A Short History of French Literature

Ed. P. L. Jacob. Paris, 1854. Villon's life has been the subject of numerous elaborate investigations, the latest and best of which is that of A. Longnon. Paris, 1877. Dr. Bijvanck, a Dutch scholar, has dealt since with the MSS.

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One of these anecdotes makes him patronised by Edward the Fifth of England. But the very terms of it are unsuitable to that king.

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The reader may be reminded that the Testament was a recognised mediaeval style. It was satirical and allegorical, the legacies which it gave being mostly indicative of the legatee's weaknesses or personal peculiarities.

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Ed. Chantelauze. Paris, 1881. Also usefully in Michaud et Poujoulat.

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Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 2 vols. Brussels, 1867-8.

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Ed. Héricault. 2 vols. Paris, 1857.

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Edited in part by J. Quicherat. Paris, 1856.

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Martial d'Auvergne had the exceptional good luck to be reprinted in the 18th century (Vigilles 1724, Arrêts 1731), but he has not recently found an editor, though an edition of the Amant rendu Cordelier has been for some time due from the Société des Anciens Textes. The notice by M. de Montaiglon (the promised editor of the edition just mentioned) in Crepet's Poètes Français, i. 427, has been chiefly used here for facts.

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Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, as previously cited. For the remainder of the poets reviewed in this paragraph, few of whom have found modern editors, see Crepet, Poètes Français, vol. i.

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iii. 21.

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Paris, 1876.

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De Belges, though the less usual, is the more accurate form. We are at length promised a complete edition of him in the admirable series of the Belgian Academy, one of the best in appearance and editing, and by far the cheapest of all such series. He was born in 1475, held posts in the household of the Governors of the Netherlands, was historiographer to Louis XII., and died either in 1524 or in 1548.

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See Poètes Français, i. 532. It is perhaps well to say that M. C. d'Héricault, though a very agreeable as well as a very learned writer, is particularly open to the charge that his geese are swans.

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Ed. C. d'Héricault. Paris, 1855.

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See Poètes Français, vol. i. ad fin., for the poets mentioned in this paragraph and others of their kind.

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He was in his old age conspicuous among the enemies of Étienne Dolet. See Étienne Dolet, by R. C. Christie. London, 1880.

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Ed Jannet et C. d'Héricault. 4 vols. Paris, 2nd ed. 1873. M. d'Héricault has prefixed a much larger study of Marot than is to be found here to his edition of the 'beauties' of the poet, published by Messrs. Garnier. The late M. Guiffrey published two volumes of a costly and splendid edition, which his death interrupted.

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The blason (description) was a child of the mediaeval dit. Marot's examples, Le beau Tétin and Le laid Tétin, were copied ad infinitum. The first is panegyric, the second abuse.

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Ed. Frank. 4 vols. Paris, 1873-4.

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i. 651.

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Ed. Tross. Paris, 1871.

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Ed. Blanchemain, 3 vols. Paris, 1873.

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This great collection, which awaits its completion of glossary, etc., was published between 1855 and 1878, and is invaluable to any one desiring to appreciate the general characteristics of the poetical literature of the time.

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Much help has been received in the writing of this chapter, and indeed of this book, from the excellent work of MM. Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, Le Seizième Siècle en France (Paris, 1878), one of the best histories extant in a small compass of a brief but important period of literature. We may hope for a still more elaborate study of the same subject in English from Mr. Arthur Tilley, of King's College, Cambridge. An introductory volume to this study appeared in 1885.

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Among these may be mentioned the charming story of Jehan de Paris (ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1874), which M. de Montaiglon has clearly proved to be of the end of the fifteenth century. It is a cross between a Roman d'aventures and a nursery tale, telling how the King of France as 'John of Paris' outwitted the King of England in the suit for the hand of the Infanta of Spain.

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