FRANCE
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FRANCE
of France under the kingsliip and conflicts with exter-
nal enemies, others are inspired by the struggles main-
tained by great feudal chiefs against the king ("Ogier
le Danois", "Renaud de Montauban", "Gerard de
Roussillon ' '), by the wars of vassals among themselves,
and lay historical memories belonging particularly to
this or that province ("Raoiil de Cambrai", the
"Ccslcdi's l.ni-niins", - Aul.fri Ir H.iiin;.>iiii,'"). The
intoresting element in all of them is, chiefly, their
faithful portrayal of the feudal world, its virtues, and
its asperities.
From the end of the twelfth century the success of the rhansons de geale is coimterbalanced by that of the romances of the Breton cycle. Here imagination roams at large, above all that kind of imagination which we call fantasy. The marvellous plays an im- portant part. Manners are less violent, more delicate. Love, almost absent from the chansons de geste, holds a great place and utters itself in a style at once respect- ful and exalted. We find everywhere the impress of a twofold mysticism, that of chivalry and of religion. In other words, if the chansons de geste bear the stamp of the Germanic spirit, the Breton romances are in- spired by the Celtic. The central figure is that of King Arthur, a character borrowed from history, the incar- nation of the independence of the Breton race. Around him are his companions, the knights of the Round Table and Merlin the wizard. The Breton romances were intended to be read, not to be sung; they were written, moreover, in prose. In course of time Chrestien de Troyes, a poet rather facile and pro- lific than truly talented, put them into rhymed verse; between 1160 and 1 ISO he wrote "Perceval leGallois", " Le Chevalier au lion", " Lancelot en la charrette", "Cligf's", " Erec et Enide". In these romances Launcelot is the type of I'amour courtois — the "gen- tle" love which every knight must bear his lady.
As for the antique cycle, it is no more than a work of imitation. The clerics, observing the success of epic and narrative poetry, conceived the idea of throwing into the same form the traditions of antiquity. The "Roman d'Alexandre" and the "Roman de Troie", both written in the second half of the twelfth century, and amusing for their anachronisms and their baroque conceits, are, on the other hand, long, diffuse, and mediocre.
Lyric Poetry. — In these primitive periods of history the lines of division between various types of literature are not well defined. From the cantilene there sprang in turn the lyric poetry of the North. In these rough- hewn romances the poet relates in four or five couplets
of varied rhythm, but all ending with the same refrain,
an adventure of war or of love; they are called chan-
sons de toile (spinning songs) or cimnsons de danse, be-
cause women sang them either as they spun and chat-
ted or as they danced rondes. Love nearly always
plays the chief part in them — the love, successful or
crossed, of a young girl for a beau chevalier, or perhaps
a love crushed by the death of the beloved — such are
the themes of the principal chansons de toile that have
come down to us, " Belle Bremboure ", "Belle Idoine",
"Belle Aiglantine", "Belle Doette". But it was in
Provence that lyric verse was to reach its fullest de-
velopment. Subtile, learned, and somewhat artificial,
Provencal poetry had for its only theme love — an
idealized and quintessential love — I'amour courtois.
t)n this common theme the troubadours embroidered
variations of the utmost richness ; the form which they
employed, a very complex one, had given rise to
manifold combinations of rhythms. The men of the
North were dazzled when they came to know the Pro-
ven(;al poetry. Strangely enough, it did not spread
directly from province to province within the borders
of France, but by way of the Orient, from the Holy
Land, during the Crusades, where Southern and
Northern lords met each other. Soon a whole group
of poets of the oil tongue in the North and East —
t'onon de B6thune, Gace Brule, Blondel de Nesles,
and especially Thiebaut, Count of Champagne — set to
work to imitate the Provencal compositions.
Bourgeois and Satirical Literature. — The epic and the lyric were essentially aristocratic; they addressed themselves to an audience of barons and represented almost exclusively the manners and feelings of the upper classes in the feudal world. At the Ijeginning of the thirteenth century, and after the emancipation of the communes, the bourgeoisie makes its appearance, and from that moment dates the origin and rise of a bourgeoisc literature. It begins with the jabliaux, little tales told in lines of eight syllables, pleasant stories intended only to amuse. The characters they intro- duce are people of humble or middling station — trades- men, artisans, and their women-folk — who are put through all sorts of ridiculous adventures; their vices and oddities are ridiculed smartly and with some de- gree of malice — too often, also, with coarseness and indecency. These jabliaux are animated by the Ciallic spirit of irony and banter, in contrast to the heroic, or "gentle" (courtois), spirit which inspires the epic and lyric works. Bourgeois and villagers find here a real- istic picture of their existence and their manners, but freely caricatured so as to provoke laughter.
Combine the spirit of the jabliaux with memories of the chanson de geste, and we have the " Roman de Renart", a vast collection, formed early in the thir- teenth century, of stories in verse thrown together with-
Heynard the Fox as a Musician
XIV Century MS. of " Roman de Renart ", Bibliothfeque
Nationale, Paris
out sequence or connexion. This work, which, it is believed, was preceded by another now lost, contains 30,000 lines. Enlarged by successive additions, the "Roman de Renart" is the work not only of several au- thors, but of a whole country and a whole epoch. Wliat gives it unity, in spite of the diversity and in- congruity of the stories of which it is made up, is that in all its parts the same hero appears again and again^ Renart, the fox. The action round about Renart is carried on by many other characters, such as Ysengrin,
