A Short History of French Literature. Saintsbury George

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chastel vous dirai le non:

      miols sëant ne vit aine nus hom,

      lors l'apieloit on Chastel-noble.

      n'ot tel dusque en Constantinoble,

      ne de la dusque en Osterice

      n'ot plus bel, plus fort ne plus rice.

      carmans a cel point i estoit

      que Cleomadés vint la droit.

      forment li sambloit li chastiaus

      de toutes pars riches et biaus.

      Cleomadés lors s'avisa

      que viers le chastel se trera.

      bien pensoit qu'en tel liu manoient

      gent qui de grant afaire estoient.

      che fu si qu'apriés l'ajournee

      mult faisoit bele matinee,

      car mais estoit nouviaus entrés:

      c'est uns tans ki mult est amés

      et de toutes gens conjoïs;

      pour çou a non mais li jolis.

      une tres grant tour haute et forte

      avoit asés priés de la porte,

      ki estoit couverte de plon,

      plate deseure, car adon

      les faisoit on ensi couvrir

      pour engins et pour assallir.

      Cleomadés a avisee

      la tour ki estoit haute et lee;

      lors pense qu'il s'arestera

      sor cele tour tant qu'il savra,

      se il puet, la certainité

      quel païs c'est la verité.

      lors a son cheval adrechié

      viers la tour de marbre entaillié.

      les chevilletes si tourna

      que droit sour la tour aresta.

      si coiement s'est avalés

      que sour aighe coie vait nés.

      Raoul de Houdenc.

      Raoul de Houdenc is an earlier poet than Adenès, and represents the Roman d'Aventures in its infancy, when it still found it necessary to attach itself to the great cycle of the Round Table. His works, besides some shorter poems94, consist of the Roman des Eles (Ailes), a semi-allegorical composition, describing the wings and feathers of chivalry, that is to say, the great chivalrous virtues, among which Raoul, like a herald as he was, gives Largesse the first place; of Méraugis de Portlesguez, an important composition, possessing some marked peculiarities of style; and possibly also of the Vengeance de Raguidel, in which the author works out one of the innumerable unfinished episodes of the great epic of Percevale. Thus Raoul de Houdenc occupies no mean place in French literature, inasmuch as he indicates the starting-point of two great branches, the Roman d'Aventures and the allegorical poem, and this at a very early date. This date is not known exactly; but it was certainly before 1228, when the Trouvère Huon de Méry alludes to him, and classes him with Chrestien as a master of French verse. He has in truth some very noteworthy peculiarities. The chief of these, which must soon strike any reader of Méraugis, is his tendency to enjambement or overlapping of couplets. It is a curious feature in the history of French verse that the isolation of the couplet has constantly recurred in its history, and that as constantly reformers have striven to break up the monotony so produced by this process of enjambement. Perhaps Raoul is the earliest who thus, as an indignant critic put it at the first representation of Hernani, 'broke up verses, and threw them out of window.' Besides this metrical characteristic, the thing most noteworthy in his poems (as might indeed have been expected from his composition of the Roman des Eles) is a tendency to allegorising, and to scholastic disquisitions on points of amatory casuistry. The whole plot of Méraugis indeed turns on the enquiry whether physical or metaphysical love is the sincerest, and on the quarrel which a difference on this point brings on between the hero and Gorvein Cadrus his friend and his rival in the love of the fair Lidoine.

      Chief Romans d'Aventures.

      Many other Romans d'Aventures deserve mention, both for their intrinsic merits and for the immense popularity they once enjoyed. Foremost among these must be mentioned Partenopex de Blois95 and Flore et Blanchefleur96. The former (formerly ascribed to Denis Pyramus and now denied to him, but said to date from the twelfth century) is a kind of modernised Cupid and Psyche, except that Cupid's place is taken by the fairy Melior, and Psyche's by the knight Parthenopeus or Parthenopex. This poem has great elegance and freshness of style, and though the author is inclined to moralise (as a near forerunner of the Roman de la Rose was bound to do), his moralisings are gracefully and naively put. Flore et Blanchefleur is perhaps even superior. Its theme is the love of a young Christian prince for a Saracen girl-slave, who has been brought up with him. She is sold into a fresh captivity to remove her from him, but he follows her and rescues her unharmed from the harem of the Emir of Babylon. The delicacy of the handling is very remarkable in this poem, and it has some links of connection with Aucassin et Nicolette. Le Roman de Dolopathos97 has a literary history of great interest which we need not touch upon here. Its versification has more vigour than that of almost any other Roman d'Aventures. Blancandin et l'Orguilleuse d'Amour98 is more promising at the beginning than in the sequel. A young knight, hearing of the pride and coyness of a lady, accosts and kisses her as she rides past with a great following of knights. Her coldness is of course changed to love at first sight, and the audacious suitor afterwards delivers her from her enemies; but the working out of the story is rather dully managed. Brun de la Montaigne99, as has been already mentioned, is written in Chanson form, and deals with the famous Forest of Broceliande in Britanny. Guillaume de Palerne100 is a still more interesting work. It introduces the favourite mediaeval idea of lycanthropy, the hero being throughout helped and protected by a friendly were-wolf, who is before the end of the poem freed from the enchantment to which he is subjected. This Romance was early translated into English. Of the same class is the Roman de l'Escouffle, where a hawk carries away the heroine's ring, as in a well-known story of the Arabian Nights. Amadas et Idoine101 is one of the numerous histories of the success of a squire of low degree, but is distinguished from most of them by the originality of its conception and the vigour of its style. The scenes where the hero is recovered of his madness by his beloved, and where, keeping guard over her tomb, he fights with ghostly enemies, after a time of trial of his fidelity, and rescues her from death, are unusually brilliant. Le Bel Inconnu102, which (from a curious misunderstanding of its older form Li Biaus Desconnus) occurs in English form as Lybius Diasconus, tells the story of a son of Gawain and the fairy with the white hands, and thus is one of the numerous secondary Romances of the Round Table. So also is the long and interesting Roman du Chevalier as Deux Espées103; this extends to more than 12,000 lines, and, though the adventures recorded are of the ordinary Round Table pattern, there is noticeable in it a better faculty of maintaining the interest and a completer mastery over episodes than usual. A still longer poem (also belonging to what may be called the outer Arthurian cycle) is Durmart le Gallois104, which contains almost 16,000 verses. The loves of the hero and Fenise, the Queen of Ireland, are somewhat lengthily handled; but there are passages of merit, especially one most striking episode in which the hero, riding through a forest by night, comes to a tree covered from top to bottom with burning torches, while a shining naked child

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