, the French light 
 comedian, with a gallant and courtly air, cajoles his victim, 
 and after all his thousand tricks and turns illustrates the 
 temporary success and ultimate discomfiture of roguery. 
 The comedy was first produced about 1470 ; in language,
 
 MA 1ST RE PIERRE PA THE LIN. 201 
 
 though greatly superior, taste, and in humour, it resembles 
 the Replies Franc/ies, falsely attributed to Villon. It was 
 immensely successful. It was acted in all parts of France. 
 Professor Reuchlin translated it into Latin, and made his 
 pupils play it at Heidelberg in 1497. Another and a better 
 translation was made by Connibert in 15 12. It became 
 a storehouse of proverbs. From it came the word patheliner. 
 It went through twenty-five editions, at least, in a hundred 
 years. 
 
 It has been assigned to half-a-dozen authors, who may 
 be reduced to two, Pierre Blanchet, and Antoine de la Sale. 
 The latter edited, in 1456, the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles, 
 and must have been probably too old to be the author of 
 Pathelin in 1470. The former was a barrister at Poitiers. 
 He is known to have written farces as well as songs. 
 Bouchet — Bouchet the voluminous — A\Tote his epitaph : 
 
 "Cy gist, dessoubs ce lapideux cachet, 
 Le corps de feu maistre Pierre Blanchet, 
 En son vivant, poete satyrique, 
 Hardy sans lettre, et fort joyeux comique. 
 Luy, jeune estant, il suyvoit le Palais 
 Et composait souvent rondeaux et lais : 
 Faisoit jouer sur eschaffaulx Bazoche, 
 Et y jouoit par grant art sans reproche." 
 
 Bouchet meant well, though his verse is not so good as 
 might be. 
 
 It does not much matter who the author was. Let him 
 enjoy an anonymous reputation. M. P. L. Jacob (Bibliophile) 
 is exceedingly indignant with M. Genin, for attributing Path- 
 elin to Antoine de la Sale, but his own case for Blanchet is 
 a very poor one. It rests chiefly on the epitaph of Bouchet.
 
 202 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Here, he says, Ave learn that Blanchet was a poete satyrique. 
 Very good ; so was the author of Pierre Pathehn. Again, 
 Blanchet was a barrister ; " probably," he says — I do not see 
 why, ".probably a barrister sous P onne like Pathelin." 
 Again, Blanchet wrote farces — his name was Pierre ; like 
 Pathelin, he made a will in rhyme. If anything more is 
 wanting to complete the proof, we have a pun in Pathelin 
 on the word blanchet., which means either a white petticoat 
 or a piece of money, or — and what delight to have a triple 
 pun ! — the name of the author. And if any one doubts 
 after all this that Pierre Blanchet was the author of Pierre 
 Pathelin, why, he says, let him sit down and find out an 
 author for himself 
 
 In the selections which follow, which I believe to be 
 sufficient to show the character of this little play, I have 
 left in the original those verses which would lose their point 
 by translation. 
 
 We may divide it into two Acts. It was, doubtless, 
 performed upon a stage in compartments, one of which 
 was the draper's shop, and the other Pathelin's house. 
 I apologize beforehand for my rough rhymes. They are, 
 at least, tolerably close. 
 
 Act I. Scene i. Pathelin's House. Maitre Pierre Pathelin and 
 Guillemette his wife ; a poorly-furnished room. 
 
 '"■Pathelin. Holy Mary! I toil and I cheat: 
 
 Fair play and foul ; by work and deceit : 
 
 And yet 'tis certain, my Guillemette, 
 
 Whatever I do, no richer we get. 
 Guillemette. Yes : and what 's worse, the neighbours aver, 
 
 You are not so wise, by half, as you were :
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATHELIN. 203 
 
 You that everyone used to seek — 
 So crafty, so cunning, so clever to speak—: 
 Wait now, neglected by all the folk, 
 And they call you the 'Advocate under the oak.'^ 
 P. Yet — I say it in sorrow, not pride — 
 
 There is not through all the country side, 
 In learning and wit a man my compare — 
 Always excepting his Worship the Mayor. 
 * * ♦ * # 
 
 G. And if you are learned, where is the good ? 
 The larder is empty ; we have no food. 
 Look at our clothes, they are all in rags ; 
 When will your wisdom replenish your bags?" 
 
 Pathelin hits on an idea : 
 
 " Taisez vous. Par ma conscience, 
 Si je vueil mon sens esprouver, 
 Je scauray bien ou en trouvcr 
 Des robes et des chaperons." 
 
 She will not believe him. 
 
 "Vous n'avez ne denier ne maille, 
 Que ferez vous? 
 
 Pathelin. 
 
 Vous ne S9avez. 
 Belle dame, se vous n' avez 
 Du drap, pour nous deux largement. 
 Si me desmentez hardiment. 
 Quel couleur vous semble plus belle? 
 D' ung gris vert ? d' ung drap de Brucelle ? 
 Ou d' autre ? II me le faut S9avoir. 
 
 GUILLEMETTE. 
 
 Tel que vous le pourrez avoir ; 
 Qui emprunte ne choisit mye. 
 
 ' " Avocat sous I'orme," /. e. one whose only office was the shade 
 of the elm in the village ' place. '
 
 204 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Pathelin. 
 Pour voiis, deux aulnes et demye, 
 Et, pour moy, trois, voire bien quatre, 
 Ce sont .... 
 
 GUILLEMETTE. 
 Vous comptez sans rabattre : 
 Que dyable les vous prestera? 
 
 Pathelin. 
 
 Que vous en -chault qui ce sera ? 
 On me les prestera vrayement, 
 A rendre au jour du Jugement : 
 Car plus tost ne sera ce j)oint." 
 
 Exit Pathelin, big with thought. Guillemette stays behind, de- 
 spondent and doubtful. 
 
 Scene 2. The Draper's shop at the fair. Pathelin looks about in 
 apparent uncertainty. 
 
 "Is this his place? it cannot be: 
 A draper's shop ? the name — 'tis he. 
 (Enters) God be with all. 
 Draper. And with you, beau Sire. 
 
 P. The strangest chance that brought me here : 
 The very man — your hand, my friend — 
 That I wanted to find. — Your health — does it mend ?" 
 
 After manifesting an extraordinary anxiety on this point, 
 he begins in a quite novel and unexpected manner. I 
 imagine that the draper knows him by sight, but has never 
 spoken to him before, for Pathelin evidently knows a little 
 about the good man's connections. 
 
 "Ha! — well. What a man! what a wonderful brain! 
 God keep his soul — your father's, I mean. 
 What a merchant, too, so thoughtful, so wise, 
 (Upon my word, you have the same eyes).
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATHELIN. 205 
 
 If God have mercy on any, why then 
 He surely will pity your father. 
 D. Amen. 
 
 P. Dear, clear— a hundred limes, ay, more, — 
 Truly and fully he told me Ijcfore, 
 The times that were coming, the very events : 
 Even then he was reckoned .... 
 D. Sir, no ofTencc : 
 
 Forgive my rudeness— be seated, I pray. 
 P. I do very well as I am, but .... 
 D. Nay— 
 
 Be seated, I beg you. 
 p To please you — ah, well ! 
 
 None other than marvels he used to foretell. 
 You '11 see when I tell you— Good Heavens ! 'tis strange. 
 From father to son I perceive no change. 
 His father exactly, the eyes and the nose, 
 The very same dimples the same lips disclose: 
 Hard set for a quarrel he'd be, in truth, 
 Who would dare to maintain that you, forsooth, 
 Are not your own father's son. That nature 
 So should imitate every feature 
 Is passing wondrous— so we are made — 
 Your aunt Laurentia— is she yet dead? 
 D. No. 
 P. I am glad : ah ! she was a belle. 
 
 Tall and graceful ; just your shape, well- 
 In all the country, search it over- 
 Such a race as yours 'twere hard to discover. 
 The more I see you, the more I recall 
 The face of your father- God rest his soul ! 
 Two drops of water are not more alike. 
 How brave he was— so ready to strike ! 
 How worthy a creature— so_ glad to lend 
 His money to any deserving friend. 
 And how he laughed ! all out of his heart. 
 Would that the worst man in this part 
 Only resembled him. • My brother,
 
 2o6 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 We shouldn't then be cheating each other 
 
 As we do now. [Takes 7ip a piece of cloth. 
 
 What capital cloth ! 
 
 I never saw stuff so soft and smooth. 
 D. From my own sheep's wool that cloth is made. 
 P. Is it ? How clever he is at his trade ! 
 D. Well, one must labour if one would thrive. 
 P. 'Tis tnie, most true. As I 'm alive, 
 
 I cannot resist this beautiful stuff, 
 
 I came not to buy — but there, enough. 
 
 Eighty crowns I had laid aside 
 
 For another puipose ; but now, if I tried 
 
 I could not avoid leaving twenty with you. 
 
 I viiist have a coat, and my Guillemette, too, 
 
 She shall have a gown. The longer I gaze, 
 
 The more I like it. 
 D. Just as you please, 
 
 Only this cloth is as dear as cream, 
 
 Twenty francs will go like a dream. 
 P. I don't care, let it cost what it will." 
 
 He insists on paying the " denier a Dieu", with the 
 pious remark : " ne faisons rien qui soit, ou Dieu ne se 
 nomme." They then have a dispute about the price. 
 
 "Z>. Chascune aulne vous coustera 
 
 Vingt et quatre solz. 
 P. Non sera. 
 
 Vingt et quatre solz ! Saincte Dame ! 
 T). 11 la m' a cousto, par ceste ame ! 
 
 Autant m' en fault, se vous 1' avez. 
 P. Dba! c'est trop. 
 D. Ha ! vous ne sfavez 
 
 Comment le drap est enchery !^ 
 
 Trestout la betail est per)', 
 
 Cest yver par la grant froidure. 
 P. Vingt solz ; vingt solz. 
 D. Et je vous jure 
 
 Que j 'en auray ce que je dy.
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATHELIN. 207 
 
 Or attendez i samedy : 
 
 Vous venez que vault? La toyson, 
 
 Dont il souloit estre foyson, 
 
 Me cousta, a la Magdeleine, 
 
 Huict blancs, par mon serment, de laine, 
 
 Que je soulois avoir pour quatre. 
 P. Par le sang bleu ! sans plus debattre, 
 
 Puis qu' ainsi va, done je marchande ; 
 
 Sus — aulnez. 
 D. Et je vous demande 
 
 Combien vous en faut il avoir? 
 P. II est bien ayse i scavoir. 
 
 Quel Ic a-il? 
 D. Le de Brucelle. 
 
 P. Trois aulnes pour moy, et pour elle 
 
 (Elle est haute) deux et demye. 
 
 Ce sont six aulnes . . . Ne sont mye . . . 
 
 Et ne sont . . . Que je suis bee jaune ! 
 D. II ne s' en fault que demye aulne, 
 
 Pour fairc les six justement. 
 P. J' en prendray six tout rondement." 
 
 Having got the cloth, the question arises about pay- 
 ment. Will the draper come to his house to get the 
 money ? The draper thinks it will be out of his way. Upon 
 this Pathelin affects indignation. Out of his way, indeed ! 
 it is only an excuse to avoid going to his house on a friendly 
 visit. Now, will he come up and eat roast goose that day ? 
 no ceremony ; and he cannot think of allowing the draper 
 to carr>' the cloth, he will take it himself — so, under his arm. 
 The draper promises to make his appearance, and Pathelin 
 promises the money 3 takes the cloth, and goes. Outside 
 the shop he says — 
 
 " Or ? et quoy doncques ? 
 Or ! dyable ! je n' y failly oncques ! 
 Non. Or ! Qu' il puist estre pendu
 
 2o8 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Eudea, il ne m' a pas vendu, 
 A mon mot : ce a este au sien : 
 Mais il sera paye au mien. 
 II luy faiit or ? on le luy fourre ; 
 Pleust a Dieu qu il ne fist que courre, 
 Sans cesser, jusques a fin de paye ! 
 Sainct Jel.an ! il feroit plus de voye, 
 Qu'il n' y a jusque a Pampelune." 
 
 And the draper, left in his shop, shews himself as big 
 a rogue as the lawyer. 
 
 "Ilz ne verront soleil ny lune, 
 Les escuz qu' il me baillera, 
 
 De r an, qui ne les emblera (unless any one steals them) 
 Or, n' est il si fort entendeur, 
 Qui ne treuve plus fort vendeur : 
 Ce trompeur la est bien bee jaune, 
 Quand pour vingt et quatre solz I'aulne, 
 A prins drap qui n' en vaut pas vingt." 
 
 Scene 3. Pathelin's house again. He returns bringing 
 back the cloth. It is of course needless to say that there 
 is no roast goose. Guillemette is astonished at his success, 
 and he relates the whole story, how he tickled the vanity 
 of the draper, and wheedled and coaxed him. Guillemette 
 is reminded of the fable of the crow with the cheese. 
 Pathelin discloses his plan of operations to be followed 
 when the draper comes for his money, to which his wife 
 accedes, only begging her husband to remember that 
 disastrous Saturday when he was put in the pillory, and 
 when everybody cried out on him for his rogueries. He 
 goes to bed, pretending sickness, and has just made his 
 arrangements when the draper comes. 
 
 This scene is very good. 1 leave it in the original.
 
 MAISTKE PIERRE FA THE LIN 209 
 
 Draper. Hau ! maistre Pierre? 
 Guillemdte. {opening the door) Helas ! sire, 
 
 Par Dieu ! se vous voulez rien dire, 
 
 Parlez plus bas ! 
 D. Dieu vous, gard, dame ! 
 
 G. Ha ! plus bas ! 
 D. Et quoy? 
 G. Bon gre m' ame . . . 
 D. Oil cst-il? 
 
 G. Las ! ou doit il estre ? 
 
 D. Le qui? 
 G. Ha ! c' est mal dit, mon maistre : 
 
 Oil est il ? et Dieu, par sa grace, 
 
 Le sache ! II garde la place 
 
 Oil il est, le povre martir, 
 
 Unze semaines, sans partir. . . . 
 D. De qui? 
 G. Pardonnez moy, je n' ose 
 
 Parler haul : je croy qu' il repose : 
 
 II est un petit aplomme : 
 
 Helas ! il est si assomme, 
 
 Le povre homme .... 
 D. Qui ? 
 
 G. Maistre Pierre. 
 D. Ouay ! n' est il pas venu querre 
 
 Six aulnes de drap maintenant? 
 G, Qui, luy? 
 D. II en vient tout venant, 
 
 N' a pas la moytie d' ung quart d' heure. 
 
 Delivrez moy : dea ! je demeure 
 
 Beaucoup. Ca, sans plus flageoller, 
 
 Mon argent? 
 G. He ! sans rigoller, 
 
 II n' est pas temps que 1' on rigolle. 
 D. N'est ce pas ceans que je suy 
 
 Chcuz maistre Pierre Pathelin? 
 G. Ouy. Le mal sainct Mathelin 
 
 Sans le mien, au cueur vous tienne ! 
 
 Parlez bas.
 
 Pio CHAPTER IX. 
 
 D. Le (lyable y avienne ! 
 
 Ne le oseray-je demander? 
 G. A Dieu me puiser commander ! 
 
 Bas, se ne voulez qu' il s' esveille. 
 D. Quel bas ? Voulez vous en 1' oreille, 
 
 Au fons du puys, ou de la cave?" 
 
 The draper, naturally in a great rage, will not believe that 
 Pathelin is ill; Guillemette begs him over and over again 
 to speak low, and presently the faint voice of the sick man 
 is heard from his chamber talking, as one in great danger 
 and fear of death, with a doctor, one Maistre Jehan. The 
 draper is half convinced. Have they a goose roasting at 
 the fire ? — " Goose, indeed !" says Guillemette, " a pretty 
 thing for sick men to eat." Quite humbled and confused 
 the draper says, 
 
 "Je vous piy qu'il ne vous desplaise : 
 Car je cuydoye fennement .... 
 Encor ! par le sainct sacrement — 
 Dieu ! . . . Dea ! or voys je scavoir . . . . " 
 
 He goes back to his shop to measure his cloth, and see 
 if he has been dreaming — 
 
 "Je scay bien que je dois avoir 
 Six aulnes, tout en une piece : 
 Mais cette femme me despiece 
 De tous pointz mon entendement . . . 
 II les a mcs vrayement ? . . . 
 Non a, dea ! il ne se peut joindre ! 
 J' ay veu la mort qui le vient poindre ; 
 Au moins, ou il le contrefaict . . . 
 Et si a! il les print de faict, 
 Et les mist dessoubz son aisselle, 
 Par saincte Marie la belle ! . . . 
 Non a ! Je ne sgay si je songe.
 
 MAJSTRE PIERRE PA TIIELLX. 2 i i 
 
 Je n'ay point aprins que je donge 
 
 Mes drapz, en donnant, ne veillant?" etc. 
 
 " Is he gone ?" asks Pathelin ; " Yes," answers Guille- 
 mette, "but he may come back. Do not move. Our 
 business would be altogether lost, if he were to find you 
 up." They laugh over the unfortunate draper. Meantime 
 he comes back, thinks he hears Guillemette laugh, and 
 knocks at the door furiously. She comes out as before ; 
 this time Pathelin is in a raging delirium, and raves, singing, 
 
 " Up — up, Queen of Guitars — 
 Bring her at once : bring her, ye varlets. 
 I know how she was brought to bed 
 Of four-and-twenty little Guitarlets. 
 Their father's the Abbot of Invernaux, 
 And to the christening I must go " 
 
 Quoth Guillemette : 
 
 "Alas! to Heaven direct 3'Our prayers, 
 And don't be singing about guitars." 
 
 The draper will not yet believe. He knows that he is 
 not dreaming, because he has measured the cloth and finds 
 that six ells are really missing, and to the expostulations 
 of Guillemette he only says, " Heu ! quel malade." 
 
 Then Pathelin's delirium grows worse. He raves in 
 Limousin patois, because, as Guillemette explains, he had 
 an uncle of that country; then in Picard dialect, because 
 his mother was from Picardy; then in Flemish; then in 
 Norman, because he was at school in Normandy; then in 
 Breton, because his grandmother came from Brittany; and 
 then in Latin, when Guillemette cries out :
 
 212 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "Par mon serment, il se mourra, 
 Tout pailant ! Comment il escume ! 
 Veez vous pas comment il fume? 
 A haultaine'divinite, 
 Or s' en va son humanite ! 
 Or demourray je povre et lasse." 
 
 The draper thinking him in articulo mortis, hastens out 
 of the way, and returns to his shop, making up his mind 
 that it was the devil and no other that robbed him. 
 Pathehn gets out of bed, and he and his wife congratulate 
 each other. This may be called the tennination of the 
 first act. 
 
 The second act contains the part of Pierre Pathelin best 
 known and most frequently quoted. 
 
 Scene I. — The Draper's Shop. 
 
 Enter Thibault Aignelet, his shepherd, who has been summoned to 
 answer a charge of robbing his wool and killing his sheep. The draper, 
 still confused with the events of the morning, is very angry with him, 
 but scarcely, as yet, coherent. 
 
 You shall pay me back, whatever befal. 
 
 Six ells, I mean the wool and all 
 
 The beasts you have killed : you shall pay me with tears, 
 
 For the mischief you've done me this last ten years. 
 Aignelet. Alas, my master, believe them no more : 
 
 They wrong me, good sir. 
 D. You rascal, before 
 
 Next Saturday comes you shall pay in full. 
 
 Six ells of cloth — I mean the wool 
 
 You have robbed of my beasts. 
 A. What cloth? what ells? 
 
 Surely you think about something else. 
 
 Holy Saint Leu I so angry you are, 
 
 To say a word I hardly dare."
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATIIELIN. 213 
 
 Finding the draper not to be pacified, Thibault betakes 
 himself to Maistre PatheHn, and asks him to act as his 
 advocate. To his counsel he confesses that he has killed 
 and eaten no less than thirty sheep in three years, pretend- 
 ing that they were sick and had died. 
 
 " Are there any witnesses," asks Pathelin, " to prove 
 these facts?" 
 
 "Prouver, Sire?" says the shepherd, " Saincte Marie I 
 Par tons les saints de Paradis, 
 Pour ung il en trouvera dix, 
 Qui conUe moy deposeront." 
 
 " That," observes the barrister, " is a circumstance likely 
 to injure your cause materially. But let us see." He fixes 
 on a plan, part of which is that the shepherd is to affect 
 idiocy, and to make no replies whatever, except 'B(^e'; that 
 he is not to appear as his barrister by previous arrange- 
 ment ; and that for his services he, Pierre Pathelin, is to 
 be paid handsomely. 
 
 The scene changes to the court, when the draper begins 
 to set forth his case. Seeing Pathelin, he stops and gets 
 confused. The sight of him recalls the memory of his 
 cloth, and he changes the accusation, to the bewildemient 
 of the Judge, from the shepherd to the laA\yer, and from 
 sheep to cloth. . } The judge forces him back to his 
 original charge and he begins again : 
 
 'yiidge. Laissez en paix cest accessoire, 
 Et venons au principal. 
 D. Voire, 
 
 Monseigneur : mais le cas me louche : 
 
 ' Here first occurs the proverb, "re venons a nos moutons."
 
 214 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Toutes fois par ma foy, ma bouche 
 Mesluiy' im seul mot n'eii dira. 
 Une autrefois, il en yra 
 Ainsi qu' il ne poiirra aller : 
 II le me convient avaller 
 Sans mascher. 
 
 Well — to my case I '11 keep : 
 I gave six ells, — I mean my sheep — 
 I pray your pardon — this rogue, I say, 
 Who ought to be guarding my sheep this day, 
 He promised to pay me six crowns — not so, 
 I mean the shepherd— three years ago. 
 Promised he'd loyally keep and guard 
 My flock of sheep with watch and ward ; 
 Would do them no damage, and now, behold, 
 He gives me neither the cloth nor the gold. 
 Ah, master Peter ! — This rascal stole 
 
 From the backs of my sheep their fleece and their wool — 
 He told me they died : he said they were sick : 
 When he beat out their brains himself with a stick, 
 Quite healthy and fat, without sickness or harm. 
 He tucked my broad cloth under his ann ; 
 Off he went in a mighty haste ; 
 Bade me presently with him feast ; 
 Promised the money at the same time. 
 J. Why : here is neither reason nor rhyme. 
 The man is mixing up cloth and sheep." 
 
 Pathelin offers, at this juncture, to defend the cause of 
 the shepherd, wlio appears poor and half-witted. 
 
 "/". Come now, my man, let us hear the affair. 
 Aignelet. Bee. 
 
 P. What is bee? your sheep are not here. 
 
 Let us learn. Speak up for your own good. 
 A. Bee. 
 
 P. Now, now, let us have either yea or nay. 
 A. Bee. 
 
 ' meshuy, magis hodie, from to-day, henceforth.
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATHELIN. 215 
 
 P. Send him back to his sheep, my lord, 
 
 He is clearly a foul. 
 D. A fool? By my word, 
 
 He is wiser than you are. 
 P. Let him be sent 
 
 To his sheep wthout further bewilderment." 
 
 The draper, foiled in this way, foams with rage, and 
 turns upon Pathelin witli a sort of despair. 
 
 "You have my cloth — never mind the wool — 
 
 I know your face — I am not a fool — 
 
 I know your voice and I know j'our gown ; 
 
 I am wise enough to know my own — 
 
 My lord, let me tell you the tale. 
 P. Ah, sir, 
 
 Impose restraint on this talker. The stir 
 
 About this loss of a sheep or two, — 
 
 Three or four — what is it to you ? 
 
 Not worth a button. 
 D. What sheep? He repeats 
 
 The same old story. For your deceits — 
 
 You — you, I mean — you shall pay me them, 
 
 By the Lord who was born at Bethlehem. 
 P. Dear, dear ; too much fuss j'ou make, I am sure. 
 
 What matters ? suppose it were half a score. 
 
 Balance your loss against your gain. 
 D. Look at him, sir, I speak in vain, 
 
 I talk of my cloth, and he only replies 
 
 About the shepherd. Oh ! maker of lies — 
 
 Where is my cloth ? where is the stuff 
 
 You put away under your ami? 
 P. Enough. 
 
 My lord, I ask the court to forgive 
 
 This poor born idiot. Let him live. 
 
 You will not hang him : he ne'er did harm : 
 
 As naked, as innocent as a worm. 
 
 Reflect, my lord : a paltry score 
 
 Of fleeces gone — it could not be more."
 
 2i6 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Finally, the judge dismisses the case, and declares the 
 sitting at an end. After a few more words with Pathelin, 
 the angry draper walks away. Then the lawyer is left 
 alone with his client. 
 
 "Now, Aignelet, is your business done? 
 A. Bee. 
 
 P. The cause is finished ; the judge is gone : 
 Don't say bee any more, my friend. 
 Did I not counsel you well to the end ? 
 Did I not play him a turn, eh ? 
 A. Bee. 
 P. There : there : no one will hear you. Say, 
 
 Speak out plainly : don't be afraid. 
 A. Bee. 
 
 P. 'Tis time for me to be paid. 
 A. Bee. 
 P. Very well you have played your part, 
 
 Your grave face went to the judge's heart. 
 A. Bee. 
 P. Don't say that any more, I beseech. 
 
 Pay me now. 
 A. Bee. 
 
 p. Recover your speech. 
 
 Pay me at once and let me go. 
 A. Bee. 
 P. No more beeing. That will do. 
 
 I don't like trifling. Pay me my fee. 
 A. Bee. 
 P. You mean to mock me? you mock me? 
 
 I swear you shall pay me at once — Here ! — Give. 
 A. Bee. 
 
 P. You dare laugh at me? [aside) As I live, 
 'Tis all I am likely to get. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 My friend, if you bk to gratify 
 Yourself, pray say so— but think that I 
 "Would rather not talk any more. But come,
 
 MAISTRE PIERRE PATIIELIN. 2\^ 
 
 Will you take your supper with me at home? 
 A. Bee. 
 P. By St. John, he bA's at his ease. 
 
 For once the goslings lead the geese. 
 
 {Aside) Now I thought myself the king of all cheats : 
 
 Doctor in quibbles, prince of deceits, 
 
 Giver of words and bonds to pay, 
 
 To be redeemed — on Judgment-day — 
 
 And a simple rustic defeats my claims. 
 {To Shepherd) 
 
 Here, you sir, by holy St. James, 
 
 Could I but find a serjeant near. 
 
 Your lot should be prison and prison cheer. 
 A. Bee. 
 P. lieu ! Bee ! L' en me puisse pendre, 
 
 Se je ne voys faire venir 
 
 Un bon serjeant. Mesavenir 
 
 Luy puisse il, s' il ne t' emprisonne ! 
 (Le Bergier s' enfuyant) 
 
 S' il me tienne, je luy pardonne." 
 
 This is the end of the piece; Pathelin, with poetical 
 justice, having the tables turned upon him by the very man 
 he had taught to deceive. The conception of the scene 
 in which the draper confuses the two villainies in his 
 mind is equal to anything in ]\Ioliere. 
 
 The Nouveau Pathelin and the Testament de Pathelin are 
 sometimes found with the farce. They are very fair imita- 
 tions, but not by the same author. The former is founded 
 on a story taken from the Replies Franches of Villon.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 DE SAINT GELAIS. 
 
 The world, which looks upon the backslidings of mankind 
 with a degree of disfavour exactly in the inverse proportion 
 to their birth and station, put Villon in prison on a bread 
 and water diet, and gave Octavien de Saint Gelais a bishop- 
 ric. Encouraged by this stimulus to virtue, the prelate 
 reformed and sinned no more, while the ragamuffin rogue, 
 his brother bard, only reformed to sin again. St. Gelais's 
 father, however, was no less a person than the Marquis 
 de Montlieu and St. Aulaye, while Villon's father was 
 a simple cordwainer ; and while Villon scraped through 
 the university as best he could, the young Octavien was 
 carefully trained under the eyes of his cousin Guy de 
 Fontenay, Regent of the College of St. Barbe, and Martin 
 le Maistre, Chaplain to Louis the Eleventh. He was in 
 course of time turned out a complete scholar, as things 
 went then, and a young priest with an ardent zeal for every- 
 thing in life except religion. He lived hard and worked 
 hard, so hard that at twenty-four he was incapacited by 
 illness and exhaustion from any work but the work of
 
 DE SAINT CELAIS. 219 
 
 his order. By the good offices of king Charles the Vlllth 
 he was able to obtain of the pope the Bishopric of Angou- 
 Ibme, whither he retired, and for some ten years led the life 
 of a self-denying earnest Christian priest. Thorough in 
 everything, he seems to have brought to his work the 
 same zeal he had before manifested for pleasure. He 
 died almost in the odour of sanctity, in the year 1502, 
 being then only thirty-six years of age. 
 
 "O Sainct Gelais, reverend orateur," says Cretin in an ecstasy, 
 "De vos ecrits les livres sont tous pleins, 
 
 Vostre bon bruict voile par champs et plains, 
 
 Chascun le s^ait, de ce ne suis menteur. " 
 
 His two principal works are " La chasse et Depart 
 d' Amour," which, with an allegorical introduction, contains 
 the poems of his youth ; and his " Se'jour d' Honneur," 
 written when he was only twenty-four years old, but already 
 saddened and aged by his debaucheries. 
 
 In the former he utilised the allegory of Charles of 
 Orleans, where the poet is taken to the Court of Love. 
 This, as I have shown, is found in Chaucer as well as in 
 Charles. 
 
 In the "Se'jour d' Llonneur" his design is to paint the 
 dangers and seductions which surround a young man, and 
 the ease with which he falls into the nets of evil. It is 
 a dream. The poet finds himself with Seimialite who 
 persuades him to pleasure ; he makes some feeble re- 
 sistance, but yields at last and goes Avith her as guide. 
 She takes him pleasantly along a road which they quickly 
 pass over, and come to a place where two ways lead in 
 different directions. He asks where he is. "You have
 
 2 20 CHAPTER X. 
 
 travelled," says his guide, " over the road of Flenrie Jeunesse. 
 All men pass over this road, but so quickly that they do 
 not perceive it, till they have come to the end of it." 
 
 " C 'est appelle ce sentier 
 Chemiii de Fleurie jeunesse, 
 Flairaiit, souef, doulx et entier, 
 Ou espiiie ne esglantier 
 Les passans nullement ne blesse. 
 Icy est r entree et 1' addresse 
 Ou tous humains crees et fais 
 Vont et viennent comme tu fais. 
 L' entrer y est tant agreeable, 
 Mais le retour est impossible." 
 
 Further, there are not even any traces left of the foot- 
 steps of those who have gone before. He asks after the 
 damsels. 
 
 "Mais je n'en peus ouyr nouvelles ; 
 
 Si en y a passe cent mille, 
 
 Tant de champs comme de la ville : 
 
 Leur beaulte n' a pu resister 
 
 A la deffaicte de leur vie .... 
 ♦ * * * 
 
 Helas ! la voye est tendre et verte, 
 
 Mais il y a faulte dedans, 
 
 Car on la passe en bien peu d'ans." 
 
 But what are the two roads open to the traveller after 
 coming to the end of Fleurie Jeunesse? The one on the 
 right leads to Bonne Fin, that on the left to Dcdnid Mon- 
 dain. It is almost needless to say that the poet takes the 
 road on the left, still accompanied by his guide. They 
 arrive at the River and Port of Mundane Joy (Liesse). 
 Thither an immense crowd is hurrying and pressing, most
 
 DE SAINT GELAIS. 221 
 
 of wliom get drowTied. Boccaccio, says Saint Gelais, will 
 tell us all about these unlucky wretches. 
 
 As the day is declining Sensualite takes her traveller to 
 an inn kept by Feu d^ Avis, where they pass the night. 
 Next day they embark on a ship named Abus, and set sail 
 on the Mcr viondaine. There is singing on board and joyous 
 stories, but the poet takes little pleasure in it all, being 
 saddened by the sight of the many corpses floating about 
 in the waves. Some of these he recognizes, and makes the 
 theme of admirable reflections. Louis XI., Francis, Duke 
 of Brittany, Alexander, Duke of Albany, are there. Sensu- 
 alite interrupts his musings, and endeavours to prove to him 
 that the world, after all, does offer real pleasures. 
 
 Meantime they arrive at the Island of Vaifte Espera?ice, 
 which is ruled over by a lady who receives them courteously, 
 and proclaims her power and goodness. 
 
 "Je suis celle qui mes vassaulx conduys 
 A appeter et vouloir mille choses ; 
 Je leur bailie les moyens et conduys 
 Pour les faire susceptibles, et duys 
 Prendre et cueillir entre espines les roses : 
 Brief, je leur dy tant de textes et gloses 
 Qu' il n' est jeune ne vieillard decrepit 
 Qui n' attende d' avoir par moy respit. 
 * * * * 
 
 Je fays harnois et estendarts reluyre : 
 
 Je fays monter gens d' amies a clieval : 
 
 Je fays cliasteaulx et grosses tours constru3're, 
 
 Souventes fois aussi les fays deslrurye 
 
 Pour parvenir a honneur triumphal." 
 
 Vainc Esperance takes the poet into the orchard, and 
 makes him eat the fruit of the tree called Joyeuse atiente.
 
 22 2 CHAPTER X. 
 
 This has a most exhilaratuig effect. Sadness disappears ; 
 joy takes possession of his mind ; he feels himself capable 
 of anything. 
 
 "Je prens unc nouvelle mode, 
 Nouveau train, nouvelles fajons, 
 Marchant fin comme ung Roy Herode : 
 Plus ne veux Digeste ne Code ; 
 J' ay bien apprins autres lefons ..." 
 
 He is invited to join a dance, in which persons of all 
 ages, conditions, and qualities take part. There is King 
 Henry of England, who 
 
 "Mist le Royaulme de France en griefs," 
 
 but who was assailed by so rude a war that he died, he and 
 his soldiers. " I knew him by his three Leopards." There 
 is Duke John of Burgundy, who caused to be slain 
 
 " Le due Loys d' Orleans, tres prochain 
 Frere at amy du noble Roy de France." 
 
 There were, in short. Kings, Dukes, Popes, Cardinals, 
 "saulve I'honneur des Eccle'siastiques," Officers, Regents, 
 Marshals, Provosts, Bailiffs, Presidents, — all dancing to- 
 gether. The poet dances too, and so well that he gains 
 applause. He falls in with the tone of the place, and 
 becomes daily more and more given up to pleasure. One 
 day, falling asleep from fatigue, he is awakened by a noise 
 like thunder, which caused liim so much fright that for an 
 instant he wished he was a " cordelier, singing hymns and 
 verses." The thunder announced the visit of Grace Divine, 
 who came to assure him that Vaiiie Esperance was deceitful, 
 and that the only thing for him to do was to quit his
 
 DE SAINT GELATS. 2 2 
 
 J 
 
 careless way of life : she shewed him the beauty of virtue, 
 and the real and lasting pleasures she bestows on those who 
 join her party. After this, in spite of the remonstrances of 
 Vaine Esp'erance, he leaves the island, and, still accompanied 
 by Sensualit'e and Abiis, embarks on La Mer mondaine 
 perillcuse. 
 
 Again he is afflicted with the sight of dead bodies float- 
 ing in the water. He recognizes this time John, Duke of 
 Bourbon, Charles of Bourbon, Cardinal and Archbishop of 
 Lyon, Cardinal de Foix, and a great many others. Among 
 them, also, the body of his own father. 
 
 "Entre ses bras ung grand tableau tenoit, 
 Dont assez plus m' esbahis qu' oncques mais : 
 L' epitaphc mot a mot contenoit 
 Tous tels escripts qui pas ne furent laids : 
 Cy gist Pierre nomme de Sainct Gelais, 
 En son vivant Chevalier tres honneste, 
 Qui s'est trouve en maint noble conqueste 
 Servant les Roys : Seigneur fut de Montlieu : 
 Son ame soit posee devant Dieu." 
 
 His grief was so great that he was nearly throwing him- 
 self overboard into the sea \ only the voice of his conscience 
 prevented him from committing suicide. 
 
 On coming to land he gets rid of Alms, but Sensiialite 
 remains with him. They have to get to the Val du monde 
 by the Forest d' Advenhires, where they see many curious 
 and fearful things. There is a river of tears, innumerable 
 footsteps of men and women, an inconceivable multitude of 
 ruined habitations, a deep twilight obscurity. It is explained 
 that the forest preserves the traces of all that time has 
 destroyed. Here is a magnificent opportunity for the poet
 
 2 24 CHAPTER X. 
 
 to plunge into history — for us, too, to skip a great piece. At 
 last they get to the end of the Forest. Sensualite, a good 
 deal improved, one would hope, by the sermons she has 
 heard, points out tlie Chateau (T Honneur ; Bon Vmdoir 
 presents him to Charles the Eighth; Raisoii delivers him 
 from Senstialite, and takes him off, penitent, to the hermit 
 Entendement. He prostrates himself, and says : 
 
 " Pere doulx et piteux, 
 * * * # 
 
 Quoique I'heure soit moult tarde 
 
 Je me soubmets a vostre garde, 
 
 Protestant de vivre et mourir 
 
 En vraye foy, sans plus courir 
 
 Apres peche, comme souloye 
 
 Du temps que jeune au monde estoye." 
 
 The Hermit gives him an examination on points of 
 sound faith, confers absolution on him, and takes him to 
 the Chapel to render thanks to God. 
 
 Besides the versification of this poem, which is remark- 
 ably easy and natural, there are some good points in the 
 allegory. The idea of the road of Fleurie Jeunesse, which 
 we do not know till we have passed it, and that of the 
 island of Vaine Esp'erance, where the countless crowds of 
 men, intoxicated with fond imaginations, dance in a cease- 
 less round, and fill themselves with pleasures which never 
 satisfy, are highly poetical. The reader will remark, too, 
 how, through all his sadness, moral reflections, and re- 
 pentance, the adviser who sticks to him the longest, is the 
 most difficult to shake off, and leaves him the last, is 
 Senstialite.
 
 DE SAINT GEL A IS. 225 
 
 One word of apology for all our allegorists. Their 
 elaborate pictures and personifications weary us now. Ver}' 
 few of us have read Spenser through, still fewer have read 
 Chaucer's Imitation of tlie Roman de la Rose. We must, 
 however, remember that the allegory to the readers of that 
 day afforded the same sort of mental pabulum that the 
 novel does to ourselves. Romances were not wanting, and, 
 indeed, towards the end of the fifteenth century, were greatly 
 multiplied. But about this time the taste for allegory was 
 giving way to that of romances. And just as we care little 
 about the plot of a novel, provided the writing is good — 
 there is very little plot about any of Dickens's books — not 
 much in Thackeray's — rather a clumsy one in George Eliot's 
 best — so I imagine the good readers of allegory were not 
 so careful of the story, as of the reflections introduced and 
 the allusions to passing events. Thus Octavien mentions 
 seeing the bodies of Louis XL, of Cardinal de Bourbon, 
 and other great men, who died about that time. If we 
 take all the allegories and write their stories they are silly 
 enough ; but nothing could be sillier than a great many of 
 the stories of our very best novels. And what Sir Walter 
 Scott Avas to his generation, Octavien de Saint Gelais, in 
 a less degree, was to his. The popularity of the raconteur 
 will never die, but the style of the conte varies. What was 
 allegory in the fifteenth century, and romance in the six- 
 teenth, is novel in the nineteenth. 
 
 His smaller pieces are contained in the Chasse (T Amour; 
 they form the usual collection of rondeaux and ballads. 
 Some of them shew a spirit of what may be called inde- 
 pendence in love, rare to meet with in those times when 
 
 Q
 
 2 26 CHAPTER X. 
 
 love excluded laughter, when the expectant lover was 
 obliged to be ready with sighs of portentous magnitude, 
 and the successful lover could do little better than shed 
 tears of happiness. But this is what Octavien says : 
 
 "Je servirai selon qii'on me paira, 
 Et me mettrai du tout a mon devoir : 
 Mais si ma dame refuse de me voir, 
 Incontinent la premiere m' aura : 
 Et puis en parle, qui parler en saura. 
 Selon le bien que je pourrai avoir, 
 Je servirai." 
 
 In the words of the English poet, 
 
 "If she be not fair for me. 
 What caVe I how fair she be?" 
 
 Here, too, are four lines of exceptional style : 
 
 "Bonnes gens, j'ay perdu ma dame : 
 Qui la trouvera, sur mon ame, 
 Combien qu' elle soit belle et bonne, 
 De tres bon occur je la luy donne ;" 
 
 which may be quite literally translated : 
 
 "Good folk, good folk, I've lost my wife — 
 Whoever will find her, upon my life. 
 Fair though she be of face and limb. 
 With all my heart I give her to him." 
 
 Here is another of sentiment equally opposed to the 
 puling spirit of most of his contemporary poets. " Mon- 
 sieur," he says, " vaut bien Madame" : 
 
 "On m' a donne le bruit et renommee 
 D' avoir este grandement amoureux, 
 Le temps passe, d' nne qu' on m' a nommee. 
 On n' en scait rien : ils jugent tout par eux :
 
 DE SAINT GELAIS. 227 
 
 Qu' ils seachcnt done que point no suis de eeux 
 
 Les(|uels, aimant, ne sont aimes de dame : 
 
 S' el ne me veut, aussi je ne la veux : 
 
 Ce m'est tout un : monsieur vaut bien madame." 
 
 It is quite refreshing to get this bit of steady unaffected 
 sense after all the affectation we have waded through. 
 Poor Charles of Orleans would have been horrified indeed 
 had he read this atrocious ballad. But he was dead and 
 gone \ and Octavien, apparently, had got hold of his manu- 
 scripts and was ' cribbing' from them. 
 
 Here is another specimen of his repentance. Observe 
 in what a gentlemanly way he pulls out his cambric hand- 
 kerchief and wipes his eyes. The tone of Villon, after all, 
 has got a sort of hangdog convict snuffle about it ; while this 
 is genuine well-bred grief, and there is no relapse back into 
 the slough as with poor Frangois, who weeps his sins one 
 moment, and considers the ways o( X\\q fc/nviekttes the next. 
 Still one can hardly help the feeling that this holy man did 
 not turn from his evil ways till they, so to speak, turned 
 from him. When he would no longer practise them he 
 perceived their wickedness ; he has, however, the credit of 
 not only parting with them, but of practising better things. 
 The repentant rake, one generally suspects, would fall to 
 his bad courses again if his infirmities allowed him ; and 
 behind the lamentation of a sinner there may sometimes 
 lurk a vision of sin, pleasant to think upon and fair to view. 
 But hear Monseigneur of Augouleme : 
 
 "Ores connois mon temps premier perdu: 
 De retoumer jamais ne m' est possible. 
 De jeune, vieux ; de beau, laid suis venu. 
 En jeunes ans, rien n' etoit impossible
 
 2 28 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A moi jadis, helas ! ce me sembloit. 
 C etoit abus qui caultement embloit 
 Ce peu qu' avois alors de connoissance, 
 Quand je vivois en mondaine plaisance. 
 
 Des dames lors etois bien recueilli, 
 Entretenant mes douces amourettes. 
 Amour m' avoit son servant accueilli 
 Portant bouquets de boutons et fleurettes : 
 Mais maintenant, puisque porte lunettes, 
 De Cupido ne m' accointerai plus : 
 De sa maison suis chasse et forclus." 
 
 There is nothing here more vulgar than the common lot 
 of humanity. He who was young is now old. It is the 
 old burden. 
 
 " Love will not clip him, 
 
 Maids will not lip him, 
 Maud and Marion pass him by. 
 
 Youth it is sunny : 
 
 Age has no honey : — 
 What can an old man do but die?" 
 
 The song-writer takes the lighter joys and sorrows of 
 hfe for his theme in all ages. As Hood sang for us, so 
 St. Gelais and Charles of Orleans sang for the 15th cen- 
 tury ; if not as gracefully and as easily, at least as pleasantly 
 to their ears. Those who wish anything deeper than song- 
 writing must look for it farther. My authors are song- 
 writers. In different words they all sing to the same tune. 
 The briglit spring-tide ; the song of the birds ; the leaves 
 of the trees ; the flowers by the wayside ; the bright eyes 
 of their mistress ; the one great pleasure of life. Love ; its 
 one great duty, courage ; its one great evil, age ; these are
 
 DE SAINT GELAIS. 229 
 
 their inspirations and their themes. What Octavien de 
 St. Gelais ^\Tote after his repentance I have no means of 
 ascertaining ; perhaps hymns, which have not been pre- 
 served ; but I can find nothing of his which at all 
 leads me to think that his views of pleasure altered as his 
 powers of gaining pleasure contracted. Certainly, his 
 philosophy may all be expressed, like that of his contem- 
 poraries, by the little ballad of Hood's, of which I have 
 already quoted one verse : 
 
 "Spring it is cheery: 
 
 Winter is dreary : 
 Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly : 
 
 When he's forsaken, 
 
 Williered and shaken, 
 What can an old man do but die?" 
 
 Where the middle ages surpass us, is in strength. As 
 we can no longer brace on their armour and ride their 
 jousts, so we no longer seem able to throw ourselves with 
 their thoroughness into whatever we try. Failure with them 
 meant generally ruin, helpless and hopeless ; the disgraced 
 politician lost his head ; the wounded soldier died on the 
 field ; the defeated controversialist was roasted at the stake ; 
 and there was no medicine to restore health to the broken- 
 down man of pleasure. Therefore Saint Gelais, an old 
 man at twenty-three, was dead at thirty-six; but, having 
 the strength of the age, with the same earnestness as he 
 had been a sinner, he became a saint ; and, as Bishop of 
 Angouleme, displayed all those christian virtues which, as 
 young deacon and priest, he had openly neglected and 
 dragged in the dust.
 
 230 CHAPTER X. 
 
 There were other members of the family who dis- 
 thiguished themselves. Indeed, the genealogy of the family 
 is rather curious. Pierre, Marquis de Montlieu, etc., had 
 six or seven sons. Of these, Jean was the author of the 
 Chronicle of France ; Jacques became Dean of Angouleme 
 and Bishop of Uzes ; Octavien, Bishop of Angouleme, and 
 poet ; Charles, Archdeacon of Lugon and translator of 
 Judas Maccabseus. Then we find mention of four nephews, 
 no one knows whose sons. Of these two were deans of 
 Angouleme, one getting burned unfortunately for heretically 
 becoming a protestant ; one was Bishop of Uzes ; he also 
 became a Protestant, and, as all the family loved to do, 
 ' went in' for the whole thing thoroughly, and married a 
 nun. I do not think they caught him, or else one fears 
 that he, too, would have been burned at the stake. The 
 fourth nephew, Mellin, who was generally believed to be 
 the son of Octavien, became the imitator of the Bishop 
 in his gaiety and his poetry, but not in his repentance ; 
 at least, so far as has been learned. Mellin was a better 
 poet than Octavien, but he wrote thirty years later, a con- 
 siderable time in that age of rapid development. As 
 Octavien was the rival and contemporary of Jean Marot, 
 so Mellin was the rival of Cle'ment. Indeed, he is the 
 only poet who can be mentioned with him. Mellin suc- 
 ceeded in short and light pieces, epigrams, triolets, and 
 folies. He introduced the sonnet and the ottava rima into 
 France. It is almost unnecessary to say that Mellin's 
 profession — he was abbot of Reclus, and chaplain to 
 Henry II., as dauphin and king — imposed no restraints 
 on his life or his writings. When, in later years, that
 
 DE SAINT GEL A IS. 231 
 
 curious movement for the purification of French set in, 
 he decHned to join it, preferring to write Latin rather than 
 Latinized French. A complete account of his works and 
 life would lead us beyond our limits, as in no sense can 
 he be regarded as a predecessor of Clement Marot. It 
 is sufficient to say that he was regarded as one of the fore- 
 most men of his time; that he is described as a Poet, 
 a Mathematician, an Orator, a Theologian, a Lawyer, a 
 Physician, an Astrologer; that his satirical powers were 
 so great that "la tenaille de Mellin" became a sort of 
 proverb. Ronsard says, 
 
 "Fais que devant mon Prince 
 Desormais plus ne me pince 
 La tenaielle de Mellin." 
 
 He lived in favour at the court, an early specimen of the 
 witty, worldly French Abbtf, enjoying life, like his father, 
 in the island of Vaine Esperance. It does not appear that 
 Raison ever succeeded in bringing him to Eiitendeumit. 
 His death was epigrammatic, for, as the doctors were 
 squabbling about his case over his bed, he politely re- 
 marked, "Messieurs, je vais vous tirer de peine," and 
 straightway died. 
 
 A few specimens of his verses may be given to show the 
 manner of the man. They are all of that light easy kind 
 which ensures a certain immediate popularity. The follow- 
 ing is a very well known story, taken from the Italian : 
 
 " Notre vicaire, un jour de feste, 
 Chantoit un Agnus gringotte, 
 Tant qu' il pouvait a pleine teste, 
 Peasant d' Annette estre ecoute.
 
 232 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Annette, de 1' autre cost^, 
 
 Pleuroit, attentive a son chant : 
 
 Dont le vicaire, en s' approchant, 
 
 Lui dit ; " Pourquoi pleurez vous, belle?" 
 
 "Ah! messire Jean," ce dit elle, 
 "Je pi cure un asne qui est mort, 
 
 Qui avoit la voix toute telle 
 
 Que vous, quand vous criez si fort." 
 
 Mellin was only a writer of vers de soeiete, but the writer 
 of the following verses was by no means a contemptible 
 poet. 
 
 D'UN BRACELET DE CHEVEUX. 
 
 " Cheveux, seul remede et confort 
 De mon mal violent et fort : 
 Cheveux longs, beaux et delies, 
 Qui mon coeur tant plus fort liez. 
 Que plus il veut tendre et tascher 
 A se distraire et detacher : 
 Cheveux qui futes converture 
 Du grand chef d' ceuvre de nature, 
 Ou le ciel, qui tout clost et voit, 
 A montre combien il pouvoit 
 Assembler en petit espace, 
 De beaute et de bonne grace. 
 Cheveux qui S9utes estranger 
 Moi de moi meme, et me changer 
 Tellement, que je vous accuse 
 De r effet de ceux de Meduse, 
 M'ayant rendu un corps sans ame. 
 On plutost une vive flamme. 
 Ah ! cheveux n' ayez nul regret 
 De vous voir en lieu si secret, 
 Loin de vos compagnons dores, 
 Qui du monde sont adores : 
 Celle qui en pcut ordonner, 
 A moi vous a voulu donner
 
 DE SAINT GELAFS. 233 
 
 Pour appui de m.i foible vie, 
 Dont voiis n'auriez deuil ni emne, 
 Si vous S9aviez, O blonds cheveux ! 
 Quel est le bien que je vous veux. 
 
 Le moindre de vous m'est plus cher 
 
 Qu' autre amie entiere toucher, 
 
 Ni que les tresors assembles 
 
 Du fin or a quoi ressemblez. 
 
 Et toutefois, pour etre miens, 
 
 N' ayez peur de n' estre point siens : 
 
 EUe ne connoist rien a soi 
 
 Plus sien que ce qui est a moi." 
 
 The Story of the Charlatan who undertook to shew the 
 devil to the people is well-known. When the crowd is 
 assembled, he produces a purse ; 
 
 " Une bourse large et profonde, 
 II leur desploye et Icur dit — 'Gens de bien, 
 Ouvrez vos yeux : voyez, y a-t-il rien?' 
 'Non,' dit quelqu'un des plus pres regardans. 
 'Et c'est,' dit il, 'le Diable, oyez vous bien 
 Ouvrir sa bourse et ne voir rien dedans.'" 
 
 The following Quatrain is one which he wrote in the 
 Psalm-book of Mademoiselle d' Autheville : 
 
 " Plus divine ocuvre en plus petit espace 
 Trouver enclose il seroit difficile : 
 Encores plus voir tant de bonne grace 
 Et de beaute ailleurs, qu' en Autheville. " 
 
 These four lines might have been written by Sedley or 
 Rochester, and quoted by Charles : 
 
 "Ne tardez plus 4 consentir, 
 Ni ^ tel ami satisfaire. 
 Vaut niieux faire et se repentir 
 Que se repentir et rien faire."
 
 234 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In Mellin de Saint Gelais and Clement Marot we see 
 the conquest, at last, of language. Here, with as much 
 ease as has ever been attained in French, thought finds 
 expression ; no longer tied, as in the days of Charles of 
 Orleans, to a cold and frigid style ; nor, as in the taste 
 of Mohnet, diluted by a flood of words and bound by 
 fetters of useless rules. The clouds that hung over the 
 East have cleared away, and the sun has risen. The poets 
 that come after Clement and Mellin are moderns, with new 
 thought and new tastes. But while Clement is the last of 
 the old school, Mellin de Saint Gelais is the first of the 
 new. It is greatly to be wished that a new edition of his 
 works were given to the world. The last edition was in 
 17 19 — unless one has been printed lately, which I have 
 not been able to discover. If, further, the edition was 
 accompanied by one of those careful and exhaustive etudes 
 that only French editors seem able to produce, we should 
 have a most valuable addition to the story of French 
 poetical literature, 
 
 "Mellin, nostre plus grande gloire, 
 Mellin, nostre commun bonheur 
 Est en bas sua la rive noyre. 
 De dire plus oultre son nom, 
 Et son sfavoir et son merite, 
 Et ses vertus et son renom, 
 Ce seroit chose trop redicte," 
 
 says a contemporary, lamenting his death. Poets, as 
 Addison insinuates of women, are greatly given to praising 
 their rivals when they are dead.
 
 DE SAINT GELAIS. 235 
 
 I cannot resist quoting a little Latin couplet, given by 
 Thevet in his quaint old " Vies des Hommes illustres." 
 Mellin being sick has to take asses' milk, whereat he says : 
 
 " Trojam evertit eqims — Persas genus auxit equonim — 
 Nolo ego equos — fatis sat sit Asella meis."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET. 
 
 No account of the early French poets would be complete 
 without some mention of the two who did so much for the 
 cause of letters. This branch of the Valois family, what- 
 ever their faults, has the merit of being the first intelligent 
 promoters of letters. Intelligent because they were them- 
 selves poets and authors, and in one case at least the best 
 of the time. Their literary proclivities are traced to Valen- 
 tine the accomplished mother of Charles Duke of Orleans. 
 Francis and Margaret, children of Charles Count of Angou- 
 leme, grandchildren of Jean Count of Angouleme, had 
 Charles for their great uncle. There are few families who 
 can boast of so many authors in a hundred years as this of 
 Valois. Charles of Orleans, Francis I., Margaret of Valois, 
 Henry II., Charles IX., Renee of France, like Margaret, 
 an esprit fort ; Henry IV., Margaret's grandson ; Margaret 
 of France, daughter of Francis ; Margaret of France, 
 daughter of Henry II., and first wife of Henry IV; and, 
 if we may reckon her among the number, Mary Queen of 
 Scots. None of them poets of the first rank, but all of
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET. 237 
 
 them writers of verse or prose of that kind which can only 
 spring from culture and taste. 
 
 The lives of Francis and Margaret belong to the History 
 of France. We have only to do with their literary fame. 
 
 Margaret, the first and best of the three Margarets, was 
 two years older than her brother Francis, to whom she was 
 passionately attached, and for whose sake she sacrificed her 
 own happiness and gave up her time and labour. Forced 
 into a political marriage with the Duke of Alen9on at an 
 early age, she voluntarily, on his death, married a man 
 whom she disliked, and who illtreated her, the King of 
 Navarre, for the promotion of her brother's objects. Francis, 
 a man of many faults, knew at least how to recompense 
 this devotion by his own love. He, who never deserted 
 a friend, who loved his mother to the extent of committing 
 an injustice for her sake which brought disaster upon 
 France, was not likely to receive coldly a life-long sacrifice 
 from a sister. He suffered himself to be guided by her 
 counsels ; he never did anything, so long as she was in 
 Paris, without consulting her: through her he was nearly 
 joining the Reformed party, — perhaps would have done so, 
 had it not been for the battle of Pavia; and, in the very 
 height of the popular frenzy against the Lutherans, sent to 
 prison Beda, syndic of the Theological faculty, for reflecting 
 on Margaret's orthodoxy, and kept him there till he died. 
 
 " She was," says a contemporary, " not only the wisest 
 of all the women in France, but of all the men. In all 
 affairs of state there was no counsel so sure as hers to listen 
 to. In the doctrine of Christianity she was so well versed 
 that few people knew better how to treat of it."
 
 238 CHAPTER XL 
 
 She was a politician, a theologian, a scholar, a poet, 
 a novelist. As a politician, she advised, received am- 
 bassadors, and during her brother's captivity went herself 
 to Madrid, to treat with Charles. As a theologian she 
 doubtless held views little short of Lutheranism. This 
 point, however, she never reached, ever standing on the 
 bounds of Catholicism, like Erasmus, but never wiUing to 
 take the fatal step. It must be owned that there was little 
 to gain by openly siding with men as violent as their 
 adversaries, and neither so powerful nor so polite. So 
 long as there was any reasonable chance of reform in the 
 Church, suppression of abuses, and the spread of education 
 among the clergy, schism would have been most impolitic 
 for Margaret or for Francis. It must not be forgotten that 
 there were two sets of Reformers ; those who held Catholic 
 views, but objected to present abuses, and those who held 
 the riglit of private judgment, but with strange inconsistency 
 limited that right to themselves and their followers. Eras- 
 mus represents the first set, Calvin the second. For Pro- 
 testants to claim Erasmus as one of themselves is simply 
 absurd. That Erasmus helped the Reformation, and, in 
 spite of himself, hastened a catastrophe that some wise men 
 have regarded as one of the great calamities of the human 
 race, is of course true. 
 
 In the little court of Margaret was plenty of free thought 
 on all topics. To her seems to belong the great merit 
 of being able to regard thought and art independently of 
 their connexion with dogma. To be unsound, in those 
 times, meant generally more than loss of literary fame : it 
 meant personal danger of the worst kind. Dilettante
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET 239 
 
 esprits forts like Clement Marot might well tremble at the 
 horrors of the stake, and though it was not an age when 
 men shrank from pain, the stoutest heart might quail at 
 sight of the unfortunate heretic suspended by thick ropes 
 over a burning pile; dipped and lifted alternately till the 
 cords were burned through and his roasted body dropped 
 living into the fire. 
 
 The dread of heresy hung over France in those evil 
 years like a thick black cloud. No writer was safe, no 
 scholar, no statesman ; where men met to talk, suspicion 
 lurked in corners to catch at something doubtful. There 
 was no safe subject but love and fair women ; no security 
 but in abject submission to the Church. Therefore Francis 
 could only protect Clement Marot in exile ; therefore he 
 was compelled to declare, after assisting at the edifying 
 spectacle of the heretic's punishment described above, 
 that if his own son were tainted \nth heretical leanings 
 he would discard him. It was lucky at least for Margaret 
 that she was not in Paris, but safe in the country at her 
 little court of Beam. Even here she could not indulge 
 freely in her speculations, and on one occasion the king, 
 her husband, hearing that a lecture was going on in the 
 Queen's chamber, burst in — too late to aiTest the lecturer. 
 In a fit of fury he struck the Queen on the face, exclaiming : 
 " Madame ! vous en voulez trop s^avoir." Margaret com- 
 plained to Francis of her husband's ill-treatment, and 
 Francis expostulated with him in strong terms. 
 
 In person, Margaret strongly resembled Francis. Like 
 him, " le roi au grand nez," she had a long thin nose ; thin, 
 fine lips, and very sweet eyes. Her beauty, of which so
 
 240 CHAPTER XL 
 
 much has been said, seems to have consisted chiefly in her 
 expression ; but, whether in right of her position or of her 
 beauty, she was never without worshippers. She stands 
 out, in that age of freedom of morals and hcentiousness, as 
 a beautiful example of the best virtues of womanhood, tender- 
 ness, and self-sacrifice. Ugly rumours have been set on 
 foot about her, with which we have nothing to do. Suf- 
 ficient to say that there is not a particle of evidence to 
 substantiate them ; that the orthodox were all her enemies ; 
 and that the whole tenour of her life contradicts them. 
 
 Her poetry was collected after her death by her valet 
 Jean de la Haye, under the title of " Les Marguerites de la 
 Marguerite des princesses, tres illustre Royen de Navarre." 
 Her other works are four Mysteries ; two farces ; Le Miroir 
 di P Ame p'echeresse, which was translated by our Lady 
 Elizabeth and printed in 1548; Epistles; two or three 
 smaller pieces, and the Heptameron, a collection of tales 
 after the style of Boccaccio. 
 
 Here is her answer to an epigram by Marot, in which 
 the poet complains of his creditors. He wishes that all 
 could be paid like He'lene de Tournon, to whom he owed 
 a ' dixain.' 
 
 "Si ceulx a qui debvez, comme vous dictes, 
 Vous congnoissent comme je vous congnois, 
 Quitte seriez des debtes que vous fistes 
 Le temps passe tant grandes que petites, 
 En leur paiant ung dixain toute fois 
 Tel que le vostre qui vault mieulx mille fois 
 Que r argent deu par vous, en conscience ; 
 Car estimer on peult 1' argent en poix, 
 Mais on ne peult, et j'en donne ma voix, 
 Assez priser vostre belle science."
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET. 241 
 
 I do not claim for Margaret a high place among poets. 
 Refinement of style and taste are her highest qualities. 
 The following lines on the illness of her brother are in 
 the best possible taste : 
 
 "Je regarde de tout coste, 
 Pour voir s' il n' arrive personne : 
 Priant la celeste bonte 
 Que la sante a mon roi donne : 
 Quand mil ne vois, Tcuil j'abandonne 
 A pleurer, puis sur le papier 
 Un peu de ma douleur j' ordonne ; 
 Voila mon douloureux metier. 
 
 O qu' il sera le bien venu, 
 
 Celui qui, frappant a ma porte, 
 
 Dira — "Le roi est reveiiu 
 
 En sa sante tres bonne et forte." 
 
 Alors sa soeur, plus mal que morte, 
 
 Couira baiser le messager 
 
 Qui telles nouvelles apporte, 
 
 Que son frere est hors de danger." 
 
 Brantome, in his curious memoirs, gives some particulars 
 about her. He says that she was a princess ' de tr^s grand 
 esprit, et fort habille ;' that she was always learning ; that 
 her heart was wholly given to God; that, therefore, her 
 device was the marigold, a flower which always turns to the 
 sun ; that though she was suspected of Lutheran tendencies, 
 she never made any profession of Lutheranism, out of the 
 great respect and affection which she had for the king, who 
 hated it ; therein, he says, resembling the great sultan, Soly- 
 man, who regarded the sectarians of Christendom as so many 
 disturbers of the public peace. At the same time Francis 
 assisted the Protestant princes of Germany against the 
 
 K
 
 242 CHAPTER XL 
 
 emperor. "Thus," says Brantome, "ces grands roys se 
 gouvernent comme il leur plaist." The Constable de 
 Montmorency once ventured to tell the king that if he 
 was going to extirpate heretics, he had better begin with 
 the queen his sister. " Ne parlons point de celle la," said 
 the king ; " elle m' ayme trop. She will never believe any- 
 thing but what I believe, nor take up any religion which 
 would prejudice my state." As might be expected, the 
 constable made little by his interference, as the story goes - 
 on to relate. 
 
 When Francis was in captivity in Spain, and ill, she went 
 there, and knowing more about medicine than any of the 
 doctors, she cured him. When he was ill again, she declared 
 that not only would she kiss the man who brought news of 
 his recovery, as her little poem quoted above says, but that 
 she would receive him and entertain him so well that if 
 there were no bed for him, he should have hers, and she 
 would sleep on the hard floor. And the news of his death 
 so greatly afflicted her that she never recovered from it. 
 All the love she had in her nature she bestowed on her 
 brother. 
 
 " Bref, c' estoit une princesse digne d' un grand empire. 
 Outre tout cela, elle estoit tres bonne, douce, gracieuse, 
 charitable, grande, ausmoniere, et ne desdaignant personne." 
 She was greatly afraid of dying, and when comforted by 
 the prospect of heaven, would say, "All that is true, but 
 we lie such a long time dead under the ground before we 
 get there." She was bom under what Brantome considers 
 a fortunate star, namely, under the tenth degree of Aquarius, 
 when Saturn was separating from Venus by the fourth aspect.
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET. 243 
 
 Her brother Francis came into the world under the twenty- 
 first degree of Gemini. Brantome does not say which was 
 the more fortunate. 
 
 She caught her death by looking at a comet "which 
 appeared on the death of the Pope Paul III., though," says 
 Brantome, " perhaps it appeared for herself" Her phy- 
 sician saw her mouth twitch across, and instantly ordered 
 her to bed. Unluckily she went there, was treated by him, 
 and died in eight days. 
 
 Of Francis, Brantome is equally garrulous. And first 
 he says that he is surprised to have seen, in a book other- 
 wise good, a character of Francis which says that he had 
 great virtues and great vices also. " It astonished me much 
 when I heard talk of great vices, as I had never heard 
 from the great seigneurs and ladies of that time that he was 
 so tainted." Thereupon he enumerates all his virtues, 
 carefully excluding chastity. 
 
 The model upon which Francis tried to form himself 
 was the ideal knight of the romances. To reverence ladies, 
 to keep faith, to win battles, to be a gallant warrior and 
 a successful lover, this was his aim and object through life, 
 though, like most of us, he fell at times far short of his 
 ideal. He was fond of pleasure, but fonder of honour. 
 He never deserted a friend, or betrayed an enemy who 
 trusted in him ; he was cruel to Lutherans, because he saw 
 in them the most dangerous foe to the chivalrous spirit, failure 
 in obedience to authority. He himself obeyed the Pope as 
 he would have his subjects obey himself He submitted to 
 the rules of chivalry, and was knighted by Bayard on the 
 field of Marignan. He loved letters and arts, and recognized
 
 244 CHAPTER XL 
 
 the advantages of education ; he founded the College Royal, 
 to which he invited Erasmus. He was the most good- 
 natured of men, witness his treatment of Marot, and his 
 reception of the sharp sarcasm of the Duchess of Uzes after 
 the execution of M. de Saint Blangay. The king addressed 
 her as " Ma fiUe," upon which she burst into tears, and 
 pretended the greatest terror and sorrow, to everybody's 
 astonishment. " Helas," she said, "le Roy me vient 
 d' appeller a ceste heure par trois ou quatre fois sa fille. 
 J' ay grand peur qu' il ne m'en fasse faire autant qu' a 
 M. de Saint Blan^ay^ qu' il appelloit tant soji pere. Que 
 puis qu' il r appelloit son pere, et moy sa fiUe, c' est une 
 mesme chose : de mesme m' en fera il autant." Upon 
 which the king se mit a r'we. In his youth, again, he had 
 three great favourites, Montmorency, Brion-Chabet, and 
 Montchenu. He asked them once what he should do for 
 them when he became king. Montmorency said he should 
 like to be Constable, Brionchabet would be Admiral of 
 France, Montchenu chief Maitre d' Hotel to the king. 
 Years afterwards, when he was actually king, every one of 
 them obtained what he had asked as a boy. 
 
 By writing verses, in which Cle'ment Marot was his 
 master, it must be owned that Francis did little to advance 
 literature. His poetry never rises above mediocrity, and is 
 not so good as his sister's. But he did what only kings can 
 do ; he founded chairs for professors, instituted the Royal 
 College, established a Royal press, got round him the best 
 men then in France, ^.nd, better than all, ordered that all 
 
 ^ M. de Blan9ay had just then been executed.
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET. 245 
 
 legal acts and documents should be henceforth written and 
 published in French. 
 
 Here are one or two specimens of his verse. It will be 
 seen that in style and language he closely imitates Marot. 
 
 "Coeur a mouvoir plus fort et echaufTer 
 Qu' un dur rocher et qu' une froide glace, 
 De quoi te sert de mon mal triompher, 
 Et t' orgueillir de beaute qui tout passe : 
 Par vrai amour ton amour je pourcliasse : 
 De quoi ne m' as tant soit peu satisfait : 
 Grace attendue est une ingrate grace : 
 Et bien n'est bien, s'il n' est promptement fait." 
 
 EPITAPH ON LAURA. 
 
 "Cy gist en peu de terre ung qui la remplissoit 
 Par louange ct bon bruict dont tout autre il passoit : 
 Ainsi elle se paist du meilleur qu' en elle eut, 
 Comprenant tout son bien dedans ce petit fust.' 
 
 O bien heureuse terre estant en toy seme 
 
 Un fruict apres lequel nul autre est eslime ! 
 
 Doncques en toy est mis pour ta felicite 
 
 Ce qui a chacun rend deuil et adversite. 
 
 Parquoy vous qui cherchez chose parfaicte k veoir, 
 
 Arrestez-cy vos pas sans plus de peine avoir." 
 
 It is right to add that the best pieces found among the 
 poems of Francis are attributed to MelHn de Saint Gelais 
 or to Clement Marot. This may be so, but the great honour 
 remains to Francis of having been the first king of France 
 who encouraged and protected learning in an intelligent 
 spirit. The evils of his reign are not wholly attributable 
 to him ; only, with his political errors and licentious life we 
 have nothing here to do. He died in 1547 ; Margaret in 
 
 * fust (Lat. fastis) wood, palisade.
 
 246 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1549, surviving her brother only two years. After his death 
 
 she says — 
 
 "Je n' ay plus ny pere, ny mere, 
 Ny soeur, ny frure, 
 Sinon Dieu seul, an quel j' espere, 
 Qui sus le Ciel et terre impere 
 La hault, la bas, 
 Tout par compas .... 
 Je suis amoureux, non en Ville 
 Ny en Maison, ny en Chasteau ; 
 Ce n' est ny de femme, ni de fille 
 Mais du seul bon, puissant et beau : 
 Cast mon Sauveur, 
 Qui est vainqueur 
 Du peche, mal, peine et douleur, 
 Et a ravi a soy mon cosur." 
 
 It is difficult to understand how a woman who could 
 write these lines could be engaged at the same time in 
 writing the Heptameron. It was, however, a time of con- 
 tradictions. We must remember that Francis was burning 
 the Lutherans for the glory of God, while he was leading, 
 apparendy unrebuked by the Church, a life of unrestrained 
 licence ; that orthodoxy and piety of expression were of 
 such great value that morality and decency were lost sight 
 of; that even the great Theodore Beza himself wrote verses 
 worse than any in Martial ; and that, though the ripeness of 
 French corruption had not yet arrived, there were sure signs 
 that it was advancing, and the Italian woman was already 
 in Paris, married to the Dauphin, patiently abiding her 
 time, till the reign of Diane de Poictiers should come to 
 an end, and she alone be mistress and ruler of France. 
 Morally speaking, the times were out of joint. If we find
 
 FRANCIS AND MARGARET. 247 
 
 Margaret in advance of the time, leading a life of purity 
 and self-denial in a period of unrestrained licence, she needs 
 little apology for a book which, although as coarse as well 
 may be in parts, was chiefly coarse to serve her own 
 purposes, and help the downfall of the monks. 
 
 Note. — A full account of the court of Margaret would lead me too 
 far from my present purpose. It belongs particularly to the history of 
 that curiously interesting religious spirit which seems to have run through 
 France from the days of Guillaume de Lorris to those of Voltaire. Its 
 chief literary manifestations at this time were the works of Rabelais, the 
 tales of Margaret, and the Cymbalum Mundi of Bonaventure Des 
 Periers, the most remarkable book, in many respects, of the time, 
 Bonaventure was also a poet in a very small way. He committed 
 suicide when Margaret was unable or unwilling to help him any longer. 
 His work, an imitation of Lucian's Dialogues, is worthy of most careful 
 study, and gives a most curious insight into the thought of the age.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 
 
 " Par siis tout suis congiieu des neuf Muses, 
 Et d' Apollo, Mercure et touts leurs filz, 
 En vraye amour et science confictz." 
 
 There was living in the fifteenth century, in the vijlage 
 of Matthieu, distant some five or six miles from the town 
 of Caen, in Normandy, a family of peasants or small pro- 
 prietors, known by the name of Marot, Mares, or Des 
 Marets. They may possibly be living there still for aught 
 I know, but they have ceased to distinguish themselves. 
 One of their number, Jehan, is found in 147 1 at the town 
 of Cahors. Why he went there, and why he stayed there, 
 is not certain. It has been suggested that his first visit 
 was caused by the celebrity of the University of Cahors, 
 which at that time boasted some four thousand scholars. 
 Thither, it is supposed, he repaired for the sake of study. 
 If that were the case, the worthy Jehan did little good at 
 his books, for in after-life he constantly complains of his 
 want of learning. According to the wont of students, he fell
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 249 
 
 in love with a young lady of the place. Unlike our modem 
 undergraduates, however, he married her ; and in obedience 
 to the law of the town, as a stranger, adopted her name, 
 and was known in Cahors as Jehan Marot-Rosibres. In 
 1480 she was dead, lier children were under the tutelage 
 of some guardian, and he was away — no one at the present 
 time knows where ; nor does it matter. Probably he was 
 engaged in some clerical work. However, in 1494 he 
 returned, jnarried again, and apparently stayed at Cahors 
 for some ten years ; in what capacity, is unknown. 
 
 His son Cle'ment was born about 1497. The place was 
 fit for the birthplace and younger days of a poet. " The 
 traveller," says his latest editor, " rencontre d' abord un 
 large plateau dont la surface dentelee semble s' etre crevee 
 au milieu d' un bouilloument immense pour livrer passage 
 a mille mamelons. . . On croiroit voir les flots d' une mer 
 houleuse subitement immobilisies. Puis le plateau s' affaisse 
 et descend dans une valle'e tortueuse ou ce fleuve dont 
 nous parle notre poete, ce fleuve aux eaux sombres court 
 furieusement au milieu des rochers 
 
 " Arrivd k peu prbs au milieu de son parcours le fleuve se 
 detourne brusquement vers le sud, puis non moins brusque- 
 ment remonte. II decrit ainsi un angle a la pointe duquel 
 est batie une ville. Celle ci, adosse'e a des montagnes 
 v^rdoyantes, s' arrondit sur la rive droite de la riviere qui 
 'va le'chant ses bords,' et forme un arc de cercle dont le 
 Lot dessina la corde." Terrace upon terrace, the moun- 
 tains rise behind the town, bristling with walls built so as 
 to make them look like a gigantic staircase, and planted 
 with vines, while in front the peaks are piled one over the
 
 2 50 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Other, and the rocks close in upon tlie river, so as hardly to 
 leave it room for escape. 
 
 This place, picturesque in its prosperity, must have been 
 even more picturesque in its ruin when Marot was born. 
 For, although the tower was uninjured by the wars that 
 had passed round it, the country of Quercy was utterly 
 devastated and wasted. Ruins of forts and castles on every 
 hill ; churches where wolves littered behind the altar and 
 in the pulpit \ vineyards wantonly destroyed \ farms un- 
 stocked ; and woods growing over green fields. The sword 
 and the flames had passed twice over this unhappy pro- 
 vince ; first in the crusade of the Albigeois ; afterwards 
 in the great war against the English ; and Quercy was 
 depopulated. We may remember, when we have to speak 
 of Clement's so-called Protestant tendencies, that he had 
 been brought up amid scenes which recalled perpetually 
 to his mind the darkest side of orthodoxy ; and if he did 
 not leave the Church till he was forced, his memory was 
 too full of her tender mercies for him to love her. 
 
 About the year 1507 Clement was taken by his father 
 to Paris. He says : 
 
 "N'ayant dix ans, en France fuz meine. " 
 
 Jean Marot accompanied the King on his campaign to 
 Genoa. He wrote a delectable account of this on his 
 return, which he dedicated to the Queen, Anne of Brittany, 
 styling himself "ecrivain et poete de la tres magnanime 
 royne de France." The worthy poet, on the death of 
 Anne, was lucky enough to secure the post of valet-de-
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 251 
 
 chambre (an office before that time only held by gentlemen 
 in a royal household) to Francis the First. In the dull 
 period of Louis the Twelfth he passed for a great poet, 
 and was indeed, for the time, a versifier of some merit. 
 He published, besides tliis account of his journey, a collec- 
 tion of rondeaux, ballads, and other verses in the regular 
 taste of the day. 
 
 What that taste was, we have seen in the works of Cretin 
 and others of that stamp. There was no life about the 
 poetry of the reign of Louis XIL He and his queen were 
 sober, grave, and steady persons, inclined to the solid 
 virtues, and highly esteeming those bards who made virtue 
 the burden of their song. The poets of his court were old 
 men who could remember the days of Charles of Orleans, 
 and who prosed musically but monotonously over their 
 dreary allegories and rondeau.x. But without his court, 
 and under his very eyes, was growing up that spirit of 
 joyous licence which was going to do such great things for 
 the literature of his successor. Louis himself refused to 
 interfere with the Basochiens and Enfants sans souci, and 
 allowed them to satirize his court as much as they pleased, 
 saying, in the true spirit of a gentleman, " Let these young 
 fellows play what they like, and set forth all the abuses they 
 may see in my court, since the confessors and the rest of 
 the prudent ones hold their tongues about them ; provided 
 only that nothing be said of my wife, for the honour of our 
 ladies must be guarded." While old Jehan Marot rhymed 
 and exliorted for the Queen's delectation, young Cle'ment 
 was let loose on Paris, allowed to do pretty mucli what he 
 pleased, and to learn what he liked. AMiile he is playing
 
 252 CHAPTER XI I. 
 
 truant, when he is supposed to be attending lectures, let us 
 see a few of Maitre Jehan's verses. 
 
 They illustrate exactly the moral tendency of Louis's 
 court. He teaches the ladies how to win respect in a 
 series of rondeaux, twenty-three in number. Here is one : 
 
 "Qui a ces deux, chastete et beaute, 
 Vanter se peut qu' en toute loyaute, 
 Toute autre dame elle surmonte et passe 
 Vu que beaute oncque jour ne fut lasse 
 De faire guerre a dame chastete. 
 
 Mais quand ensemble elles font unite, 
 C est don divin joint a I'humanite, 
 Qui rend la dame accomplie de grace. 
 Qui a ces deux. 
 
 Mieux vaut laideur gardant honnestete, 
 Que beaute folle en chassant nettete ; 
 Toi done qui as gent corps et belle face, 
 Prens chastete, tu seras 1' outre passe : 
 Car Meung nous dit que peu en a ete 
 Qui a ces deux." 
 
 No advice could be more excellent than this. 
 
 Jehan Marot's fame rested chiefly on his Voyage en 
 Genes, Here he describes with great minuteness all the 
 events of that expedition. Mars, Bellona, Peace, Neptune, 
 and other distinguished personages are represented as 
 taking part in it. His style is far behind that of his son, 
 and his greatest merit appears to be that lie encouraged 
 Clement in his earliest poetical efforts. In Cle'ment's letter 
 to the king, asking for his late father's place, he puts these 
 prudent words into the mouth of the dying man : 
 
 "vSi est il mort ainsi qu' il demandoit. 
 Et me souvient, quand la mort attendoit,
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 253 
 
 Qu' il me disoit, en me tenant la dextre. 
 
 ' Filz, puisqiie Dieu t' a faict la grace d'estre 
 
 Vray heritier de men pen de S9avoir, 
 
 Quiers en le bien qu'on m'en a faict avoir. 
 
 Tu congnois comme user en est decent : 
 
 C'est ung s^avoir tant pur et innocent 
 
 Qu' on n' en s^auroit a creature nuyre. 
 
 Par preschements le peuple on peult seduire, 
 
 Par niarcliander, tromper on le peult bien, 
 
 . Par playderie, on peult menger son bien, 
 
 Par medicine, on peult 1' homme tuer : 
 
 Mais ton bel art ne peut telz coups ruer, 
 
 Ains en S9auras nieilleur ouvrage tistre." (tisser) 
 « « « « « 
 
 After which the old man recommends him to go to the 
 king and ask for his favour; a piece of advice which 
 Cle'ment followed to the letter, and of which he was mindful 
 to his last day. 
 
 The poems of Jehan Marot, by themselves, present no 
 special features of interest. We have seen their brethren, 
 for a family likeness runs through all, in the verses of 
 Meschinot, Cretin, and others. Probably the example of 
 the father was the cause of the son's writing poetry at all. 
 For all that Jehan Marot possessed in the world, he owed 
 to his verses, and with such substantial proofs of the worth 
 of success before his eye^ Clement was doubtless stimulated 
 to try his own fortune, and to rely on the pen rather than 
 the sword or the robe. 
 
 We get almost all the known details of Cle'ment's life 
 from his poetry. If any misfortune happened to him, he 
 immediately wrote a letter to some one, generally the king, 
 describing his calamities in rhyme, and asking to be helped 
 out of them. So that what we know of his life is principally
 
 254 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 the history of these misfortunes. The rest is all tradition. 
 Let us then gather the story of his life from his writings 
 alone. At present we have left him at college. This is 
 what he says himself of his youth. (Eclogue au roy soubs 
 les noms de Pan et Robin.) 
 
 " vSur* le printemps de ma jeunesse folle, 
 Je ressembloys 1' arondelle qui vole, 
 Puis 5a, puis la : 1' aage me conduisoit 
 Sans paour, ne soiiig, ou le cueur me disoit, 
 En la forest, sans la craincte des loups, 
 Je m' en allois souvent cueillir le houx, 
 Pour faire gluz a prendre oyseaulx ramaiges,i 
 Tous difFerens de chantz et de plumaiges : 
 Ou me souloys, - pour les prendre, entremettre 
 A faire brics, ^ ou caiges pour les mettre. 
 Ou transnouoys* les rivieres profondes, 
 Ou r' enfor9oys ^ sur le genoil les fondes, "^ 
 Puis d'en tirer droict et loing j' apprenois 
 Pour chasser loups et abb'atre des noix. 
 
 O quantes foys aux arbi'es grimpe j' ay 
 
 Pour desnicher ou la pie, ou la geay, 
 
 Ou pour gecter des fruictz jii meurs et beaulx 
 
 A mes compaings, qui tendoient leurs chappeaulx. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Desja pourtant je faisoys quelques nottes 
 De chant rusticque, et dessoubz les ormeaulx 
 Quasi enfant sonnoys des chalumeaulx. 
 Si ne sfauroys bien dire ne penser 
 Qui m' enseigna si tost d' y commencer, 
 Ou la nature aux Muses inclinee, 
 Ou ma fortune, en cela destinee 
 
 * See note at end of chapter. 
 
 
 ' wild. - was accustomed. 
 
 2 traps. 
 
 ^ swam across. * tied up. 
 
 •^ slings.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 255 
 
 A te servir. Si ce ne fust I'ung d'eulx 
 Je suis certain que ce furent touts deux. 
 Ce que voyant le bon Janot mon pere, 
 Voulut gaiger i Jaquet son compere 
 Contre uu veau gras deux aignelletz bessons' 
 Que quclque jour je ferois des chansons 
 A ta louenge, O Pan Dieu tressacre ! 
 Voyre chansons qui te viendroient i gre. 
 Et me souvicnt que bien souvent aux Testes 
 En regardant de Icing paistre nos bestes, 
 II me souloit- une le9on donner, 
 Pour doulcement la musette entonner 
 Ou a dieter quelque chanson niralle 
 Pour la chanter en mode pastoralle." 
 
 The whole of this eclogue is remarkably pretty. He 
 goes on to tell us how, as manhood came on, he learned to 
 know the four parts of the world ; the winds and their 
 seasons by the flight of the birds; the best and most 
 dangerous pasturage ; the diseases of animals. 
 
 "Mais par sus toutes choses 
 D'autant que plus plaisent les blanches roses 
 Que r aubespin, plus j' aymois \ sonner 
 De la musette et la feis resonner 
 En tons les tous et chants de bucoliques 
 En chantz piteux, en chantz melancholiques." 
 
 He sang so well, he says, that the Oreades, Fauns, 
 Sylvans, Satyrs, and Dryads shed tears on hearing him; 
 he sang of Margot, bcrglre qui taut vault ; and the death 
 of poor Loysette, who, now in Heaven, takes delight in 
 seeing her sheep still icy bas. Another time he challenged 
 all comers to play against him on the pipe for the love 
 
 » jumeaux. ' was wont.
 
 256 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 of his ainye ; but to this day no one can say who won the 
 prize, himself or MelHn (De Saint Gelais), the other shepherd. 
 He ends in the most approved style : 
 
 "Sus, mes brebis, tiouppeau petit et maigre, 
 Autour de moy saultez de ciieur allaigre, 
 Car desja Pan, de sa verte maison, 
 M' a faict ce bien d' ouyr mon oraison. " 
 
 Speaking in another place of his youth, he says that he 
 was born at Cahors, in Quercy : 
 
 " Une matinee 
 N' ayant dix ans en France fut meine : 
 La ou depuis me suis tant pourmeine 
 Que j'oubliay ma langue maternelle, 
 Et grossement aprins la paternelle, 
 Langue fran9oyse es grands courts estimee, 
 Laquelle en fin quelque pen s' est limee, 
 Suyvant le roy Francoys premier du nom, 
 Dont le s9avoir excede le renom." 
 
 Before we quit his early youth, read this ballad, " De soy 
 mesme du temps qu'il apprenoit a escrire au Palais k^Paris." 
 
 "Musiciens a la voix argentine, 
 Doresnavant, comme un homme esperdu, 
 Je chanteray plus hault qu' une buccine ; 
 Helas ! si j' ay mon joly temps perdu. 
 Puis que je n' ay ce que j' ay pretendu, 
 C est ma chanson, pour moy elle est bien deue. 
 Or je voys^ voir si la guerre est perdue, 
 Ou s' elle picque ainsi qu' ung herisson. 
 Adieu vous dy, mon maistre Jehan Grisson, 
 Adieu Palais, et la porte Barbette, 
 Ou j' ay chante mainte belle chanson 
 Pour le plaisir d' une jeune fillette. 
 
 1 voys = vais.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. . 257 
 
 Celle qui c'est en jeunessc est bien fine, 
 Oil j' ai este assez mal cntcndu ; 
 Mais si pour elle encores je chemine,' 
 Parmy les piedz je puisse estre pendu ! 
 C'est trop chante, siffle, et attendu 
 Devant sa porte, en passant par la rue. 
 Et mieulx vauldroit tirer 4 la charrue 
 Qu' avoir tel peine, ou servir un masson. 
 Bref, si jamais j'en tremble de frisson, 
 Je suis content qu' oa m' appelle Caillette : * 
 C'est trop souffert de peine et marrison^ 
 Pour le plaisir d' une jeune fillette. 
 
 Je quicte tout, je donne, je resigne 
 Le don d' aymer, qui est si cher vendu. 
 Je ne dy pas que je me determine 
 De vaincre Amour, cela m'est dcfiendu. 
 Car nul ne peult contre son arc tendu. 
 Mais de souffrir chose si mal congrue, 
 Par mon serment, je ne suis plus si grue. 
 On m'a aprins tout par cueur ma le9on. 
 Je crains le guet, c' est un maulvais gar5on 
 Et puis de nuict trouvez une charrette ; 
 Vous vous cassez le nez comme ung gla9on 
 Pour le plaisir d'une jeune fillette." 
 
 We may compare the last four lines with the complaint 
 of the lover in the Arrets d' Amour. 
 
 Bidding farewell to the young Basochiens, the fair Bar- 
 thelemy, and that ravishing demoiselle, with green gloves, 
 the blue robe, and a corset, 
 
 "D'ung fin bleu, lasse d'un lasset 
 Jaulne qu' elle avoit faict expres," 
 
 Clement entered the service of M. de Neuville, Seigneur 
 
 ^ go slowly. 2 Caillette, name of a buffoon of the time. 
 
 ^ marrison, suffering.
 
 258 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 de Villeroy, and owner of the Tuilleries, which he afterwards 
 ceded to the king, as one of his pages. The young poet 
 could hardly have found a better patron. M. de Neuville 
 was secretary of finance in 1507 ; he became in high favour 
 \vith the young king ; was a man of great intelligence, very 
 wealthy,, and of good family. Probably it was through his 
 offices that Clement's first serious efforts, Le Jugement de 
 Minos, Le Temple de Cupido^ and La Queste de Ferme 
 Amour, were introduced to the notice of the king. His 
 father's office may, however, have helped him, for Jehan 
 Marot, on the death of Anne of Brittany, in 15 14, and 
 of Louis XII., in 15 15, had found favour in the eyes of 
 Francis the First. 
 
 On the expiration of the term of his service as page, 
 which would be about the age of eighteen, he tried to 
 obtain some post at court, but we may conclude with ill 
 success, for it is not till 15 19, perhaps not till 1524, that 
 he was recommended by Francis to the protection of his 
 sister Margaret of Valois. By her kindness he was ap- 
 pointed valet-de-chambre at her court, and, for a time at 
 least, found a harbour of refuge from the tempestuous sea 
 of misfortune, of which he complains : 
 
 "C'est le seul bien que j'ay acquis en France 
 Depuis vingt ans en labeur et souffrance, 
 Fortune m'a entre niille malheurs 
 Donne ce bien des mondaines valeurs. 
 Que dy-je, las ! O paroUe soudaine : 
 C est don de Dieu, non point valeur mondaine. 
 Rien n'ay acquis des valeurs de ce monde 
 Qu'une maistresse, en qui gist et abonde 
 Plus de s9avoir, parlant et escrivant, 
 Qu'en aultre femme en ce monde vivant.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 259 
 
 C'cst du franc lys I'yssue Marguerite, 
 
 Grande sur terre, envers le ciel petite. 
 
 C'est la princcsse i 1' esprit inspire, 
 
 All cucur eslcii qui de Dieu est tire 
 
 Mieulx (ct m' en croy) que le festu de 1' ambre : 
 
 Et d'elle suis 1' humble valet de chambre." 
 
 He did not, however, get the appointment \vithout 
 asking for it. 
 
 "Princesse au coeur noble et rassis, 
 La fortune que j' ay suivie, 
 Par force m'a souvent assis 
 Au froit giron de triste vie : 
 De m'y seoir encor me convie, 
 Mais je respondz, comme fasche. 
 D' estre assis je n' ay plus d' envie ; 
 II n'est que d' estre bien couche." 
 
 Here he continues for some years, and appears to have 
 acquired steady esteem of his benefactress, who protected 
 him as much and as long as she was able. There have not 
 been wanting biographers of Clement who find in the 
 relation between oNIargaret of Valois and the poet some- 
 thing Avarmer than mere friendship on the one hand, respect 
 and gratitude on the other. This is, however, mere guess- 
 work, and, which is worse, the guesswork of minds who 
 can only see evil, where others see nothing but good. As 
 has been already pointed out. Love, in those days, was still 
 a sentiment ; it had preserved from the old times that 
 dignity which belongs to honour and self-respect ; a dignity 
 which lasted in England long after the dissoluteness of 
 Henry the Second and the introduction of Italian manners 
 had drawn it out of France. We see it in the passionate 
 admiration of her courtiers for Elizabeth, — in the genuine
 
 2 6o CHAPTER XII. 
 
 love and respect of Sir Walter Raleigh for a queen twenty- 
 years his senior. It is one of the losses of the age that 
 men no longer attach themselves to women by bonds that 
 have nothing to do with passion or age ; and that the 
 friendship of Marot and Margaret, Elizabeth and Raleigh, 
 can call forth slander and obloquy. 
 
 Again, in those days a mistress was almost necessary 
 for a man. To quote at second hand from our editor, 
 M. d' Hericault : " L' on avoit en ce temps-la une coustume, 
 qu' il estoit messeant aux jeunes gens de bonne maison s' ils 
 n' avoient une maistresse laquelle ne se choisissoit par eux 
 et moins par leur affection, mais ou elles estoient donnees 
 par quelques parents ou superieurs, ou elles mesmes choisis- 
 
 soient ceux de qui elles vouloient estre servies a la cour 
 
 J' estois soigneux de complaire a ma maistresse et de la 
 faire servir de mes pages et de mes laquais. Elle se rendit 
 tres soigneuse de moy, me reprenant de tout en ce qu'il 
 luy sembloit que je faisois de mal scant, d' indiscret ou 
 d' incivil. Nulle autre personne me m' a tant aide a in- 
 troduire dans le monde et a me faire prendre 1' air de la 
 cour." 
 
 Nothing could better explain tlic reason of this custom. 
 Young men were civilized by it, they learned the best 
 manners of the time, they were kept in the society of ladies, 
 and they contracted a distaste for things low and vulgar. 
 Of course it had its dangers, and Platonic love is apt to 
 degenerate into a sentiment quite common and human. 
 Until, however, proof is found to the contrary, we have 
 no right to suspect anything but that chivalrous sentiment, 
 a mixture of respect and friendship, which united the young
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 261 
 
 chevalier to his maistresse. Cle'ment, about this time, says 
 that, for his part, his white livery— that of the Princess- 
 was a token that he had no mistress whose colours he could 
 wear. 
 
 '*De mes couleurs, ma nouvelle allice, 
 Estre ne peult vostre jambe liee, 
 Car couleurs n' ay et n' en porteraye mye 
 Jusques a tant que j' auray une amye 
 Qui me taindra le seul blanc que je porte 
 En ses couleurs de quelcque belle sorte." 
 
 This unhappy solitude of his soul could not, however, 
 have lasted long, for in 1524 he went with the king to 
 Italy, and, after the battle of Pavia, writes to his mistress. 
 This elegie is ^\Titten in the allegorical style which he 
 aftenvards abandoned. DouUe and Ferme Amour dissuade 
 and persuade him respectively to write to her. In the end 
 Amour conquers. 
 
 "L'ung diet, 'Escry.' L' autre diet, 'N'escry point.'" 
 
 Which reminds one of the advice given to John Bunyan by 
 
 his friends : 
 
 "Some said, 'John, print it': others said, 'Not so'. 
 Some said, 'It might do good': others said, 'No.'" 
 
 At the battle of Pavia he was wounded and taken 
 prisoner, but was allowed to go away, the enemy not caring 
 for such small prey as simple gentlemen and soldiers. 
 
 "La fut perce tout oultre rudement 
 Le bras de cil qui t' ayme loyaulment : 
 Non pas le bras dont il a de coustume 
 De nianier, ou la lance, ou la plume : 
 Amour encor le te garde et resci-ve, 
 Et par escripts vault que de loing te serve.
 
 262 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Finablement avec le Roy, mon maistre, 
 
 Dela les monts prisonnier se veit estre 
 
 Mon triste corps, navre en grand souffrance. 
 
 Quant est du cueur, long temps y a qu' en France 
 
 Ton prisonnier il est sans mesprison. 
 
 Or est le corps sorty hors de prison : 
 
 Mais quant du cueur, puis que tu es la garde 
 
 De sa prison, d' en sortir il n' a garde." 
 ***** 
 
 " The enemy," he says, " will sing, ^' un stile hault, their 
 triumphs and victories, but we shall have nothing to do but 
 lament our misfortunes." 
 
 "Les dire, helas ! II vault mieulx les taire ! 
 II vault trop mieulx en ung lieu solitaire. 
 En champs, ou boys pleins d' arbres et de fleurs, 
 Aller dieter les plaisirs ou les pleurs 
 Que 1' on re9oit de sa dame cherie : 
 Puis pour oster hors du cueur fascherie, 
 Voller en plaine et chasser en forestz : 
 Descoupler chiens, tendre toilles et rhetz ; 
 Aulcunefois, apres les longues courses, 
 Se venir seoir pres des ruisseaux et sources, 
 Et s' endormir au son de 1' eaue qui bruyt, 
 On escouter la musique et le bruict 
 Des oyselletz, painctz de couleurs estranges, 
 Comme mallars, merles, maulviz, mesanges, 
 Pinsons, pivers, passes, et passerons. 
 En ce plaisir le temps nous passerons." 
 
 The reader will be reminded of the pastoral dreams of 
 Don Quixote, and the picture he draws, after his misfortunes, 
 of the life that Sancho and he yet may lead. 
 
 Alas ! on his return to France all his hopes are dashed 
 to the ground. She is changed; she smiles on him no 
 longer.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 263 
 
 "Qu'ay-je mesfaict, dictes, ma chere amye? 
 Vostre amour semble estie toute endormie ; 
 Je n' ay de vous plus lettres, ne langage ; 
 Je n' ay de vous ung seul petit message, 
 Plus ne vous voy aux lieux accoustumez. 
 Sont 14 estainctz vos desirs allumez, 
 Qui avec moy d' un mesme feu ardoient ? 
 Oil sont les yeux lesquelz me regardoient 
 Souvent en ris, souvent avecques larmes? 
 Oil sont les motz qui tant m' ont faict d' alarmes ? 
 Oil est la bouche aussi qui m' appaisoit 
 Quand tant de fois et si bien me baisoit? 
 Oil est le cueur que irrcvocablement 
 M' avez donne ? oil est semblablement 
 La blanche main, qui bien fort m' arrestoit 
 Quand de partier de vous besoing m'estoit?" 
 
 In a short piece •written about this time he describes his 
 habits : 
 
 "Tous deux ajTnons gens plein d' honnestete, 
 Tous deux aymons honneur et nettete, 
 Tous deux a)Tnons a d'aulcim ne mesdire, 
 Tous deux aymons ung meilleur propos dire ; 
 Tous deux aymons a nous trouver en lieux 
 Oil ne sont point gens melancolieux : 
 Tous deux aymons la musique chanter, 
 Tous deux aymons les livres frequenter," 
 
 And in the next poem he tells us what he has read : 
 
 " Certainement, dame treshonnoree, 
 J' ay leu des saiiUz la Legende Doree, 
 J' ay leu Alain, le tiesnoble orateur, 
 Et Lancelot, le tresplaisant menteur, 
 J' ay leu aussi le- Romant de la Rose 
 Maistre en amours, et Valere et Orose 
 Comptans les faictz des antiques Romains : 
 Brief, en mon temps, j'ay leu des livres maintz."
 
 264 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Who was his mistress? Diane de Poictiers, has been 
 answered. But, as is easily shewn, there is no other proof 
 of this except the fact that her name, whoever she was, 
 was Diane. Now probably there was more than one 
 Diane in Paris. He calls her Luna, and speaks of her 
 as having caused his first imprisonment. Now Diane de 
 Poictiers was not a widow till 1531, when she became the 
 mistress of the Dauphin, afterwards Henry the Second ; 
 and there is no ground for supposing her unfaithful to him. 
 
 The hostility of reformers and orthodox was becoming 
 daily more bitter. In the court of Margaret, as has been 
 already stated, was a spirit of licence in thought and speech 
 which did much for the cause of religious reform. Among 
 the most prominent of the free speakers was doubtless 
 Marot. He had no learning to attack the priests with, 
 but he had the more dangerous gifts of wit, recklessness, 
 and contempt. There is reason to believe that his tongue 
 was his worst enemy, and that, had he kept quiet, he would 
 have escaped persecutions on account of his opinions. On 
 the other hand, it is doubtful whether he really had any 
 opinions at all. In his reading of the old romances he found 
 the Church the constant object of satire and abuse; the 
 state of ecclesiastical matters in his own time was shameful, 
 with a shame patent to the eyes of all; his friends, the 
 Basochiens, were ever delighted to make the priests the 
 butt of their sarcasms ; and at the court of his protectress 
 his attacks would be welcomed as much for their wit as for 
 their truth. Moreover, he was vain, eager for reputation, 
 and careless of making enemies. He was arrested and put 
 in prison. The moment for his arrest was well chosen;
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 265 
 
 his friend the king was a prisoner in Spain, and his friend 
 Margaret was away from Paris, gone to use her entreaties 
 with Charles, and to tend her sick brother. One doctor 
 Bouchar charged him with heresy, and he was seized and 
 carried off to the Chastelet. 
 
 Some friend helped him out of this strait, which was, 
 indeed, a very serious one. The chance of being burnt, 
 in itself very considerable — for men had already, in France 
 as well as in England, found out this method of reconcili- 
 ation — was added to the pains of prison, bread and water, 
 and opportunities for solitary reflection. The Bishop of 
 Chartres, Louis Guillard, either instigated by others who 
 thought it expedient in helping an alleged heretic to keep 
 in the background, or out of his o\vn generosity, interfered, 
 and claimed Clement Marot as his own prisoner ; by what 
 right, does not clearly appear. He was taken to the 
 Bishop's Palace, kept for some time in a sort of honourable 
 confinement, and then — I suppose when people had some- 
 thing else to talk about — let go without any trial or in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 He sends the following letter of expostulation to Doctor 
 Bouchar : — 
 
 "Donne responce i mon present affaire, 
 Docte docteur. Qui t' a induict a faire 
 Emprisonner, depuis six jours en 9a, 
 Ung tien amy qui one ne t' offensa, 
 Et vouloir mettre en luy crainte et terreur 
 D'aigre justice, en disant que I'erreur 
 Tiens de Luther? Point ne suis Lutheriste 
 Ne Zuinglien et moins Anabaptiste : 
 Je suis de Dieu par son filz Jesu Christ. 
 Je suys ceUuy qui ay faict maint escript
 
 266 CHAPTER XIl. 
 
 Dont un seul vers on n' en scauroit extraire, 
 
 Qui a la loy divine soit contraire. 
 
 Je suis celluy qui prends plaisir et peine 
 
 A louer Christ et sa mere tant pleine 
 
 De grace infuse : et pour bien 1' esprouver 
 
 On le pouvra par mes escriptz trouver." 
 
 Decidedly, Marot was not of the stuff of which martyrs 
 were made. The stake had no attractions for him. He 
 seems to have attributed his imprisonment " a celle qui fut 
 
 s' amie."^ 
 
 " Ung jour rescrivy a m' amye 
 Son inconstance seulement, 
 Mais elle ne fut endormie 
 A me le rendre chauldement : 
 Car des I'heure tint parlement 
 A je ne S9ay quel papelard, 
 Et luy a diet tout bellement ; 
 ' Prenez-le, il a mange le lard.' 
 
 Lors six pendars ne faillent mye 
 A me surprendre finement, 
 Et de jour pour plus d' infamie, 
 Feirent mon emprisonnement. 
 lis vindrent a mon logement ; 
 Lors se va dire ung gros paillard. 
 ' Par la mortbien, voila Clement : 
 Prenez-le, il a mange le lard.'" 
 
 This event was in 1526. In 1527 he brought out an 
 edition of his favourite work, tlie Roman de la Rose. In 
 1528, the marriage, which proved subsequently of great 
 
 1 Remembering that his imprisonment was in 1526; that Francis 
 was in Spain ; that DiAne de Poictiers was not yet a widow ; that she 
 had as yet no court influence, unless a certain story be true, and that 
 even then it could only have been personal influence with the king — 
 I do not see how his amye could have been Diane.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 267 
 
 advantage to him, of Renee of France to the Duke of 
 Ferrara was solemnized. The following year a little mis- 
 fortune fell upon him which he turned to account in his 
 usual way. He was ill, and his servant robbed him of 
 nearly all his money. He narrates the story in a most 
 charming letter to the king. 
 
 "J'avois ung jour un valet de Gascongne, 
 Gourmant, yvroigne, et asseure menteur, 
 Pipeur,' larron, jureur, blasphemateur, 
 Sentant la hart- de cent pas a la ronde, 
 All demcurant le meilleur filz du monde. 
 Prise, lone, fut estime des filles, 
 Par les bourdeaiix, et beau joueur de quilles. 
 
 Ce venerable hillot^ fut adverty 
 De quelque argent que m' aviez departy, 
 Et que ma bourse avoit grosse apostume ; 
 Si se leva plustost que de coustume 
 Et me va prendre en tapinoys'' icelle, 
 Puis la vous mist tresbien soubz son esselle 
 Argent et tout, cela se doit entendre, 
 Et ne croy point que ce fust pour la rendre, 
 Car oncques puis n' en ay ouy parler. 
 
 Brief, le villain ne s'en voulut allcr 
 Pour si petit ; mais cueur il me happe 
 Saye* et bonnet, chausses, pour poinct et cappe : 
 De mes habitz, en effect, il pilla 
 Tous les plus beaux ; et puis s' en habilla 
 Si justement qu' a le veoir ainsi estre 
 Vous I'eussiez prins en plein jour pour son maistre. 
 
 Finablement, de ma chambre il s' en va 
 Droict a 1' estable, oil deux chevaulx trouva : 
 Laisse le pire et sur le meilleur monte : 
 Picque et s' en va. Pour abreger le compte, 
 
 ' given to trickery. 2 ^ord used for hanging. 
 
 ' servant, slave, lielot. * secretly. * short coat.
 
 268 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Soiez certain qu' au partir dudict lieu 
 N'oublya rien, fors a. me dire adieu." 
 
 He, meantime, being sound asleep. He wakes up to find 
 his purse, clothes, and money gone. 
 
 "Mais de 1' argent que vous m'aviez donne, 
 Je ne fuz point de le perdre estonne : 
 Car vostre argent, tresdebonnaire prince, 
 Sans point de faulte, est le subject a la pince."^ 
 
 He goes on to explain that another misfortune has 
 fallen upon him. He has been for nine months very ill; 
 he has spent the little money this scoundrel Gascon left 
 him in doctors, syrops, and medicines. But as for the 
 physicians, they 
 
 "Tout consulte, ont remis au printemps 
 Ma guarison. Mais, a ce que j'entends, 
 Si je ne puis au printemps arriver, 
 Je suis taille de mourir en yver, 
 Et en danger, si en yver je meurs, 
 De ne veoir pas les premiers raisins meurs." 
 
 Under these melancholy circumstances he begs to 
 borrow a little money of the king, which he is quite cer- 
 tain to repay. 
 
 For the date of repayment, 
 
 "Je vous feray une belle cedulle 
 A vous payer (sans usures, il s' entend), 
 Quand on verra tout le monde content. 
 Ou si voulez, a payer ce sera, 
 Quand vostre loz et renom ccssera." 
 
 If his own name to this valuable bond is not sufficient, 
 he will get the two princes of Lorraine, the Cardinal of 
 
 ^ An instrument used in coining.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 269 
 
 Lorraine, and the Duke of jGuise, to go surety for him. 
 We may be quite sure tliat the de'bonnair king sent him 
 some money. 
 
 Somewhere about this time he gets a second imprison- 
 ment for attempting a rescue from the officers of Justice, 
 As usual, he writes to tlie king for assistance out of this 
 scrape. " King of the French, full of all sorts of goodness, 
 it is now fifteen days, for I have counted them all, and 
 after tomorrow there will be sixteen, that I was made 
 a confrere of the diocese of Saint Marry,' in the church 
 of Saint Pris. Now I will tell you how I was taken, and 
 very sorry I am to have to say it : 
 
 "Trois grands pendars vindrent, a I'estourdie, 
 En ce palais, me dire en desarroy : 
 ' Nous vous faisons prisonnier par le Roy. ' 
 Incontinent, qui fut bien estonne, 
 Ce fut Marot, plus que s'ileust tonne. 
 Puis m' ont niontre ung parcliemin escript 
 Ou il n' avoit soul mot de Jesu Christ : 
 II ne parloit tout que de playderie, 
 De conseilliers et d' emprisonnerie. 
 
 'Vous souvient-il, se me dirent ilz lors, 
 Que vous estiez 1' autre jour la dehors, 
 Qu' on recourut ung certain prisonnier 
 Entre nos mains?' Et moy de le nyer : 
 Car soyez seur, si j' eusse diet ouy, 
 Que le plus sourd d' entre eulx m' eust bien ouy : 
 Et d'aultre part j' eusse publiquement 
 Este menteur : car pourquoy et comment 
 Eusse je peu ung autre recourir, 
 Quand je n'ay sceu moy mesmes secourir?" 
 • ♦ * « * 
 
 ' Saint Marry is Saint Merry, marry means sad, melancholy.
 
 2 70 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Having nothing to say for himself, these two paillards 
 carry him off, each holding an arm, as if he was a bride, 
 he says, only just a little more roughly : 
 
 "Mais pour venir au poinct de ma sortie, 
 Tant doulcement j' ay chante ma partie 
 Que nous avons bien accorde ensemble, 
 Si que n' ay plus affaire, ce me semble, 
 Si non a vous. La partie est bien forte 
 Mais le droit poinct oil je me reconforte, 
 Vous n' entendez proces non plus que moy : 
 Ne plaidons pas, ce n' est que tout esmoy. 
 Je vous en croy, si je vous ai mesfaict. 
 Encor, pose le cas que 1' eusse faict, 
 Au pis aller n' escherroit qu' une amende. 
 Prenez le cas que vous me la donnez : 
 Et si plaideurs furent one estonnez 
 Mieux que ceulx c}', je veulx qu' on me delivre 
 Et que soubdain en ma place on les livre. 
 ***** 
 
 Tres humblement requerrant vostre grace 
 De pardonner a ma trop grand audace 
 D' avoir empris ce sot escript vous faire : 
 Et m'excusez, si, pour le mien affaire, 
 Je ne suis point vers vous alle parler : 
 Je n' ay pas eu le loysir d' y aller. " 
 
 The mixture of familiarity and of respect in this letter 
 shews that Clement was an excellent courtier to a most 
 good-natured and de'bonnair king. It is almost needless 
 to say that Francis gave orders directly to let him go. 
 
 In 1530, or thereabouts, he marries. As we gather 
 from his verses, he had aftenvards some family, but it is not 
 known how many. Nor does he ever speak of his ^\^fe. 
 Perhaps she was a native of Lyons, for Clement went there
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 2-] \ 
 
 at this time and became a member of the Societe Ange'Hque, 
 a sort of provincial Hterary circle. 
 
 In 1532 he published his' "Adolescence Cle'mentine," 
 a collection of all his poems. In 1533 he edited a new 
 edition of Fran9ois Villon, a great favourite of his. Three 
 or four years passed over tranquilly, so far as we know. 
 But greater misfortunes were at hand. On the night of 
 October i8th, 1534, an outrage was perpetrated at Paris 
 which excited as much indignation and horror as the 
 mutilation of the Hermse did at Athens ; placards were 
 everywhere posted up filled with the most violent and the 
 most blasphemous abuse of the Holy Eucharist. When 
 one remembers that the most \nolent French reformers 
 never went so far as the Germans ; that the body of French 
 people, however much they gnunbled at abuses, detested 
 Luther and his followers ; and that the professed wits, the 
 young clerks of the Chatelet and the students, repudiated 
 the doctrines of the Reformers while they railed at scandals 
 — it must be owned that the following words were likely 
 to produce the gravest indignation : " Vostre Christ se 
 laisse manger aux bestes et k vous pareillement, qui estes 
 pire que des bestes en vos badinages lesquels vous faites 
 a r entour de vostre Dieu de paste, du quel vous jouez 
 comme un chat d'un souris." As for the Catholics, the 
 placards declared that they were, one and all, heretics and 
 blasphemers ; and that there were not enough faggots and 
 fire in the world to burn them as they deserved. We who 
 have been brought up in a holy horror of Catholic in- 
 tolerance, would do well to bear in mind that toleration 
 on either side, as yet, was not ; and that the Lutherans
 
 272 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 were quite ready, should they get the upper hand, to take 
 their turn at pihng the fire round their adversaries. 
 
 There was, indeed, a great commotion. The King, who 
 had been at one time hesitating between the example of 
 Henry and his own allegiance to the Pope, hesitated no 
 longer. They had a grand procession, with Bishops, Arch- 
 bishops, and King. A heretic was roasted at a slow fire ; 
 and Francis declared that even if his own children were 
 infected with heresy, he would sacrifice them; and if it 
 were his own right hand, he would cut it off. This declara- 
 tion greatly pleased and comforted the souls of the faithful ; 
 and it was followed up by the summoning of upwards of 
 sixty-three persons, who had fled from Paris, to answer the 
 charge of heresy.^ Among these was Clement \ whether 
 through the kind offices of Doctor Bouchar, anxious for 
 the welfare of his soul, or the revenge of "celle qui fut 
 s' amye," does not sufficiently appear. Most luckily for 
 himself, he was at Blois, and being warned by a postillion, 
 had time to escape. The first place he went to was na- 
 turally the court of his friend Margaret, now Queen of 
 Navarre. But Beam was no longer a place of safety for 
 an accused Lutheran ; the time of satire, scandal, and free 
 speech was over; the satirists and learned • doctors were 
 scattered; and Margaret had quite enough to do to look 
 after herself, particularly after the determined speech of 
 her brother. Clement went to Italy, nearly getting caught 
 on the way, and wrote to the Duchess of Ferrara. Renee, 
 whose leanings to Protestantism were more than suspected, 
 
 ' See note at end of chapter.
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 273 
 
 received liim like a second Ovid. At her little court, at 
 least, there was no burning of heretics ; and, for a time at 
 least, open shelter for them. From Ferrara Cle'ment wrote 
 his letter du Coi] ai /' Asne^ which I have not space to quote 
 from. He wrote also a letter to the king. Here he says, 
 that although he does not consider himself an offender 
 against the law, yet there are so many corruptible judges 
 in Paris, who, by bribery, or by influence of friends, or in 
 their own interest, or out of charity and moved by the 
 entreaties of some fair and humble suppliant, will save 
 the miserable life of the greatest rascal in the world, and, 
 out of malice, or want of friends, or absence of money, are 
 so inhuman to the most innocent that he is quite content 
 not to fall into their hands. Not, indeed, that they are all 
 bad, but the bad ones are more numerous than the good. 
 He traces their enmity to his Eiifcr. 
 
 "Trop me sont ennemys 
 Pour leur enfer que par escript j'ay mis, 
 Ou quelque pen de leurs tours je descoeuvre, 
 La me veull-on grand mal pour petit oeuvre. 
 Mais je leur mis encor plus odieux 
 Dont je r osay lire devant les yeulx 
 Tant cleir voyans de ta majeste haulte 
 Qui a pouvoir de reformer leur faulte." 
 
 He recalls to the king how he was once before im- 
 prisoned, and how he escaped their machinations by his good 
 offices. It is all conceived in the finest spirit of flattery. 
 
 "Autant comme eulx, sans cause qui soit bonne, 
 Me veult de mal 1' ignorante Sorbonne. 
 Bien ignorante elle est d'estre ennemye 
 
 T
 
 2 74 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 De la trilingiie et noble Academic 
 Qu' as erigee. " ^ 
 
 "Certainly," he says, "if your majesty could look into 
 the hearts of these ' Sorboniqueurs,' you would find them 
 anything but loyal — as indeed might be expected, consider- 
 ing the great things your Majesty has done for arts and 
 sciences." 
 
 As for himself, they have often used threats against him, 
 the least and mildest of which was to get him executed. 
 And with this wicked end in view, they call him Lutheriste. 
 Here Marot waxes exceedingly indignant, his orthodoxy, 
 when danger threatened him, being almost boisterous. 
 
 "Luther pour moy des cieulx n'est descendu, 
 Luther en croix n' a point este pendu 
 Pour mes pechez : et, tout bien advise, 
 Au nom de luy en suis point baptize. 
 Baptize suis au nom qui tant bien sonne 
 Qu' au son de luy le Pere Eternel donne 
 Ce que 1' on quiert ! le seul nom soubz les cieulx 
 En et par qui ce monde vicieux 
 Peult estre sauf!" 
 
 He makes an appeal to heaven, which, if one did not 
 feel was theatrical, would be very striking. ' Let me be 
 burned,' he cries, ' but let me be burned, not pour cause 
 folk, but for Thee and Thy word.' 
 
 They have tried to seize him at Blois, but failed. They 
 have laid hands on his library and on his precious papers. 
 What if they have found forbidden books ? Cannot a poet 
 read everything — magic — necromancy — cabal ? 
 
 ^ The College Royal, founded by Francis, with three professorships 
 of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 275 
 
 " O jiige sacrilege, 
 Qui t' a donne ne loy, nc privilege 
 D' aller toucher et faire tes massacres 
 Au cabinet des sainctes Muses sacres?" 
 
 He says that, on leaving Blois, he was on the point of 
 going straight to the king, but was recommended not to 
 venture, so he went another way. Observe how he takes 
 credit for going to the king's sister : 
 
 "Evitant ce danger, 
 Non en pays, non i prince estrangcr, 
 Non point usant de fugitif destour, 
 Mais pour semr 1' autre roy a men tour, 
 Mon second rnaistre et ta soeur son epouse 
 A qui je fuz des ans a quatre et douze 
 De ta main noble heureusement donne." 
 
 This making a merit of his escape to the nearest place 
 of safety is particularly clever. 
 
 "J'abandonnay, sans avoir commis crime, 
 L'ingrate France, ingrate, ingratissime 
 A son poete : et en la delaissant. 
 Fort grand regret ne vint mon cueur blessant. 
 Tu ments, Marot, grand regret tu sentis 
 Quand tu pensas a tes enfans petis." 
 
 This is the only mention of his children, except one 
 3ther, that he makes. 
 
 Then he crossed, he says, the great cold mountains, and 
 :ame to the Lombard plains. Thence to Italy, where God 
 iirected his steps to the place in which resided a princess 
 )f the king's own blood. 
 
 "Parquoy, O syre, estant avecques elle, 
 Conclure puis, d'lm franc cueur et vray zele,
 
 276 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Qu' c\ moy ton serf ne peult estre donne 
 
 Reproche ancun que t' aye abandonne. 
 
 En protestant, si je pers ton service, 
 
 Qu'il vient plus tost de malheur que de vice." 
 
 It was here, too, that he wrote his celebrated Blason, 
 which was instantly taken up and imitated by numberless 
 poets. Floods of verse were poured out. Blason on a 
 lady's eyebrow, on a lady's eye, on a lady's mouth, on her 
 feet, on her nose. Clement, not ill-pleased with the success 
 of his little piece, followed it up with a Contre Blason^ and 
 the imitators, veering round, followed suit in the same 
 manner as before. 
 
 Fresh storms, however, were brewing. Ferrara grew too 
 hot for him, and the duchess was obliged, under pressure 
 from the pope, to send him away. The hunted bard betook 
 himself to Venice, which he did not like, and from which 
 place he \vrote to the dauphin praying for a safe conduct — 
 for six months — or, if that will not do, for half-a-year, 
 because he wants to see his little Afarotteaulx, and just to 
 get one more run to court. 
 
 "Si je voys la mille bonnetz ostez : 
 Mille bons jours viendront de tous costez, 
 Tant de Dieu gars ! tant qui m' embrasseront ! 
 Tant de salutz ^ qui d' or point en seront ! 
 Puis ce dira quelque langue friande ; 
 'Et puis Marot, est-ce une grande viande 
 Qu' estre de France estrange et banniz?' 
 'Par Dieu, monsieur' — ce diray-je — 'nenny.' 
 Lors que de chere et grandes accoUees ! 
 
 ^ salut d' or, the name of a coin of Charles VI. On the face was 
 represented the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 277 
 
 Prendray les bons, laisseray les vollees : 
 'Adieu, messieurs.' 'Adieu done, mon mignon. ' 
 Et cela faict, verrez le compaignon 
 Tost desloger.' 
 
 It is impossible for anything to be more spirited than 
 tliis. His term up, he will go. At the sahie time, should 
 the king wish to keep him — for it is the duty of every good 
 subject to obey the king — he will stay. 
 
 Finally, it is only a little piece of paper that he wants. 
 This is a thing given to the enemy every day. Much better 
 give it to him than to some rascally Jack Spaniard (Jean 
 d' Espaigne). 
 
 The persecution in France was relaxing. Francis had 
 promised the pope that he would iu future bum only those 
 who held impious notions on the subject of the Eucharist, and 
 consequently, that those who had erred only on minor points 
 might return on making abjuration. As Clement did return 
 we may suppose that he abjured his former errors. If, 
 as he says in his letter to the king, he was no ' Lutherist,' 
 this would have done no violence to his feelings \ if he lied 
 in his letter to the king, it would have done little \^olence 
 to his feelings if he lied again. The fact is that strenuous 
 efiforts have been made to enrol Clement Marot on the side 
 of the Protestants. As far as regards the moral worth of 
 the man, the Catholics might be perfectly prepared to let 
 him go ; but, as the extracts I have given sufficiently shew, 
 there was nothing that Marot was so eager to disclaim as the 
 reputation of being a Lutheran. To abuse the priests was 
 one thing — Guillaume de Lorris and Clement's other friends 
 and models used to do that — but to go over to the side
 
 278 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 of men who could give the holy bread to the pigs, cut 
 off the head of the Blessed Virgin's image, tear down the 
 sacred altars, and, above all, commit such intensely vulgar 
 abuse as was contained in the placards, was a quite dif- 
 ferent thing. For Marot was a courtier and a gentleman, 
 though a bourgeois by birth ; plenty of gentlemen were 
 found to set him an example by turning their wit against 
 the Church — but none, or few, to set him the example 
 of joining the howling, unwashed, ruffianly mob of image- 
 breakers. Unfortunately, Clement, being cleverer than 
 his friends and much more careless, went too far, and 
 his enemies (with the notorious unforgivingness of priests) 
 were resolved on his destruction. At this time came 
 his dispute with the Abbe Sagon, a versifier of mean 
 repute, but anxious to push himself into notoriety. We 
 must pass over this literary quarrel, chiefly remarkable, like 
 most literary quarrels, for its fertility in producing bad 
 blood. Marot grows wise, and indisposed to set out on a 
 new set of travels, or to venture on the terrors of the stake ; 
 but he grows rather stupid; the old fire is out of him; 
 he is getting on in years ; his friends are scattered ; there 
 is no more fun to be got out of the priests who burn you 
 if you so much as wink at them ; Marguerite is away with 
 her husband, his ' second King' ; and Francis has grown 
 less ddbonnair of late. 
 
 With a view, however, to rehabilitate his reputation for 
 orthodoxy, the luckless CMment, who could not let well 
 alone, must needs publish a translation into French of the 
 Psalms. This, at least, is my own interpretation of his 
 motives. M. d' H^ricault thinks that, pushed on by his old
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 279 
 
 acquaintances, * les novateurs,' whom he had never wholly 
 lost sight of, he was doomed to pay once more for their 
 faults. If T could see any trace of tendency to the new 
 opinions in his writings, I might acknowledge this plausible 
 statement, but I see none ; only the indifference of a man 
 of the world and a wit, who found the Church fair game, 
 was pushed on by praise, flattery, and vanity, to speak more 
 freely than he ought to have done ; suffered in consequence, 
 and now, grown wiser with age, resolved to shew to the 
 world how pious and orthodox he had become. What could 
 be more orthodox than the Psalms of David ? 
 
 Probably they were made in conjunction with Vatable' 
 the Hebrew scholar, who furnished him with a literal trans- 
 lation from the original. Thirty of them were published at 
 first. They had an enormous success. The king and all 
 the courtiers set them to popular airs, to dances, to well- 
 kno^vn songs, and went about singing them. Everyone 
 chose his favourite. They were written under portraits by 
 way of motto or device \ they were sung all over Paris ; 
 they were shewn to Charles the Fifth, who was delighted 
 with them, and who presented the poet ^vith two hundred 
 gold doublons; they seemed to be the great success of 
 Clement's life, and he was joyfully meditating more trans- 
 lations from the same source, when — O fatal keenness and 
 watchful suspicion of orthodoxy ! — the Sorbonne — that very 
 body against whom Marot had raised many a laugh in 
 joyous times gone by — the Sorbonne declared them heretical. 
 
 ' Vatable has the credit of Protestant principles, for no reason that 
 I know, except that Etienne published certain notes to the Psalms 
 under his name, which he does not appear to have written.
 
 28o CHAPTER XII. 
 
 At this dreadful word the king left off singing them, so to 
 speak, in the middle of a bar ; the old profane words were 
 hastily refitted to the old music ; the court was restored to 
 its proper worldliness and profanity; orthodoxy was avenged, 
 and Marot fled again. 
 
 This time there was no place possible for him but 
 Geneva. Thither he went, armed with his precious trans- 
 lations. It was a glorious windfall for the Reformers. 
 Here was a set of hymns, perfectly harmless to both sides, 
 but condemned by their adversaries as heretical. Not only 
 were they harmless, but they were musical and sweet beyond 
 any they had had before ; besides, they were the work of 
 the most famous poet in France, persecuted, as the rumour 
 said, on account of his religious opinions, and obliged to fly 
 to the pious and gentle Calvinists to avoid the hatred of 
 those heretical blasphemers, the Catholics, for whose burn- 
 ing there was not enough wood in all the world. This 
 most learned poet was a veritable brand plucked from the 
 burning; a convert whose example would be held up by 
 the sturdy Reformers as worthy of all imitation. Almost 
 Paul-like in his misfortunes and suffering for the faith, twice 
 had he been imprisoned, twice had he fled. Truly, a 
 martyr. 
 
 Cle'ment's appearance would seem to have betokened 
 anything but religious fervour. His stature was short; he 
 was prematurely grey and bald; his nose was flat and 
 broad, a sure sign of humour, but not a sure sign of re- 
 ligious zeal; he had large round eyes, a smooth broad 
 forehead, and his lips were thick and sensual. Still, in 
 those days, personal appearance would go for little. Marot
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 281 
 
 was made welcome and instantly turned to account. Ten 
 thousand copies, an enormous number for the time, of his 
 Psalms were sold, Clement having added twelve more, and 
 they were sung by the Genevan Protestants up to the 
 eighteenth century. But a new misfortune befel the poet, 
 ever buffeted about by an angry fate. Just as in France, 
 a poor bird of pleasure, enjoying life where and how he 
 could, and thinking of nothing less than a change of creed, 
 he was accused of Lutheranism ; so now in Geneva, a 
 shining light among the Reformers, and perforce a heretic 
 of the deepest dye, he was accused — sentenced to death, 
 say some — of immorality. Perhaps the charge was true ; 
 at any rate he fled again, and his good friend, the best- 
 hearted man of his time, Francis, protected him once more 
 for the short space that remained to him of life. He was 
 driven out of France in 1543 ; he was driven out of Geneva 
 in 1544 3 and he died in Piedmont in the same year : 
 
 "Quercy, la cour, le Piemont, I'univers, 
 Me fit, me tint, m' enserra, me congneut. 
 Quercy mon loz, la cour tout mon temps eut, 
 Piemont mes os et 1' univers mes vers. " 
 
 After the copious extracts I have given of his works, 
 it is somewhat superfluous to add any criticism. Unlucky 
 in everything else, he was lucky in this, that his reputation 
 was great in life, and increased after death. To this day, 
 of all the poets whom we have considered ; of all the poets 
 who Avrote in France up to the days of Ronsard, Clement 
 Marot is the only one read by any but the curious. It 
 is no wonder ; in those qualities which go to make a poet 
 of society, he is unequalled. I know nothing better, out
 
 282 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 of Pope or S\vift, than those lines of his when he pictures 
 himself returning with a safe conduct and visiting the court. 
 The assumption of the fact that he is no criminal, as patent 
 to the Dauphin, and requiring neither proof nor comment, 
 is itself a masterly stroke, and the lightness with which he 
 imagines himself standing to receive the welcome of his 
 friends, and then going back to his exile, is beyond all 
 praise. 
 
 He was not a great poet, nor a thinker in any sense. 
 A man of pleasure, but, judging from his wtI tings, of refine- 
 ment and courtliness ; holding a deep abhorrence for hard- 
 ship, suffering of all kind, and self-denial ; using his extra- 
 ordinary talent for making verses altogether in his own 
 interests ; vain of his reputation, heedless of what he said, 
 so it was well said ; and having that happy power, which 
 seems specially to belong to this superficial sort of genius, 
 of catching at the first glance the most salient point. He 
 reminds me sometimes of Moore, sometimes of Pope, some- 
 times of Swift — but without Swift's vigour and without his 
 ingrained coarseness; without Pope's illnature; and Avith 
 all Moore's grace. I think I have mentioned nearly all 
 his important poems, except L Enfer, in which he re- 
 counts his imprisonment in the Chastelet. 
 
 Not to make this chapter too long, let us only now 
 notice a few of his smaller pieces. Although he invented 
 nothing, although he was of the age strictly, and not before 
 the age at all, he is the king of epigram, rondeau, and 
 ballad. His ease and felicity in the rondeau he probably 
 derived from his father. In epigram he imitated, with his 
 friend Mellin de Saint Gelais, Martial, whom he edited.
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 283 
 
 It has been complained of him, that " sa langue se pretait 
 mal k des pense'es elevees," but the poor man had no 
 elevation of thought. How should he, when his favourite 
 poets were Lorris, Meung, and Villon ? Let us accept our 
 Clement for the good things that are in him, and not 
 quarrel with him, because he has not the grandeur of 
 a Milton, nor the versatility of a Shakespeare. 
 
 ON A KISS FROM HIS MISTRESS. 
 
 "En la baisant, m' a dit, 'Amy sans blasme, 
 Ce seul baiser qui deux bouches embasme, 
 Les arres sont du bien tant espere.' 
 Ce mot elle a doulcement profere 
 Pensant du tout appaiser ma grande flamme. 
 Mais le mien cueur adonc plus elle enflamme 
 Car son alaine, adorant plus que basme, 
 Souffloit le feu qu' Amour m'a prepare, 
 En la baisant. 
 
 Brief, mon esprit, sans congnoissance d'ame, 
 Vivoit alors sur la bouche \ ma dame 
 Dont se mouroit le corps enamoure : 
 Et si sa 15vre eust gueres demour^ 
 Contre la mienne, elle m'eust succe I'ame 
 En la baisant." 
 
 HUITAIN. 
 
 "Plus ne suis ce que j'ay este, 
 Et ne le saurois jamais estre : 
 Mon beau printemps et mon este 
 Ont faict le saut par la fenestre. 
 Amour, tu as este mon maistre, 
 Je t'ay servy sur tous les dicux, 
 O si je povois deux fois naistre, 
 Comme je te servirois mieubc !"
 
 284 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DE OUY ET NENNY. 
 
 " Ung doulx nenny, avec ung doulx soubrire, 
 Est tant honneste : il le vous fault apprendre. 
 Quand est d' ouy, si veniez a le dire, 
 D' avoir trop dit je vouldrois vous rependre : 
 Non que je soys ennuye d' entreprendre 
 D' avoir le fruict, dont le desir me poingt : 
 Mais je vouldrois qu' en me le laissant prendre 
 Vous me dissiez : ' Non, vous ne 1' aurez point. ' " 
 
 A LA ROYNE DE NAVARRE. 
 
 "Nous fusmes, sommes, et serons 
 Mort et malice et innocence ; 
 Le pas de mort nous passerons ; 
 Malice est tousjours en presence ; 
 Dieu en nostre premiere essence 
 Nous voulut d' innocence orner : 
 O la mort pleine d' excellence, 
 Qui nous y fera retourner ! " 
 
 ON THE SMILES OF MADEMOISELLE D'ALLEBRET. 
 
 "Ella a tres bien ceste gorge d' albastre, 
 Ce doulx parler, ce cler tainct, ces beaulx yeulx : 
 Mais, en effect, ce petit ris folastre 
 C'est, a mon gre, ce que luy sied le mieulx. 
 Elle en pourroit les chemins et Ics lieulx 
 Oil elle passe, a plaisir inciter. 
 Et si ennuy me venoit contrister 
 Tant que par mort fust ma vie abattue, 
 II ne fauldroit pour me resusciter, 
 Que ce ris la duquel elle me tue." 
 
 ON DIANA. 
 
 "Hommes expers, vous dictes par science 
 Que Dyane est en baisant beaucoup pire
 
 LA FAMILLE MAROT. 285 
 
 Que n' est la mort : mais par experience 
 De ce vous veulx et vous puis contrcdire : 
 Car quand sa bouche en la mienne soiispire, 
 Toute vigueur dedans mon cueur s' assemble : 
 Vous resvez doncq, on certes il fault dire 
 Qu'en la baisant, mourir vivre me semble." 
 
 Of his wife, nothing is knowTi ; of his "petits Marotteaux," 
 only one has left any sign behind. This was Michel 
 Marot, who was page to Marguerite of France in 1534. 
 He has left three or four pieces behind him, one of which, 
 the Ode to the Queen of Navarre, begins : 
 
 "Ma princesse, 
 Ma maistresse, 
 Je suis le fils de Clement." 
 
 And that is all that is known about Michel. 
 
 Like many other poets, from Ovid dowTiwards, Marot 
 had a vast opinion of his own reputation. He tells the 
 Dauphin that he is meditating a work, si ma muse s' en- 
 flamme, 
 
 " Qui, malgre temps, malgre fer, malgre flamme, 
 Et malgre mort, fera vivre sans fin 
 Le roi Fran9ois et son noble dauphin." 
 
 Certainly, so long as the French language continues to 
 be spoken, CMment Marot will be read, and %vill tell the ages 
 of the many times he tested the friendship of the good king 
 Francis, and found it sincere. One rises from the penisal 
 of Marot with a feeling somewhat akin to contempt, mixed 
 with hking. He was so continually in scrapes; was so 
 helpless and dependent ; was so constantly begging ; so 
 perpetually unlucky, and so persistently careless, — that one
 
 286 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 feels towards him much as one would have felt towards 
 OHver Goldsmith — "A monstrous clever man, sir; but a 
 child might turn him. And dissipated, I am told." 
 
 In person, Marot was, like Goldsmith and Moore, of 
 small stature and stout. His portrait, as I have said above, 
 indicates a temperament sensual and easy, with that sort of 
 toiirnure which agrees with what we are told of the vanity 
 of the man. 
 
 Let me conclude my notice of Marot with an epigram 
 by Theodore Beza : 
 
 CLEMENTI MAROTO. 
 
 Tarn docte Venerem divinus pinxit Apelles, 
 
 Illi ut credatur visa fuisse Venus. 
 At tamtam sapiunt Venerem tua scripta, Maroto, 
 
 Ut tibi credatur cognita tota Venus. 
 
 Note i. 
 
 The Twelfth Eclogue of Spenser's Shepherd's Kalendar is, in parts, 
 almost a translation of Marot. For instance, compare the following 
 with the lines in page 254 : 
 
 "Whilome in youth, when flowed my joyfull spring, 
 Like swallows swift I wandered here and there : 
 For heate of heedlesse lust me so did sting, 
 That I of doubted daunger had no feare : 
 I went the wasteful woodes and forest wide, 
 Withouten dreade of wolves to been espyed. 
 
 I wont to raunge amydde the mazie thickette. 
 And gather nulles to make me Christmas game. 
 And joyed oft to chace the trembling Pricket, 
 Or hunt the hartlesse hare till she was tame. 
 
 What wreaked I of wintrye age's waste? 
 
 Tho deemed I my spring would ever laste.
 
 LA FAMILLE MA ROT. 287 
 
 How often have I scaled the craggie oke, 
 All to dislodge the raven of her nest? 
 How have I wearied with many a stroke 
 The stately walnut tree, the while the rest 
 
 Under the tree fell all for nuts at strife? 
 
 Yox ylikc to me was libertee and lyfe." 
 
 Note ii. 
 
 From the Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris, 1535. Lundi. 25 Jan. 
 .... Adjournez a son de tronipette a trois briefs jours par les carre- 
 fours de Paris, jusques au nombre de soixante trois Lutheriens, qui s' en 
 estoient fuis hors Paris, a comparoir en personnes, et a faulte de non 
 comparoir, estre attains du cas . . . et condamnez a estre broulez. Des- 
 quelz appelez estoit Caroli, prestre .... maistre Clement Marot. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE. 
 
 In the year 1803 there appeared in Paris a very remarkable 
 collection of poems, said to be of the fifteenth century. 
 The editor, M. Vanderbourg, professed to have received 
 from the widow of an ex-officer of the ancien regime a 
 bundle of Manuscripts which contained the poems, never 
 till then published, of a woman of his family remarkable 
 alike for learning, genius, beauty, and piety. Certainly the 
 published verses sufficiently attested to the genius of the 
 writer. In an illiterate age, these were learned ; in a com- 
 paratively gross age, these were perfectly pure ; in an age 
 of bad taste, these were in good taste ; in an age of turmoil, 
 trouble, and disaster, these were quiet and self-contained ; 
 and in an age of affectation, these were simple. Moreover, 
 whereas the diction of the known poets of the time — of 
 Alain Chartier and Charles of Orleans — was comparatively 
 obscure, that of the newly found poetess, Madame de 
 Surville, was clear, easy, and graceful. Consider the 
 delight with which we should welcome a poem — of the 
 fifteenth century — as sweet and touching as any in the
 
 CI.OTJLDE DE SURVILLE. 289 
 
 nineteenth. Consider the glory of finding a writer of tlie 
 time of Henry the Fifth as easy and as simple as Shakes- 
 peare. And then imagine the rapture of the Parisians at 
 finding, in an unknown author of the time of mad Charles 
 the Sixth, all the beauties of their own day, with all the 
 canons of taste (not then laid down) inviolate and perfect. 
 
 This was what Monsieur Vanderbourg ofi"ered them. 
 The first edition was speedily run out, but, alas ! before 
 the second had time to appear, it was necessary for the 
 editor to gird on his armour, and sally forth to defend the 
 fair fame of his protegee. This had been attacked. Clotilde 
 de Surville was accused, not of those offences Avhich woman- 
 kind visit so severely ; not of the minor sins which are 
 sometimes forgiven ; not of any feminine or even human 
 crimes, delinquencies, or shortcomings, but of the grand, 
 unpardonable offence of never having been. " There is 
 not" — said the critics — "there is not, and there never has 
 been, any Madame Clotilde de Surville at all." M. Van- 
 derbourg was equal to the occasion. Perhaps he had 
 anticipated some such attack. He rose in his wrath, and 
 in his next edition, that of 1805, he smote his enemies, hip 
 and thigh, with great slaughter. So he said : they on the 
 other hand, not knowing wlien they were beaten, replied 
 that there was no slaughter at all ; that they had the best 
 of it; that all the arguments of M. Vanderbourg were 
 worthless ; and they repeated that, in short, there was no 
 Madame Clotilde de Surville at all, and never had been. 
 Further, that the original genuine Clotilde was nobody but 
 the late Marquis de Surville ; and, if it was not he, it was 
 no one but M. Vanderbourg himself. The critics are dead 
 
 U
 
 2 90 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 now, and M. Vandcrbourg too ; and the question is as for 
 off as ever from being settled. We can, however, hear at 
 least the editor's account of his first acquaintance with the 
 manuscript, and the story of the late Marquis de Surville. 
 
 Joseph Etienne, Marquis de Surville, the representative 
 of an old and very lionourable French family, was born 
 in the year 1755. ^'^ ''^^'^ early age he entered the Royal 
 service ; was present at the war of Corsica, and afterwards 
 served in the American war of Independence. He attained 
 the rank of Colonel General in the French army, and when 
 the trouble of the Revolution began, he did what most of 
 his class thought it prudent to do, emigrated, to wait for 
 better times. It would have been well for him if he had 
 waited. Unfortunately he came back in 1 798, and \v3.%fusUle. 
 
 The Marquis seems to have had all the virtues of his 
 class. He was brave, chivalrous, and reckless. Quarrelling 
 once, it is said, with a certain Captain Middleton of the 
 English navy on the respective merits of their countries, 
 he fought the gallant captain with sabres, (which they called 
 leaving to the judgment of God to decide which had the 
 more honourable country,) till they both dropped from 
 exhaustion and loss of blood. His loyalty was of that 
 ideal purity of which we hear so much, and find so little 
 in those times. He would have been one of the Cavaliers 
 of Charles the First ; the sworn brother in arms to the 
 Chevalier Bayard; a gallant breaker of lances and con- 
 temner of the villain or the bourgeois, had fate willed his 
 birth earlier. As it was he did what he could ; he agitated 
 for the Royal house, intrigued for them, conspired for them, 
 and died for them.
 
 CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE. 291 
 
 He wrote great quantities of verse. These, for the sins 
 of his generation, have never been pubHshed. We have so 
 much to read now, that it is to be hoped they have all been 
 lost. But his brother assured M. Vanderbourg that they 
 were prolix, tedious, and wanting in simplicity ; a criticism 
 which, if it is genuine, is important to remember, for the 
 simple reason that the so-called verses of Clotilde are neither 
 prolix nor tedious. 
 
 According to the account of his editor, the Marquis, in 
 the year 17S2, while looking through the family archives, 
 chanced upon an old bundle of manuscripts, which, on inves- 
 tigation, turned out to be the hitherto unknown poems of 
 a long-forgotten member of his own family. These manu- 
 scripts he shewed to his brother, who being, it is presumed, 
 a person of no great poetical enthusiasm, thought little of 
 them, and took no interest at all in the discovery. He also 
 shewed them to a certain M. De F. (name not given) who 
 informed M. Vanderbourg that he saw a lot of old writings 
 very hard to read. The testimony of ]\I. De F. is not very 
 important, except that it proves, provided it is true, that 
 certain old manuscripts did exist. 
 
 The Marquis then, he states, proceeded, as a preliminary 
 measure, to study old French, and in course of time suc- 
 ceeded in deciphering a great part of the documents. He 
 also shewed his brother several "cahiers" full of these 
 transcriptions. His unsympathetic brother again felt little 
 interest in the matter. 
 
 At the time of his emigration he appears to have taken 
 these cahiers, or some of them, with him, and to have left 
 the original MSS. behind him at his chateau. But in 1793,
 
 292 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 he being then in Liege, and his sisters in prison at Viviers, 
 his mother, who was alone at the Castle, was obliged to 
 give up all the family papers in a mass to the Revolutionary- 
 Committee, by whom they were burnt, made into gunwads, 
 or otherwise disposed of — at all events, hopelessly lost. 
 
 Again, at the time of his execution he had with him 
 a trunk containing more of his transcriptions, which he con- 
 fided to a certain postmaster, and which also perished. But 
 — and this is certainly a strong point — whereas he never 
 shewed the least anxiety about his own poetical effusions, 
 his last thoughts, on the eve of his death, were about the 
 safety of the poems of his ancestress. M. Vanderbourg 
 gives the last letter he wrote to his wife. He says : 
 
 " Je ne puis te dire maintenant ou j' ai laisse quelques 
 manuscrits de ma propre main relatifs aux ceuvres im- 
 mortelles de Clotilde, que je voulois donner au public, 
 lis te seront remis quelque jour par des mains amies a qui 
 je les ai spe'cialement recommandes. Je te prie d'en com- 
 muniquer quelque chose a des gens de lettres capables de 
 les apprecier, et d' en faire apres cela 1' usage que te dictera 
 la sagesse. Fais en sorte au moins que ces fruits de mes 
 recherches ne soient pas totalement perdus pour la poste'ritd, 
 surtout pour 1' honneur de ma famille dont mon frere reste 
 r unique et dernier soutien." 
 
 Finally, we understand that a hand had been at work 
 on the manuscripts before that of the Marquis, and that 
 in the seventeenth century a certain Madame Jeanne de 
 Vallon de Surville had wished to edit them, but was pre- 
 vented by her early death from carrying her purpose into 
 execution.
 
 CLOTILDE DE SURVJLLE. 293 
 
 M. Vanderbourg first saw the poems in 1794, when he 
 copied three pieces which struck him as very remarkable. 
 He then went to America, where he stayed some years ; and 
 on his return, finding that the Marquis was dead, he wTOte 
 to his widow to inquire into the fate of the manuscripts. 
 Receiving from her all that she could find, he published 
 them in a collected form. 
 
 The points of attack are these : 
 
 1. Why should Clotilde alone have escaped from the 
 general corruption of taste? 
 
 2. How, when even the Royal Library contained no 
 more than nine hundred volumes, should she be so well 
 acquainted with ancient literature, and be able to imitate 
 where her contemporaries could hardly copy? 
 
 3. Why did she remain unknown to the end of tlie 
 eighteenth century? 
 
 4. Some critics also assert that they have found in her 
 writings allusion to the system of Copernicus, Copernicus 
 then being only just born ; some refutation of Lucretius, 
 then not printed ; reference to the satellites of Saturn 
 not yet discovered ; words which did not then exist in the 
 French language ; poetical forms not then in use ; and 
 allusions to the state of France so exactly applicable to the 
 eighteenth century as to make it impossible to account for 
 the coincidence by any theor)- of the distracted reigns of the 
 Sixth and Seventh Charles. 
 
 Some of these objections are answered at once if we 
 consider that the manuscripts are said to have passed 
 through the hands of two transcribers, Jeanne de Surville 
 in the seventeenth, and Joseph Etienne de Surville in the
 
 294 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 eighteenth century ; granting the existence of the old poetry, 
 it is quite impossible to say how much has been added, taken 
 away, or altered. All anachronisms may be put down to the 
 account of the two transcribers, and the ordinary arguments 
 used to convict of a forgery are in this case deprived of 
 half their value. Chatterton, for instance, laid himself 
 open to conviction on the discovery of a single word later 
 than the assigned date of his manuscript. The editor of 
 Clotilde, it may be, taught by history, carefully guards 
 against such an accident. The arginnent of improbability 
 may be brought to bear so strongly as almost to enforce 
 a conviction ; but no other argument has any weight at all. 
 The last objection, for instance, assumes enormous weight 
 when we read the following passage. And yet it is only 
 an objection of improbability. No sentence in it but 
 would strictly apply to France under Charles the Sixth : and 
 yet hardly a sentence which would not apply to France in 
 1795. To shew more completely the modem spirit of the 
 lines, I write them in modern spelling, without, however, 
 altering the words : 
 
 "Banni par ses sujets, le plus noble des princes 
 
 Erre, et proscrit en ses propres remparts, 
 De chateaux en chateaux, et de villes en villes, 
 
 Contraint de fuir lieux ou devrait regner, 
 Pendant qu'hommes felons, clercs, et troupes serviles 
 
 L'osent — O crime! — en jugement assigner. 
 Non, non — ne peult durer tant coupable vertige : 
 
 C) peuple Franc reviendras a ton roy ! 
 
 De tant de maux, ami, ce penser me console : 
 
 One n' a pareils venge divin secours : 
 Comme degats de flots, de volcans, et d' Eole : 
 
 Plus sont affreux, plus crois que seront courts."
 
 CLOriLDE DE SURVILLE. 295 
 
 It is impossible to say who wrote these lines, but we 
 can be very sure that they were penned by no poet of the 
 fifteenth century, and inspired by no misfortunes of the 
 unhappy wanderer Charles. Many other passages might 
 be quoted, wlicre the modern spirit is most prominent and 
 unmistakable, but this for the present will suffice. 
 
 As for the other objections, a long and ram.bling defence 
 is set up by the Marquis, or rather by the editor, out of the 
 Marquis's papers. 
 
 Taste, he says, was never wholly corrupted. There has 
 been, from Heloise downwards, a long stream of French 
 poetesses of true genius and pure taste. The more eminent 
 names he cites. And he gives extracts from the poems 
 which remain of these women, to substantiate his statement. 
 He then gives us a long and detailed life of Clotildc, 
 which we shall come to presently. 
 
 As for her obscurity, that is accounted for by the fact of 
 her retired country life ; the wretched state of France during 
 the whole of that century ; the enmity and rivalry of Alain 
 Chartier, the court poet (though it is hard to see what this 
 has to do with it) ; and the fact that from her fortieth year 
 she seems to have refused altogether any invitations to go 
 out into the world. Her great contemporary, too, Charles 
 of Orleans, was utterly unknown as a poet for three hundred 
 years after his death. Neither Boileau, nor Ronsard, nor 
 Du Bellay, nor Marot makes the least mention of his name : 
 nor was it till 1734 that he fell into the hands of the Abbe' 
 Sallier, and was published by him. This fact is so striking 
 that the objection to Clotilde's obscurity is answered at 
 once by it. For if a great prince, the father of Louis XH.
 
 296 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 of France, could \vrite reams of verses and yet wholly fall 
 into oblivionj how much more an obscure country lady, 
 writing during the intervals of a long and retired life, with 
 no audience but her immediate little circle of friends ? 
 
 We ask in vain for the original manuscripts ; the Marquis 
 tells us how they were lost : that Revolution ! We seek for 
 proof that Clotilde's words were all used in the fifteenth 
 century; in vain, for Jeanne de Vallon had transcribed, 
 perhaps improved, the manuscripts in the seventeenth, 
 and the Marquis in the eighteenth. When we read the hfe 
 and story of Clotilde, it is fair to expect that her idioms 
 will agree with those of her birthplace and time — but of this 
 difficulty the Marquis says nothing; that some reason 
 should be given, some at least possible explanation of the 
 manner in which she anticipated the genius of the language ; 
 that some notice should be taken of her regularity of metre, 
 and of many other things. But the Marquis on these points 
 is silent. 
 
 But if Clotilde did not write these poems, who did? 
 The Marquis de Surville, say some. But he wrote in quite 
 a different style ; he was prolix, tedious ; he wanted grace, 
 he wanted simplicity. Who says so? His brother. To 
 whom did his brother say so ? To M. Vanderbourg. Is 
 it possible that in so stirring a time, and in such a short 
 and busy life, he should have found time for such a com- 
 plicated forgery? Lasdy, do men on the very point of 
 death persist in lies, and even invent more ? 
 
 As for the time required to write these poems, the 
 Marquis confessedly wrote a lot of poetry ; where is it all ? 
 Lost. Who saw it? His brother? And as for the per-
 
 CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE. 297 
 
 sistence in a lie, it is no new thing for men to go to the 
 block and the gallows with a lie in their mouths. I do not 
 know what were the religious convictions of M. de Surville, 
 but we know what were those of his class and time, and 
 I think it is not difficult to believe that a man who would 
 have died a hundred deaths rather than sully his own 
 honour by saying the thing that was not as regards him- 
 self, would yet, in the cause of his family name, have 
 maintained to the death the authenticity of poems, of which 
 his own pen had been the main maker. 
 
 A code of honour docs not necessarily imply a strict 
 adherence to logic, and what would be a base and un- 
 pardonable lie in one case, might appear in another only 
 a Spartan adherence to the honour of a name. In the 
 recommendation of his last letter it is possible to see the 
 vanity of the author as well as the pride of the nobleman. 
 In the fame of Clotilde, Joseph Etienne and the name of 
 De Surville would live again. 
 
 If De Surville did not forge the documents, perhaps 
 M. Vanderbourg did. No one I believe ever saw the tran- 
 scripts of the Marquis, or his letters, his cahiers, or his notes. 
 Only, to forge the whole of these two volumes must have 
 been a work of such tremendous labour that it is impossible 
 to believe that either M. Vanderbourg or M. De Surville 
 could have singly performed it. I say nothing of the au- 
 dacity of the attempt, for many such have been made almost 
 as audacious and equally successful. To construct a whole 
 epic out of nothing, and call it the work of Fingal, seems 
 an extraordinary piece of boldness ; but there the writer had 
 some Gaelic fragments, apparently, to give him some sort
 
 298 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 of groundwork for his phraseology, and the rest being in 
 modern Enghsh, was comparatively easy. Here we are 
 asked to believe that a man who died at forty, who spent 
 his life in active pursuits, a great fighting man and a great 
 intriguer, should deliberately set himself to work to counter- 
 feit the language of the fifteenth century, and, in order to 
 magnify his own family, should manufacture a story with 
 all sorts of adjuncts, circumstantial evidence, and literary- 
 documents, of which he should be so fond and so proud as 
 to ask for its publication, and maintain its genuineness, with 
 his latest breath. It is hard to believe; but— it is not 
 impossible. 
 
 Villemain accepts the work as most remarkable, and 
 sums up in these words : 
 
 " Quand on a lu Charles d' Orleans,- on reconnait dans 
 les poesies de Clotilde une fabrication moderne qui se 
 
 trahit par la perfection meme de 1' artifice La fraude 
 
 une fois prouvee reste le merite de la fraude en ellememe. 
 Ces poesies sont charmantes." 
 
 These difficulties and objections being fairly laid down, 
 let us, to save further trouble, consider this shadowy poetess 
 as a real flesh and blood woman of the fifteenth century, 
 it being agreed that every one may make any mental 
 reservation that he pleases. The details of her life, it is 
 premised, are drawn from the family archives, maliciously 
 and wickedly burnt by the Revolutionary Committee in the 
 
 year 1795. 
 
 Marguerite Eleanor Clotilde de Vallon Chalys, Dame 
 de Surville, was bom in the year 1405, at the chateau of 
 Vallon near the town of Viviers in Vivarez. Viviers is
 
 CLOriLDE DE SURVJLLE. 299 
 
 a small town now in the department of Arde'che on the 
 river Rhone, some forty miles above Avignon. South of the 
 Province of Vivarez were the classic fields of Languedoc 
 and Provence ; but whatever inspiration the young Clotilde 
 drew from the neighbouring land of the troubadours, she 
 is indebted to them for no idioms of her language. She 
 writes, unaccountably, in pure Langue d' Oil. Her mother, 
 Pulcherie de Fay Collan, was a woman of great taste, learn- 
 ing, and vivacity. She had been attached to the household 
 of Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix and Be'arn, and while 
 there made such good use of the library as to become a 
 proficient in Latin, Italian, and French literature ; and 
 even, it is said, though this one must really believe to be 
 an exaggeration, in Greek. These acquirements she im- 
 parted to her daughter Clotilde, with extraordinary success. 
 At the early age of twelve the young lady wrote verses 
 of such singular merit that Christine de Pisan declared 
 herself ready to resign the sceptre of Parnassus in favour 
 of the child. At sixteen years of age 'she married Berenger 
 de Surville whom she passionately loved. Soon after her 
 marriage she wrote the Heroide to him, on the occasion of 
 his joining the king, and consequent separation from her : 
 
 "Clotilde au sien amy doulce mande accolade 
 
 A son espoulx, salut, respect, amour ! 
 Ah ! tandis qu' esploree et de cceur si malade, 
 
 Je quier la nuict, te redemande au jour, 
 Que deviens, ou cours-tu ? loing de ta bien aymee, 
 
 Oil les destins entraisnent done tes pas? 
 Faut que le dize, helas ! s' en croy la renommee, 
 
 De bien long temps ne te revoyrai pas !
 
 300 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Pardonne maigntz souleys a ceste qui t' adore ; 
 
 A tant d' amour est permis quelqu' effroy : 
 Ah ! dez chasque matin que 1' Olympe se dore, 
 
 Se me voyiez montant sur le beffroy, 
 Pourmenant mes regards tant que peuvent s' estendre, 
 
 Et me livrant a d' impuysans dezirs ! 
 Folle que je suis — helaz — m' est advis de t' attendre ; 
 
 Illusion me tient lieu de playzirs! 
 
 Lors nul n' est estrangier a ma vive tendresse : 
 
 Te cuyde veoir : me semble te parler : 
 'La,' me dis-je, 'ay receu sa derniere caresse.' 
 
 Et jusqu' aux oz soudain me sens brusler. 
 ' Icy, les ung ormeil cercle par aubespine 
 
 Que doulx printemps ja coronoit des flours. 
 Me diet adieu.' Sanglots suffoquent ma poitrine, 
 
 Et dans mes yeulx roulent torrents de plours. 
 
 Oil que su)'ves ton roy, ne mets ta doulce amye 
 
 En tel oubly qu' ignore oil gist ce lieu : 
 Jusqu' alors en soulcy, de calme n' aura mye. 
 
 Plus ne t' en dye ; que t' en soubvienne. Adieu. " 
 
 It will hardly be believed that the envious Alain Chartier 
 pronounced against this effusion. He said that it wanted 
 the air of the court. Clotilde, in other respects the most 
 amiable of her sex, never forgave the insult. There are, 
 indeed, few women who can forgive an accusation of vul- 
 garity. To impeach their youth, or their good looks, or 
 their kind temper, is venial ; but to charge them with vulgar 
 manners is indeed unpardonable, — and to this day survive 
 the rondeaux in which her pen is filled with revengeful 
 gall against him who wrought the wrong. Her married life 
 lasted seven years. During this time she lived surrounded 
 by her family and her friends. Of these, who were chiefly 
 poetical young ladies, we hear mostly of her doulce amye
 
 CLO TILDE DE SURVILLE. 30 1 
 
 Rocca. Then it was that she planned her long poem first 
 called Lygdamir, and then Phelypeide ; and undertook her 
 romance of the " Chastel d' Amour." After the death of 
 her husband, which took place in 1428, her happy life was 
 broken up and her friends dispersed, some to go into a 
 convent, some to marry. She was left with one son, to 
 whom she devoted at first her whole time. Subsequently, 
 feeling the want of a poetical circle, she adopted two young 
 ladies, Sophie de Lyonne and Juliette de Vivaray, and 
 made them her pupils and disciples. It is hinted that 
 these demoiselles permitted themselves to fall in love with 
 the young De Surville, and in consequence of the hopeless- 
 ness of their attachment retired to a convent. After this 
 we hear of no more pupils — only the son married, and after 
 his death his daughter remained unmarried Avith her grand- 
 mother till her death, which took place after 1495, the lady 
 having lived upwards of ninety years, and written poetry for 
 fourscore. Well might the Marquis speak of his collections 
 at Lit^ge, his trunk with the postmaster, and the precious 
 mass destroyed by the Revolutionary Committee. 
 
 In 1440 Charles of Orleans returned to France. Alain 
 Chartier at this time published a translation of Aulus 
 Gellius with a preface, in which he attacked, quite without 
 provocation, the Dame de Surville. Clotilde replied by 
 a rondel, which attracted great attention at the court, and 
 followed up her advantage by a solemn letter of poetical 
 thanks to the duke of Burgundy, by whose munificence 
 Charles had been ransomed. Naturally, this called forth 
 the warmest gratitude of the royal poet, and in conjunction 
 with Margaret of Scotland, the wife of Louis XL, he sent
 
 302 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 her a crown of golden laurel, with the device " Margaret of 
 Scotland to Margaret of Helicon." 
 
 The story of Clotilde's life culminates with this honour. 
 Of her remaining fifty years of life we have no record, save 
 that she resisted any invitation to leave her country retreat, 
 and that she did not die till after the victory of Farnova 
 which she celebrates, at the age of ninety, with as much 
 vigour as if she had been thirty. 
 
 The poems and fragments which M. Vanderbourg pub- 
 lished amount to two volumes, which could very easily be 
 compressed into one small octavo volume of two hundred 
 pages. Yet he tells us that the whole collection originally 
 designed for publication by the late Marquis would have 
 amounted to no less than eight octavo volumes of eight 
 hundred pages each — that is to say, six thousand four 
 hundred pages, or at least two hundred thousand lines. 
 Certainly, witli all respect to our author be it said, we owe 
 the French Revolution for burning some of these one small 
 debt of gratitude. The collection consisted of poems, 
 songs, romances, dramas ; two " plaidoyers" in favour of 
 Jaques Coeur the ' grand argentief of France ; a history of 
 Atlantis in twelve books — let us be thankful that this is lost ; 
 a theory of colours ( !) ; a complete history of French poetry, 
 with curious notices on the lives and works of poetesses ; 
 and memoirs of the period. There were originally eight 
 books of memoirs, of which the Marquis found five entire ; 
 the "remaining two^'' he says, being lost. There was 
 another work of Clotilde's, the nature of which is not stated, 
 but which is also lost. These, indeed, be labours. 
 
 Here is another small piece from the Heroide :
 
 CLOriLDE DE SURVILLE. 303 
 
 "Quand revoyray, diz moy, ton si duyzant vizaige ? 
 Qiiand te pourray face a face myrer? 
 T'enlacer tellcment a mon frcment corsaige, 
 Que toy, ni moy, n'en puyssions respirer?" 
 
 Here is a burst of patriotism : 
 
 "Te le redys, amy: jk I'entrevoy ceste heure 
 
 Oil, triomphant de si noirs attentatz, 
 Charles de ses ayeulx va puigeanl la demeure, 
 
 Et liberer ses coulpables estatz ! 
 L' Eternel d' un regard brize enfin mille obstacles, 
 
 Des ciculx ouverts veille encor sur nos lys : 
 Eust 11 au monde engtier desnye des miracles, 
 
 II en debvroit au trosne de Clovis." 
 
 The fifth hne smacks terribly of the eighteenth century. 
 Here is a graceful ' Rondel' to her friend Rocca, who 
 asked her if she recollected the first " tintement d' Amour." 
 
 " Se m'en soubvient ceste heure tant belle 
 Oil mon amy vers moy vint accourant ; 
 Plus beau cent fois que la roze nouvelle, 
 Ne voyd zephir d'elle s' enamourant, 
 Ez moys gentilz que chante Philomele. 
 Lorsque me diet. ' Plus ne veulx, demoyselle, 
 Aultres desduicts qu'estre pour vous souffrant.' 
 Vys mon esmoy : puys demandes, cruelle, 
 Se m' en soubvient. 
 
 Pour ceste, emprez qu' eust diet, ' Fiere pucelle, 
 Estes a moi,' qu'eust de bayzers couvrant 
 Secrets appas que traistre Amour decele, 
 Faict en ses braz senty qu' alloy mourant, 
 Pas trop, ma foy, ne me soubvient d' icelle, 
 Se m'en soubvient." 
 
 Here is another of the same kind, and equally graceful :
 
 3°4 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "Qu'au cler de la lune ay deduict, se me voy 
 Seulette ez bords d' ung crystal de fontaine ! 
 Ung soir y vint mon espoulx et mon roy : 
 Bayzer m' y prist : ne le sentys qu' a payne, 
 Et sy pouitant fus je toute en esmoy — 
 Me courrouciay: n'avoit encor ma foy 
 (Sy bien mon coeur, car I'eust de prime aubaine) 
 Oncques n' ozions nous dire tu ny toy, 
 Qu'au cler de lune. 
 
 Done me fachay : puys comme il se tient coy, 
 Luy pardon nay ; sur ce diet, ' O ma rayne ! 
 N' en coustoit plus d' en prendre une vingtaine, 
 Se r avoy sceu ! ' Fayz done, amy ; pourquoy 
 M' as veu de nuict : n' est tant la faute a moy 
 Qu'au cler de lune." 
 
 I think the last stanza perfectly delicious. Nothing 
 could be simpler and yet more gracefully turned. The 
 word "coy" is not used in the sense of our coy. It is 
 derived from quietus, and means, here, well-behaved and 
 quiet. The English coy is of course the same word with 
 changed meaning. 
 
 But the lines by which her name is best known are the 
 verses on her first-born. If they are really, even in an 
 altered form, the work of a woman of her period, they are 
 simply the most beautiful, time and tongue considered, in 
 the French language. But, alas ! they have a suspicious 
 family resemblance to the well-known lines, "Dors, cher 
 enfant : clos ta paupiere." I give them with such slight 
 changes in the spelling as to shew more fully their modern 
 spirit, partly hidden in their antique dress. There are 
 fifteen verses, of which I give eight :
 
 CLOTILDE DF. SURVILLE. 305 
 
 "O cher enfantelet, vrai portrait de ton pere, 
 Dors sur le sein que ta bouche a presse ! 
 Dors, petit ; clos, ami, sur le sein de ta mere, 
 Ton doux ceillet par le somme opprcsse. 
 
 Bel ami, cher petit, que ta pupille tendre 
 
 Goutte un sommeil qui plus n' est fait pour moi ! 
 
 Je veille pour te voir, te nourrir, te defendre . . . 
 Ains qu' il m' est doux ne veillir que pour toi ! 
 
 Dors, mon enfantelet, mon souci, mon idole ! 
 
 Dors sur mon sein, le sein qui t' a porte ! 
 Ne m' esjouit encore le son de ta parole, 
 
 Bien ton souris cent fois m'aye enchante. 
 O cher enfantelet etc. 
 
 Etend ses brasselets : s' epand sur lui le somme : 
 Se clost son ceil : plus ne bouge . . . il s' cndort . . . 
 
 N'etait ce teint fleuri des couleurs de la pomme, 
 Ne le diriez dans les bras de la mort? 
 
 AiTete . . . cher enfant ... j' en fremis toute enti^re ! 
 
 Reveille toi ! chasse un fatal propos ! 
 Mon fils ! pour un moment ... ah ! revois la Iiuniere ! 
 
 Au prix du ton rends moi tout mon repos . . . 
 
 Douce erreur ! il dormoit . . . c' est assez : je respire : 
 
 Songes legers, flattez son doux sommeil : 
 Ah ! quand verrai celui pour que mon coeur soupire, 
 
 Aux mes cotes, jouir di son reveil? 
 () cher enfantelet etc. 
 
 Te park et ne m' entends , . . eh I que disje ? . . . insensee ! 
 
 Plus n' oiroit il quand fut moult eveille . . . 
 Pauvre cher enfan9on ! . . . cher fils de ta pensee 
 
 L' echevelet n' est encore debrouille. 
 
 Tretous avons etc, comme es toi, dans cette heure: 
 
 Triste raison que trop tot n' adviendra ! 
 En la paix dont jouis, s' est possible, ah ! demeure \ 
 
 A tes beaux jours meme il n' en souviendra 
 O cher enfantelet etc." 
 
 X
 
 3o6 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " Those," says M. Villetriain, quoted above, " who have 
 read Charles of Orleans will have no difficulty in seeing 
 at once that these are not poems of the fifteenth century." 
 This is to me a fact beyond all question, but the difficulty 
 still remains as to the share in the business due to the 
 Marquis de Surville. I prefer to think that he did really 
 find a mass of manuscripts ; that many of these had passed 
 through the hands of Madame Jeanne and Vallon de Sur- 
 ville ; that he transcribed some ; and that many were burnt 
 by the Revolutionary Committee. But I think that he 
 transcribed those already touched-up by Jeanne of the 
 seventeenth century ; that he added lines of his own, whole 
 stanzas — in imitation ; that many passages (in particular 
 that beginning 
 
 "Banny par ses subjects, le plus noble des princes,") 
 
 are wholly due to his pen ; and that, had he lived longer, 
 a great mass of verses, the combined work of Clotilda, 
 Jeanne, and Joseph Etienne — 
 
 "Three poets in three distant ages born," 
 
 would have been given to the world. 
 
 If the poems are genuine, which is, as a Avhole, im- 
 possible, Clotilde de Surville was the most remarkable 
 genius that France has produced ; if they are altogether 
 a forgery, which I hold to be also impossible. Messieurs de 
 Surville and Vanderbourg, conjointly or separately, were 
 more audacious importers than Chatterton, Ireland, and 
 Macpherson, rolled together. 
 
 If the story of her life is true, there is no more beautiful
 
 CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE. 307 
 
 picture of the time than that of Clotilde de Surville. Her 
 life was wholly a life of love. She passed from her mother's 
 heart to her husband's \ from her husband's to her son's ; 
 from her son's to her granddaughter's. In the quiet little 
 village where she lived, not far from the busy country-to\\Ti 
 of Viviers, the waves of war and desolation broke far away, 
 and their rolling was almost unheard by her. The Burgund- 
 ians and the Armagnacs fought in the streets of Paris ; the 
 English at Azincourt laid low the glory and pride of France ; 
 the poor distracted king was hurried from place to place ; 
 the English conqueror ruled in Paris; the baby English 
 king was turned out, he and his ; better days dawned for 
 the honour of her land ; and through it all, in the old 
 country chateau, the lady lives quietly AVTiting her poetry ; 
 trairring her son and her granddaughter; and trying to 
 teach young ladies the art of making rondeaux, romances, 
 sirventes, and tendons. In all those rude times there was, 
 perhaps, to be found no more quiet tranquil corner in 
 France than the country home of the Dame de Surville. 
 Margaret of Helicon had a better time of it than Margaret 
 of Scotland. Only, perhaps — it is a dreadful thought, and 
 will not be stifled — perhaps there was no Marguerite Eleanor 
 Clotilde de Vallon Chalys, Dame de Surville — at all. 
 
 Note. — ll.-illam passes poor Clotilde by with the most contemptuous 
 air, classing her with Rowley and Ireland's Vortigern. Siie does not 
 deserve this treatment, and, as I think I have shewn, every objection to 
 her can be answered, except one — which is indeed difficult— the modem 
 air of her poetry. An old poet may be touched up and modernized in 
 appearance, but never in spirit. I am, however, after reconsidering the
 
 3o8 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 question, inclined to believe that, with an immense quantity of addition 
 and a great many forgeries, Clotilde had a real existence, and actually 
 wrote poetry, some of which we have in the volume of M. Vanderbourg. 
 I have put her last of my poets, not to give offence to those weaker 
 brethren who cannot believe in her. 
 
 Another poetess whose claim to existence has been disputed is 
 Clemence Isaure. She is said to have been bom in the year 1460, 
 to have suffered from the death of her betrothed lover, and to have 
 revived the Floral Games of Toulouse. I fear she is even more 
 apociyphal than Clotilde. Those who are curious about her may 
 consult the pamphlet by Doctor J. B. Noulet, called, "De Dame 
 Clemence Isaure, substituee a Notre Dame la Vierge Marie comme 
 Patronne des Jeux Litteraires de Toulouse."
 
 APPENDICES.
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 THE ENGLISH POEMS OF CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 
 
 During his long residence in England, Charles learned to write English 
 with as much fluency as French. His English poems, some of which 
 deserve to be better known, are mostly translations or imitations of his 
 French works. They have been pubhshed for the Roxburghe Club. 
 It does not come within my limits to consider these poems in detail, but 
 I cannot refrain from giving one or two illustrations of his English style. 
 It \nll be remarked that the English of the fifteenth century was much 
 farther from the language of Shakespeare than the French of the same 
 time from that of Comeille. 
 
 "When y am leyd to slepe as for a stound 
 To have my rest y can in no manere 
 For all the nyght myn hert aredilh round 
 As in the romaunce of plesaunt Chaucer 
 Me praiying so as him to hark and here 
 And y ne dar his welle disobeye 
 In dowting so to do hym displesere 
 This is my slepe y falle into decay." 
 
 This is on his mistress, and is almost literally translated : 
 
 "Fresshe bewtie riche of yowthe and lustines 
 The smiling lookis casten so lowely 
 The pleasaunt speche govemyd bi wittynes 
 Body well shape of port so womanly 
 The high estat demenyd so swetely 
 The well ensewTidnes of word and chere 
 Without disdejTie shewjTig to lowe and hye 
 Alle thewis goode this hath my lady dere 
 For whiche all folk hir prayse and so do y.
 
 312 APPENDIX I. 
 
 So well becometh the nobill good princes 
 
 To synge or daunce in all disport trewly 
 
 That of such thing she may be called maystres 
 
 What that she doth is done so pratily 
 
 That none it may amenden hardily 
 
 She is the skol of all goodly manere 
 
 Also hir beholt may lere that is witty 
 
 Or in sight hath his deedes to aspy 
 
 Alle thewis goode this hath my lady dere." 
 
 Here I have altered some of the spelling : 
 
 "As for farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell, 
 And of farewell, more than a thousand score. 
 Have ye farewell, or more had I to dele 
 For forto say this parting doth me sore. 
 It doth, it doth, it need no more be sore, 
 For though that I would keep it close, ma fay. 
 My bollid heart doth so his sikis rore 
 That maugre me it doth my well bewray." 
 
 As may be expected, many French terms are found. Thus he says : 
 
 "Take it in g7-ee, O goodly young princesse." 
 "Howe that my trouthe shall gete me suffisance.'" 
 "Mawgre daunger." 
 
 And in the following piece a great many words of French origin 
 may be observed. The lines themselves are a very good specimen of 
 his style. 
 
 "This joyous time, this fresh seson of May, 
 When Flora sheweth of flowers abundance 
 That each annoy ought to be laid away 
 And for to take all gladsome lo pleasance. 
 I find myself withouten recouerance 
 Most out of way own joy for to conquer 
 Each thought and care so doth my heart forfelle 
 That I have well I may avaunte and swear 
 The contrary of all my wretched vnll."
 
 APPENDIX I. l^Z 
 
 Most of these words fairly belonged to English by that time, but he 
 uses others which I think arc purely of his own introduction. What, for 
 instance, is newoits thought? The French explains it: it is pensee 
 mnnyciise. I believe this is the only attempt to adopt this word in 
 English, though we want it badly. 
 
 All that has been said about Charles's French verses apply to his 
 English ; but the faults of the French are more apparent in his English, 
 which, although he writes it easily enough, wants the flexibility that we 
 find in the native English poetry of his time, particularly in the Religious 
 Poems published by Mr. Fumivall for the Early English Text Society. 
 Charles's English was that of the court in the first place, and of a 
 foreigner in the second. Trobably his English verses were looked on 
 by him as an amusement for his long hours of captivity ; their subjects, 
 as well as his method of treatment, will effectually prevent them from 
 ever being read again, except by the curious.
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 r SUBJOIN a few specimens of translations. The first four are taken 
 from Longfellow's Poetry of Europe. 
 
 FROM FROISSART. 
 
 "Take time while yet it is in view, 
 
 For Fortune is a fickle fair : 
 Days fade, and others spring anew : 
 
 Then take the moment still in view. 
 What boots to toil and cares pursue ? 
 
 Each month a new moon hangs in air : 
 Take then the moment still in view. 
 
 For Fortune is a fickle fair." 
 
 FROM CHRISTINE DE PISAN. ^ 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF HER FATHER. 
 
 ' ' O that his grave for me had room 
 
 Where I at length might calmly rest ! 
 For all to me is saddest gloom, 
 
 All scenes appear to me unblest. 
 And all my hope is in his tomb, 
 . To lay my head on his cold breast, 
 Who left his child naught else to love, — 
 
 .\ mourning dove !
 
 3i6 APPENDIX II. 
 
 FROM MARTIAL DE PARIS. 
 
 Dear the felicity, 
 
 Gentle and fair and sweet ; 
 Love and simplicity, 
 
 When tender shepherds meet ; 
 Better than store of gold. 
 
 Silver and gems untold, 
 Manners refined and cold, 
 
 Which to our lords belong. 
 We, when our toil is past. 
 
 Softest delight can taste, 
 While summer beauties last, 
 
 Dance, feast, and jocund song ; 
 And in our hearts a joy 
 
 No envy can destroy." 
 
 FROM MAROT. 
 "I am no more what I have been 
 
 Nor can regret restore my prime : 
 My summer years and beauty's sheen 
 
 Are in the envious clutch of Time. 
 Above all gods I owned thy reign, 
 
 O Love ! and served thee to the letter ; 
 But if my life were given again, 
 
 Methinks I yet would serve thee better.' 
 
 FROM ALAIN CHARTIER. 
 
 LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY. 
 
 "I heard the lover sighing wonder sore, 
 
 For aye the more the sorer it him sought ; 
 His inward paine he could not keep in store. 
 Nor for to speak so hardie was he wrought.
 
 APPENDIX II. 317 
 
 His leech was rare, the greater was his thought, 
 
 Me mused sore his conquest to desire ; 
 For no man may to more pennance be brought 
 
 Than in his heat to bring him to the fire." 
 
 Attributed to Chaucer. 
 
 FROM EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS. 
 
 "When shall the day be, of all the year. 
 
 The day that the maidens may call their owti, 
 When every one in her newest gear. 
 The gayest ribbons, the richest gown, 
 Laughter and joy shall give to the town? 
 'Tis in the spring, so bright and gay. 
 In the pleasantest month, the month of May, 
 And the maidens' day is Ascension Day. 
 
 And on this day of the joyous Spring, 
 
 Should every maiden be dressed in green. 
 When at break of day the Church bells ring ; 
 
 Spread out the feast with napkins clean ; 
 
 Let all the Spring's best gifts be seen ; 
 Spread out the feast with flowers gay ; 
 'Tis the pleasantest month, the month of May, 
 
 And this is Ascension, the maidens' day. 
 
 Beauty the maidens typify ; 
 
 Spring's simple food, our hearts' content ; 
 The napkins white, our purity ; 
 
 The green grass, friendship's firmament ; 
 
 The flowers their joyousness have lent. 
 All perfect joy doth come with May ; 
 Blithely sing and dance so gay, 
 
 For this is Ascension, the maidens' day."
 
 3l8 APPENDIX II. 
 
 FROM VILLON. 
 
 ' ' Queen of the skies, and- regent of the earth ; 
 
 Empress of all that dwells beneath ; 
 Receive me, poor and low, of little worth, 
 
 Among thy chosen after death. 
 Nothing I bring with me ; nothing I have : 
 But yet thy mercy, Lady, is as great 
 As all my sum of sins : beyond the grave. 
 Without thy mercy, none can ask of fate 
 To enter heaven ; and without guile or lie 
 I in thy faith will faithful live and die. 
 
 Only a woman, humble, poor, and old ; 
 
 Letters I read not ; nothing know ; 
 But see in Church with painted flames of gold 
 
 That Hell where all the wicked go : 
 And, joyous with glad harps, God's Paradise. 
 One fills my heart with fear ; one with delight. 
 For sinners all may turn )-epentant eyes 
 To thee, O Lady, merciful and bright, 
 With faith downladen — without guile or lie 
 I in thy faith will faithful live ami die." 
 
 FROM CLOTILDE DE SURVILLK. 
 
 "Take, child — thy father's image — take repose 
 Upon the bosom that thy lips have pressed : 
 Sleep, little one : at last let slumber close 
 Those restless eyes upon thy mother's breast. 
 
 Rest, little one : let softer, sweeter sleep 
 
 Weigh down thine eyes than even falls on me 
 
 Thee to protect my sleepless watch I keep — 
 Ah ! sweet it is to waken — sweet — for thee.
 
 APPENDIX II. 319 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep, my idol and my care : 
 
 My breast thy pillow and thy bed I lay : 
 Hush ! baby voice I loved just now to hear, 
 
 And smiles I loved just now, cease, cease to play. 
 
 Sleep, darling : thou shalt wake and smile once more : 
 
 Smile in a fond reply to my fond gaze : 
 See how he knows me with his childish lore ; 
 
 And in my eyes has learned his own to trace. 
 
 He drops his arms : sleep weighs his eyelids dowTi : 
 Stilled, silent : see — he hardly draws his breath ; 
 
 And but for those bright hues of red and brown, 
 Might one deem — almost — this the sleep of death. 
 
 Ah ! darling, wake ; I tremble with affright : 
 
 To chase this fatal thought wake, wake once more : 
 
 My child, awake ; one moment see the light ; 
 And at the cost of thine, my peace restore. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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