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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Avril
+       Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
+
+Author: H. Belloc
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #18839]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AVRIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Rénald Lévesque and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   AVRIL
+
+
+                                   BEING
+
+                        ESSAYS ON THE POETRY OF THE
+                             FRENCH RENAISSANCE
+
+                                     BY
+
+                                 H. BELLOC
+
+
+
+                        "... _Ceux dont la Fantaisie
+                 Sera religieuse et dévote envers Dieu
+                 Tousjours achèveront quelque grant Poésie,
+                 Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu._"
+
+
+
+                                   LONDON
+                              DUCKWORTH AND CO.
+                 3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVE NT GARDEN, W.C.
+
+                                    1904
+
+
+                CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO
+                    TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+    Part of this book originally appeared
+    in "The Pilot," and is here reprinted
+    by kind permission of the Editor.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    CHARLES OF ORLEANS
+    VILLON
+    MAROT
+    RONSARD
+    Du BELLAY
+    MALHERBE
+
+
+                                DEDICATION
+
+                                    TO
+                               F.Y. ECCLES
+
+
+MY DEAR ECCLES,
+
+You will, I know, permit me to address you these essays which are more
+the product of your erudition than of my enthusiasm.
+
+With the motives of their appearance you are familiar.
+
+We have wondered together that a society so avid of experience and
+enlargement as is ours, should ignore the chief expression of its
+closest neighbour, its highest rival and its coheir in Europe: should
+ignore, I mean, the literature of the French.
+
+We have laughed together, not without despair, to see the mind of
+England, for all its majesty and breadth, informed at the most critical
+moments in the policy of France by such residents of Paris as were at
+the best fanatical, at the worst (and most ordinary) corrupt.
+
+Seeing around us here a philosophy and method drawn from northern
+Germany, a true and subtle sympathy with the Italians, and a perpetual,
+just and accurate comment upon the minor nationalities of Europe, a mass
+of recorded travel superior by far to that of other countries, we
+marvelled that France in particular should have remained unknown.
+
+We were willing, in an earlier youth, to read this riddle in somewhat
+crude solutions. I think we have each of us arrived, and in a final
+manner, at the sounder conclusion that historical accident is
+principally to blame. The chance concurrence of this defeat with that
+dynastic influence, the slip by which the common sense of political
+simplicity missed footing in England and fell a generation behind, the
+marvellous industrial activities of this country, protected by a
+tradition of political discipline which will remain unique in History;
+the contemporaneous settling down of France into the equilibrium of
+power--an equilibrium not established without five hearty civil wars and
+perhaps a hundred campaigns--all these so separated the two worlds of
+thought as to leave France excusable for her blindness towards the
+destinies and nature of England, and England excusable for her continued
+emptiness of knowledge upon the energy and genius of France: though
+these were increasing daily, immensely, at our very side.
+
+We have assisted at some straining of such barriers. A long peace, the
+sterility of Germany, the interesting activities of the Catholic Church,
+have perhaps not yet changed, but have at least disturbed the mind of
+the north, and ours, a northern people's, with it. The unity, the
+passionate patriotism, the close oligarchic polity, the very silence of
+the English has arrested the eyes of France. By a law which is universal
+where bodies are bound in one system, an extreme of separation has
+wrought its own remedy and the return towards a closer union is begun. I
+do not refer to such ephemeral and artificial manifestations as a
+special and somewhat humiliating need may demand; I consider rather that
+large sweep of tendency which was already apparent fifteen years after
+the Franco-Prussian War. An approach in taste, manners and expression
+well defined during our undergraduate years, has now introduced much of
+our inmost life to the French, to us already a hint of their philosophy.
+
+I think you believe, as I do, that the return has begun.
+
+We shall not live to see that fine unity of the west which lent the
+latter seventeenth and eighteenth centuries their classical repose. No
+common rule of verse or prose will satisfy men's permanent desire for
+harmony: no common rule of manners, of honour, of international ethics,
+of war. We shall not live to see, though we are young now, a Paris
+reading some new Locke or Hume, a London moved to attentive delight in
+some latter trinity of Dramatists, some future Voltaire.... The high,
+protected class, which moved at ease between the Capitals of the World,
+has disappeared; that which should take its place is not yet formed. We
+are both of that one Faith which can but regard our Christendom as the
+front of mankind and which, therefore, looks forward, as to a necessary
+goal, to the re-establishment of its common comprehension. But the
+reversion to such stability is slow. We shall not live to see it.
+
+It is none the less our duty (if I may use a word of so unsavoury a
+connotation) to advance the accomplishment of this good fatality.
+
+Not indeed that a vulgar cosmopolitan beatitude can inspire an honest
+man. To abandon one's patriotism, and to despise a frontier or a flag,
+is, we are agreed, the negation of Europe. There are Frenchmen who
+forget their battles, and Englishmen to whom a gold mine, a chance
+federal theory, a colonial accent, or a map, is more of an inheritance
+than the delicate feminine profile of Nelson or the hitherto unbroken
+traditions of our political scheme. To such men arms are either
+abhorrent, or, what is worse, a very cowardly (and thank God!
+unsuccessful) method of acquiring or defending their very base
+enjoyments. Let us forget them. It is only as nationalists, and only in
+an intense sympathy with the highly individual national unities of
+Europe that we may approach the endeavour of which I have spoken.
+
+With us, I fear, that endeavour must take a literary form, but such a
+channel is far from ignoble or valueless. He that knows some part of the
+letters of a foreign nation, be it but the graces or even the vagaries
+of such letters, knows something of that nation's mind. To portray for
+the populace one religion welding the west together, to spread a common
+philosophy, or to interpret and arrange political terms, would certainly
+prove a more lasting labour: but you will agree with me that mere
+sympathy in letters is not to be despised.
+
+We have observed together that the balance in this matter is heavily
+against the English. M. Jusserand is easily the first authority upon
+popular life in England at the close of the middle ages. M. Boutmy has
+produced an analysis of our political development which our Universities
+have justly recognized. Our friend M. Angellier of the École Normale has
+written what is acknowledged by the more learned Scotch to be the
+principal existing monograph upon Robert Burns; Mr. Kipling himself has
+snatched the attention of M. Chevrillon. You know how many names might
+be added to this list to prove the close, applied and penetrating manner
+in which French scholars have latterly presented our English writers to
+their fellow-citizens.
+
+We have both believed that something of the sort might be attempted in
+the converse; that a view could be given--a glimpse at least--of that
+vast organism whose foundations are in Rome, Coeval with the spring of
+Christianity, and whose last growth seems as vigorous and as fecund as
+though it were exempt from any laws of age.
+
+But, I say, we know how heavy is the balance against us.
+
+The Gallic ritual is unrecognized, even by our over-numerous class of
+clerical antiquarians. The Carolingian cycle is neglected, save perhaps
+for a dozen men who have seen the Song of Roland. The Complaints of
+Rusteboeuf, the Fabliaux, all the local legendary poetry, all the
+chroniclers (save Froissart--for he wrote of us), the tender simplicity
+of Joinville, the hard steel of Villehardouin, no one has handled.
+
+The fifteenth century, the storm of the Renaissance, are not taught.
+Why, Rabelais himself might be but an unfamiliar name had not a northern
+squire of genius rendered to the life three quarters of his work.
+
+The list is interminable. Even the great Drama of the great century is
+but a text for our schools leaving no sort of trace upon the mind: and
+as for the French moderns (I have heard it from men of liberal
+education) they are denied to have written any poetry at all: so exact,
+so subtle, so readily to be missed, are the proportions of their speech.
+
+If you ask me why I should myself approach the matter, I can plead some
+inheritance of French blood, comparable, I believe, to your own; and
+though I have no sort of claim to that unique and accomplished
+scholarship which gives you a mastery of the French tongue unmatched in
+England, and a complete familiarity with its history, application and
+genius, yet I can put to my credit a year of active, if eccentric,
+experience in a French barrack room, and a complete segregation during
+those twelve memorable months wherein I could study the very soul of
+this sincere, creative, and tenacious people.
+
+Your learning, my singular adventure, have increased in us, it must be
+confessed, a permanent and reasoned admiration for this people's
+qualities. Such an attitude of mind is rare enough and often dangerous:
+it is but a qualification the more for beginning the work. It permits us
+to follow the main line of the past of the French, to comprehend and not
+to be troubled by the energy of their present, to catch the advancing
+omens of their future.
+
+Indeed, if anything of France is to be explained in English and to
+people reading English, I could not desire a better alliance than yours
+and mine.
+
+But if you ask me why the Renaissance especially--or why in the
+Renaissance these six poets alone--should have formed the subject of my
+first endeavour, I can only tell you that in so vast a province, whereof
+the most ample leisure could not in a lifetime exhaust a tithe, Chance,
+that happy Goddess, led me at random to their groves.
+
+Whether it will be possible to continue such interpretation I do not
+know, but if it be so possible, I know still less what next may be put
+into my hands: Racine, perhaps, may call me, or those forgotten men who
+urged the Revolution with phrases of fire.
+
+    H. BELLOC.
+    CHELSEA, _January, 1904._
+
+
+
+
+                           CHARLES OF ORLEANS.
+
+
+I put down Charles of Orleans here as the first representative of that
+long glory which it is the business of this little book to recall: but
+to give him such a place at the threshold requires some apology.
+
+The origins of a literary epoch differ according as that epoch is primal
+or derivative. There are those edifices of letters which start up, not
+indeed out of nothing, but out of things wholly different. Produced by a
+shock or a revelation, as two gases lit will, in a sharp explosion,
+unite to form a liquid wholly unlike either, so after a great conquest,
+a battle, the sudden preaching of a creed, these primal literatures
+appear in an epic or a dithyrambic code of awful law. Their first effort
+is their mightiest. They come mature. They are allied to that element of
+the catastrophic which the modern world (taking its general philosophy
+from its social condition) denies, but which is yet at the limits of all
+things separate and themselves; accompanies every birth, and strikes
+agony into every transition of death.
+
+Those other much commoner epochs in the history of letters, which may be
+called derivative, have this current and obvious quality, that their
+beginnings merge into the soil that bred them, also (very often) their
+decay will lapse imperceptibly into newer things. They are quite
+definite, but also definitely parented. We know their special stuff and
+harmony, but we can point out clearly enough the elements which formed
+that stuff, the tones which unite in that harmony. We can show with
+dates and citations the parts meeting and blending; our difficulty is
+not to determine the influences which have mixed to make the general
+school, but rather to fix the beginning and the end of its effect upon
+men.
+
+In the first of these the leader, sometimes the unique example of the
+school, stands out great, but particular and clear, on a background
+vague or dark. He is as stupendous, yet as sharp and certain, as a
+mountain facing the morning, with only sky behind. In the second the
+originator, if there be one, is vague, tentative, perhaps unknown. More
+often many minor men together introduce a slow and general transition.
+
+Now the French Renaissance has this peculiar mark, that it holds quite
+plainly by one side of it to the first by the other to the second of
+these spirits.
+
+It was primal and catastrophic in that it made something completely new.
+A new architecture, new cities, a new poetry, almost a new language, a
+new kind of government--ultimately the modern world.
+
+It was derivative in that the shock, the revelation, which produced it,
+was the return of something allied to the French blood, something rooted
+in the French memory. Rome surviving or risen had made that Italy, which
+was now beginning to trouble the Alps, and would surely creep in by
+every channel of influence, and at last pervade all Europe. Rome, also,
+in her full vigour, had once framed and ordered Gaul. The French of the
+Renaissance were woken suddenly, but as they started they recognized the
+face and the hand of the awakener.
+
+On this account you will find one mind indeed at the very beginning of
+the change in letters, but not a dominating mind. There is but one man
+who is certainly an origin, but he is not a master. You see an unique
+and single personality, distinct but without force, founding no
+school--the grave, abiding, kind but covert face of Charles of Orleans.
+He, linked to the French Renaissance, is like the figure of a gentle
+friend playing in some garden with a child whose manners are new and
+pleasing to him, but of whose great destiny he makes no guess. That
+child was to be Du Bellay, Brantome, Montaigne a hundred-sided, huge
+Rabelais, Ronsard. Or perhaps this metaphor will put it better. To say
+that Charles of Orleans's equal and persistent music was like a string
+harped on distinctly in a chorus of flutes and hautboys, till one by one
+harps from here and there caught up the similar tang of chords and at
+last the whole body of sound was harping only.
+
+His life was suited to such difference and such origination. Italy,
+still living, filled him. An Italian secretary wrote from his mouth the
+most sumptuous of his manuscripts. He banded on Italy as a goal and his
+Italian land as a legacy to the French crown--to his own son; till
+(years after his death) the soldiers roared through Briançon and broke
+the crusted snow of Mont Genèvre. An Italian mother, the most beautiful
+of the Viscontis, come out of Italy, rich in her land of Asti and her
+half million of pure gold, had borne him in her youth to the King of
+France's brother: a man luxurious, over fine, exact in taste, a lover of
+magnificence in stories and words, decadent in a dying time, very brave.
+Through that father the Valois blood, unjustly hated or still more
+unjustly despised according to the varied ignorance of modern times, ran
+in him nobly.
+
+Take the Valois strain entire and you will find the pomp or rather the
+fantasy of their great palace of St. Paul; turrets and steep blue roofs
+of slate, carved woodwork, heavy curtains, and incense and shining
+bronze. The Valois were, indeed, the end of the middle ages. Some
+cruelty, a fury in battle, intelligence and madness alternately, and
+always a sort of keenness which becomes now revenge, now foresight, now
+intrigue, now strict and terrible government: at last a wild adventure
+out beyond the hills: Fornovo, Pavia.
+
+Their story is like the manuscripts, which beyond all other things they
+loved and collected, and which they were the last to possess or to have
+made; for while it contains in vivid pictures the noblest and the basest
+subjects: (Joan of Arc and also her betrayal, their country dominant and
+almost engulfed, Marigano, and then again Pavia) it always glitters with
+hard enamelled colours against skies of gold, and is drawn and sharp and
+clean as a thing can be.
+
+Such is the whole line, but look at this one Valois and you see all the
+qualities of his race toned by a permanent sadness down to a good and
+even temper, not hopeful but still delighting in beauty and possessed as
+no other Valois had been of charity. Less passionate and therefore much
+less eager and useful than most of his race, yet the taint of madness
+never showed in him, nor the corresponding evil of cruelty, nor the
+uncreative luxury of his immediate ancestry. All the Valois were poets
+in their kind; his life by its every accident caused him to write. At
+fifteen they wedded him to that lovely child whom Richard II had lifted
+in his arms at Windsor as he rode out in fatal pomp for Ireland. Three
+years later, when their marriage was real, she died in childbirth, and
+it is to her I think that he wrote in his prison the ballad which ends:
+
+    Dieu sur tout souverain seigneur
+    Ordonnez par grace et douceur
+    De l'ame d'elle tellement
+    Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement
+    En peine souci et douleur.
+
+Already, in the quarrel that so nearly wrecked the crown, the
+anti-national factions had killed his father. He was planning vengeance,
+engraving little mottoes of hate upon his silver, when the wars came on
+them all. A boy of twenty-four, well-horsed, much more of a soldier than
+he later seemed, he charged, leading the centre of the three tall troops
+at Agincourt. In the evening of that disaster they pulled him out from
+under a great heap of the ten thousand dead and brought him prisoner
+into England, to Windsor then to Pomfret Castle. Chatterton, Cobworth,
+at last John Cornwall, of Fanhope, were his guardians. To some one of
+these--probably the last--he wrote the farewell:
+
+    Mon très bon hôte et ma très douce hôtesse.
+
+For his life as a prisoner, though melancholy, was not undignified; he
+paid no allegiance, he met the men of his own rank, nor was he of a kind
+to whom poverty, the chief thorn of his misfortune, brought dishonour.
+
+Henry V had left it strictly in his will that Orleans the general and
+the head of the French nationals should not return. For twenty-five
+years, therefore--all his manhood--he lived under this sky, rhyming and
+rhyming: in English a little, in French continually, and during that
+isolation there swept past him far off in his own land the defence, the
+renewal, the triumph of his own blood: his town relieved, his cousin
+crowned at Rheims. His river of Loire, and then the Eure, and then the
+Seine, and even the field where he had fallen were reconquered.
+Willoughby had lost Paris to Richemont four years before Charles of
+Orleans was freed on a ransom of half his mother's fortune. It was not
+until the November of 1440 that he saw his country-side again.
+
+The verse formed in that long endurance (a style which he preserved to
+the end in the many poems after his release) may seem at a first reading
+merely mediæval. There is wholly lacking in it the riot of creation, nor
+can one see at first the Renaissance coming in with Charles of Orleans.
+
+Indeed it was laid aside as mediæval, and was wholly forgotten for three
+hundred years. No one had even heard of him for all those centuries till
+Sallier, that learned priest, pacing, full of his Hebrew and Syriac, the
+rooms of the royal library which Louis XV had but lately given him to
+govern, found the manuscript of the poems and wrote an essay on them for
+the Academy.
+
+The verse is full of allegory; it is repetitive; it might weary one with
+the savour of that unhappy fifteenth century when the human mind lay
+under oppression, and only the rich could speak their insignificant
+words; a foreigner especially might find it all dry bones, but his
+judgement would be wrong. Charles of Orleans has a note quite new and
+one that after him never failed, but grew in volume and in majesty until
+it filled the great chorus of the Pleiade--the Lyrical note of direct
+personal expression. Perhaps the wars produced it in him; the lilt of
+the marching songs was still spontaneous:
+
+    Gentil Duc de Lorraine, vous avez grand renom,
+    Et votre renommée passe au delà des monts
+    Et vous et vos gens d'arme, et tous vos compagnons
+    Au premier coup qu'ils frappent, abattent les Donjons.
+    Tirez, tirez bombardes, serpentines, Canons!
+
+Whatever the cause, this spontaneity and freshness run through all the
+mass of short and similar work which he wrote down.
+
+The spring and sureness, the poise of these light nothings make them a
+flight of birds.
+
+See how direct is this:
+
+    Dieu! qu'il la fait bon regarder!
+    La gracieuse, bonne et belle.
+
+or this:
+
+    Le lendemain du premier jour de Mai
+    Dedans mon lit ainsi que je dormoye
+    Au point du jour advint que je sonjeay.
+
+Everywhere his words make tunes for themselves and everywhere he himself
+appears in his own verses, simple, charming, slight, but with memories
+of government and of arms.
+
+This style well formed, half his verse written, he returned to his own
+place. He was in middle age--a man of fifty. He married soberly enough
+Mary of Cleves, ugly and young: he married her in order to cement the
+understanding with Burgundy. She did not love him with his shy florid
+face, long neck and features and mild eyes. His age for twenty-five
+years passed easily, he had reached his "castle of No Care." As late as
+1462 his son (Louis XII) was born; his two daughters at long intervals
+before. His famous library moved with him as he went from town to town,
+and perpetually from himself and round him from his retinue ran the
+continual stream of verse which only ended with his death. His very
+doctor he compelled to rhyme.
+
+All the singers of the time visited or remained with him--wild Villon
+for a moment, and after Villon a crowd of minor men. It was in such a
+company that he recited the last ironical but tender song wherein he
+talks of his lost youth and vigour and ends by bidding all present a
+salute in the name of his old age.
+
+So he sat, half regal, holding a court of song in Blois and Tours, a
+forerunner in verse of what the new time was to build in stone along the
+Loire. And it was at Amboise that he died.
+
+
+
+
+                             THE COMPLAINT.
+
+    (_The 57th Ballade of those written during his imprisonment._)
+
+
+There is some dispute in the matter, but I will believe, as I have said,
+that this dead Princess, for whose soul he prays, was certainly the wife
+of his boyhood, a child whom Richard II had wed just before that
+Lancastrian usurpation which is the irreparable disaster of English
+history. She was, I say, a child--a widow in name--when Charles of
+Orleans, himself in that small royal clique which was isolated and
+shrivelling, married her as a mere matter of state. It is probable that
+he grew to love her passionately, and perhaps still more her memory when
+she had died in child-bed during those first years, even before
+Agincourt, "en droicte fleur de jeunesse,"--for even here he is able to
+find an exact and sufficient line.
+
+There is surely to be noted in this delicate ballad, something more
+native and truthful in its pathos than in the very many complaints he
+left by way partly of reminiscence, partly of poetic exercise. For,
+though he is restrained, as was the manner of his rank when they
+attempted letters, yet you will not read it often without getting in you
+a share of its melancholy.
+
+That melancholy you can soon discover to be as permanent a quality in
+the verse as it was in the mind of the man who wrote it.
+
+                            _THE COMPLAINT._
+
+
+      _Las! Mort qui t'a fait si hardie,
+    De prendre la noble Princesse
+    Qui estoit mon confort, ma vie,
+    Mon bien, mon plaisir, ma richesse!
+    Puis que tu as prins ma maistresse,
+    Prens moy aussi son serviteur,
+    Car j'ayme mieulx prouchainement
+    Mourir que languir en tourment
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+      _Las! de tous biens estoit garnie
+    Et en droite fleur de jeunesse!
+    Je pry à Dieu qu'il te maudie,
+    Faulse Mort, plaine de rudesse!
+    Se prise l'eusses en vieillesse,
+    Ce ne fust pas si grant rigueur;
+    Mais prise l'as hastivement
+    Et m'as laissié piteusement
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+      _Las! je suis seul sans compaignie!
+    Adieu ma Dame, ma liesse!
+    Or est nostre amour departie,
+    Non pour tant, je vous fais promesse
+    Que de prieres, à largesse,
+    Morte vous serviray de cueur,
+    Sans oublier aucunement;
+    Et vous regretteray souvent
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+_ENVOI._
+
+    _Dieu, sur tout souverain Seigneur,
+    Ordonnez, par grace et doulceur,
+    De l'ame d'elle, tellement
+    Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+
+
+                      THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.
+              (_The 41st and 43rd of the "Rondeaux."_)
+
+
+These two Rondeaux, of which we may also presume, though very vaguely,
+that they were written in England (for they are in the manner of his
+earlier work), are by far the most famous of the many things he wrote;
+and justly, for they have all these qualities.
+
+_First_, they are exact specimens of their style. The Roundel should
+interweave, repeat itself, and then recover its original strain, and
+these two exactly give such unified diversity.
+
+_Secondly_: they were evidently written in a moment of that unknown
+power when words suggest something fuller than their own meaning, and in
+which simplicity itself broadens the mind of the reader. So that it is
+impossible to put one's finger upon this or that and say this adjective,
+that order of the words has given the touch of vividness.
+
+_Thirdly_: they have in them still a living spirit of reality; read them
+to-day in Winter, and you feel the Spring. It is this quality perhaps
+which most men have seized in them, and which have deservedly made them
+immortal.
+
+A further character which has added to their fame, is that, being
+perfect lyrics, they are also specimens of an old-fashioned manner and
+metre peculiar to the time. They are the resurrection not only of the
+Spring, but of a Spring of the fifteenth century. Nor is it too
+fantastic to say that one sees in them the last miniatures and the very
+dress of a time that was intensely beautiful, and in which Charles of
+Orleans alone did not feel death coming.
+
+
+                      _THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING._
+
+
+      _Les fourriers d'Esté sont venus
+    Pour appareillier son logis,
+    Et ont fait tendre ses tappis,
+    De fleurs et verdure tissus.
+      En estandant tappis velus
+    De verte herbe par le pais,
+    Les fourriers d'Esté sont venus
+    Pour appareillier son logis.
+      Cueurs d'ennuy pieça morfondus,
+    Dieu merci, sont sains et jolis;
+    Alez vous en, prenez pais,
+    Yver vous ne demourrez plus;
+    Les fourriers d'Esté sont venus._
+
+      _Le temps a laissié son manteau
+    De vent, de froidure et de pluye,
+    Et s'est vestu de brouderie,
+    De soleil luyant, cler et beau.
+      Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau,
+    Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou crie;
+    Le temps a laissié son manteau
+    De vent de froidure et de pluye.
+      Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau
+    Portent, en livrée jolie,
+    Gouttes d'argent d'orfavrerie,
+    Chascun s'abille de nouveau.
+    Le temps a laissié son manteau._
+
+
+
+                           HIS LOVE AT MORNING.
+                       (_The 6th of the "Songs"._)
+
+
+In this delightful little song the spontaneity and freshness which saved
+his work, its vigour and its clarity are best preserved.
+
+It does indeed defy death and leaps four centuries: it is young and
+perpetual. It thrills with something the failing middle ages had
+forgotten: it reaches what they never reached, a climax, for one cannot
+put too vividly the flash of the penultimate line, "I am granted a
+vision when I think of her."
+
+Yet it was written in later life, and who she was, or whether she lived
+at all, no one knows.
+
+                         _HIS LOVE AT MORNING._
+
+      _Dieu qu'il la fait bon regarder
+    La gracieuse bonne et belle!
+    Pour les grans biens qui sont en elle,
+    Chascun est prest de la louer
+      Qui se pourroit d'elle lasser!
+    Tousjours sa beaulté renouvelle.
+    Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder,
+    La gracieuse, bonne et belle!
+      Par deça, ne delà la mer,
+    Ne sçay Dame ne Damoiselle
+    Qui soit en tous biens parfais telle;
+    C'est un songe que d'y penser.
+    Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder!_
+
+
+
+                             THE FAREWELL.
+                        (_The 310th Roundel._)
+
+Here is the last thing--we may presume--that Charles of Orleans ever
+wrote: "Salute me all the company, I pray."
+
+In that "company", not only the Court at Amboise, but the men of the
+early wars, his companions, were round him, and the dead friends of his
+gentle memory.
+
+He was broken with age; he was already feeling the weight of isolation
+from the Royal Family; he was beginning to suffer the insults of the
+king. But, beneath all this, his gaiety still ran like a river under
+ice, and in the ageing of a poet, humour and physical decline combined
+make a good, human thing.
+
+There is an excellent irony in the refrain: "Salute me, all the
+company," whose double interpretation must not be missed, though it may
+seem far-fetched.
+
+Till the last line it means, without any question, "Salute the company
+in my name," but I think there runs through it also, the hint of "Salute
+me for my years, all you present who are young," and that this certainly
+is the note in the last line of all. It must be remembered of the
+French, that they never expand or explain their ironical things, for in
+art it is their nature to detest excess.
+
+This last thing of his, then, I say, is the most characteristic of him
+and of his Valois blood, and of the national spirit in general to which
+he belonged: for he, and it, and they, loved and love contrast, and the
+extra-meaning of words.
+
+                             _THE FAREWELL._
+
+
+      _Saluez moy toute la compaignie
+    Où à present estes à chiere lie,
+    Et leur dictes que voulentiers seroye
+    Avecques eulx, mais estre n'y porroye,
+    Pour Vieillesse qui m'a en sa baillie.
+      Au temps passé, Jeunesse si jolie
+    Me gouvernoit; las! or n'y suis je mye,
+    Et pour cela pour Dieu, que excusé soye;
+    Saluez moy toute la compaignie
+    Où à present estes à chiere lie,
+    Et leur dictes que voulentiers seroye.
+      Amoureux fus, or ne le suis je mye,
+    Et en Paris menoye bonne vie;
+    Adieu Bon temps ravoir ne vous saroye,
+    Bien sanglé fus d'une estroite courroye.
+      Que, par Aige, convient que la deslie.
+    Saluez moy toute la compaignie._
+
+
+
+
+                                   VILLON.
+
+I have said that in Charles of Orleans the middle ages are at first more
+apparent than the advent of the Renaissance. His forms are inherited
+from an earlier time, his terminology is that of the long allegories
+which had wearied three generations, his themes recall whatever was
+theatrical in the empty pageantry of the great war. It is a spirit
+deeper and more fundamental than the mere framework of his writing which
+attaches him to the coming time. His clarity is new; it proceeds from
+natural things; it marks that return to reality which is the beginning
+of all beneficent revolutions. But this spirit in him needs examination
+and discovery, and the reader is confused between the mediaeval phrases
+and the something new and troubling in the voice that utters them.
+
+With Villon, the next in order, a similar confusion might arise. All
+about him as he wrote were the middle ages: their grotesque, their
+contrast, their disorder. His youth and his activity of blood forbad him
+any contact with other than immediate influences. He was wholly
+Northern; he had not so much as guessed at what Italy might be. The
+decrepit University had given him, as best she could, the dregs of her
+palsied philosophy and something of Latin. He grew learned as do those
+men who grasp quickly the major lines of their study, but who, in
+details, will only be moved by curiosity or by some special affection.
+There was nothing patient in him, and nothing applied, and in all this,
+in the matter of his scholarship as in his acquirement of it, he is of
+the dying middle ages entirely.
+
+His laughter also was theirs: the kind of laughter that saluted the
+first Dance of Death which as a boy he had seen in new frescoes round
+the waste graveyard of the Innocents. His friends and enemies and heroes
+and buffoons were the youth of the narrow tortuous streets, his visions
+of height were the turrets of the palaces and the precipitate roofs of
+the town. Distance had never inspired him, for in that age its effect
+was forgotten. No one straight street displayed the greatness of the
+city, no wide and ordered spaces enhanced it. He crossed his native
+river upon bridges all shut in with houses, and houses hid the banks
+also. The sweep of the Seine no longer existed for his generation, and
+largeness of all kinds was hidden under the dust and rubble of decay.
+The majestic, which in sharp separate lines of his verse he certainly
+possessed, he discovered within his own mind, for no great arch or
+cornice, nor no colonnade had lifted him with its splendour.
+
+That he could so discover it, that a solemnity and order should be
+apparent in the midst of his raillery whenever he desires to produce an
+effect of the grand, leads me to speak of that major quality of his by
+which he stands up out of his own time, and is clearly an originator of
+the great renewal. I mean his vigour.
+
+It is all round about him, and through him, like a storm in a wood. It
+creates, it perceives. It possesses the man himself, and us also as we
+read him. By it he launches his influence forward and outward rather
+than receives it from the past. To it his successors turn, as to an
+ancestry, when they had long despised and thrown aside everything else
+that savoured of the Gothic dead. By it he increased in reputation and
+meaning from his boyhood on for four hundred years, till now he is
+secure among the first lyric poets of Christendom. It led to no excess
+of matter, but to an exuberance of attitude and manner, to an
+inexhaustibility of special words, to a brilliancy of impression unique
+even among his own people.
+
+He was poor; he was amative; he was unsatisfied. This vigour, therefore,
+led in his actions to a mere wildness; clothed in this wildness the rare
+fragments of his life have descended to us. He professed to teach, but
+he haunted taverns, and loved the roaring of songs. He lived at random
+from his twentieth year in one den or another along the waterside.
+Affection brought him now to his mother, now to his old guardian priest,
+but not for long; he returned to adventure--such as it was. He killed a
+man, was arrested, condemned, pardoned, exiled; he wandered and again
+found Paris, and again--it seems--stumbled down his old lane of violence
+and dishonour.
+
+Associated also with this wildness is a curious imperfection in our
+knowledge of him. His very name is not his own--or any other man's. His
+father, if it were his father, took his name from Mont-Corbier--half
+noble. Villon is but a little village over beyond the upper Yonne, near
+the division, within a day of the water-parting where the land falls
+southward to Burgundy and the sun in what they call "The Slope of Gold."
+From this village a priest, William, had come to Paris in 1423. They
+gave him a canonry in that little church called "St. Bennets Askew,"
+which stood in the midst of the University, near Sorbonne, where the Rue
+des Écoles crosses the Rue St. Jacques to-day. Hither, to his house in
+the cloister, he brought the boy, a waif whom he had found much at the
+time when Willoughby capitulated and the French recaptured the city. He
+had him taught, he designed him for the University, he sheltered him in
+his vagaries, he gave him asylum. The young man took his name and called
+him "more than father." His anxious life led on to 1468, long after the
+poet had disappeared.
+
+For it is in 1461, in his thirtieth year, that Villon last writes down a
+verse. It is in 1463 that his signature is last discovered. Then not by
+death or, if by death, then by some death unrecorded, he leaves history
+abruptly--a most astonishing exit!... You may pursue fantastic legends,
+you will not find the man himself again. Some say a final quarrel got
+him hanged at last--it is improbable: no record or even tradition of it
+remains. Rabelais thought him a wanderer in England. Poitou preserves a
+story of his later passage through her fields, of how still he drank and
+sang with boon companions, and of how, again, he killed a man.... Maybe,
+he only ceased to write; took to teaching soberly in the University, and
+lived in a decent inheritance to see new splendours growing upon Europe.
+It may very well be, for it is in such characters to desire in early
+manhood decency, honour, and repose. But for us the man ends with his
+last line. His body that was so very real, his personal voice, his
+jargon--tangible and audible things--spread outward suddenly a vast
+shadow upon nothingness. It was the end, also, of a world. The first
+Presses were creaking, Constantinople had fallen, Greek was in Italy,
+Leonardo lived, the stepping stones of the Azores were held--in that new
+light he disappears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of his greatness nothing can be said; it is like the greatness of all
+the chief poets, a thing too individual to seize in words. It is
+superior and exterior to the man. Genius of that astounding kind has all
+the qualities of an extraneous thing. A man is not answerable for it. It
+is nothing to his salvation; it is little even to his general character.
+It has been known to come and go, to be put off and on like a garment,
+to be lent by Heaven and taken away, a capricious gift.
+
+But of the manner of that genius it may be noted that, as his vigour
+prepared the flood of new verse, so in another matter his genius made
+him an origin. Through him first, the great town--and especially
+Paris--appeared and became permanent in letters.
+
+Her local spirit and her special quality had shone fitfully here and
+there for a thousand years--you may find it in Julian, in Abbo, in
+Joinville. But now, in the fifteenth century, it had been not only a
+town but a great town for more than a century--a town, that is, in which
+men live entirely, almost ignorant of the fields, observing only other
+men, and forgetting the sky. The keen edge of such a life, its
+bitterness, the mockery and challenge whereby its evils are borne, its
+extended knowledge, the intensity of its spirit--all these are reflected
+in Villon, and first reflected in him. Since his pen first wrote, a
+shining acerbity like the glint of a sword-edge has never deserted the
+literature of the capital.
+
+It was not only the metropolitan, it was the Parisian spirit which
+Villon found and fixed. That spirit which is bright over the whole city,
+but which is not known in the first village outside; the influence that
+makes Paris Athenian.
+
+The ironical Parisian soul has depths in it. It is so lucid that its
+luminous profundity escapes one--so with Villon. Religion hangs there.
+Humility--fatally divorced from simplicity--pervades it. It laughs at
+itself. There are ardent passions of sincerity, repressed and reacting
+upon themselves. The virtues, little practised, are commonly
+comprehended, always appreciated, for the Faith is there permanent. All
+this you will find in Villon, but it is too great a matter for so short
+an essay as this.
+
+
+                             THE DEAD LADIES.
+
+It is difficult or impossible to compare the masterpieces of the world.
+It is easy and natural to take the measure of a particular writer and to
+establish a scale of his work.
+
+Villon is certainly in the small first group of the poets. His little
+work, like that of Catullus, like that of Gray, is up, high, completed
+and permanent. And within that little work this famous Ballade is by far
+the greatest thing.
+
+It contains all his qualities: not in the ordinary proportion of his
+character, but in that better, exact proportion which existed in him
+when his inspiration was most ardent: for the poem has underlying it
+somewhere a trace of his irony, it has all his ease and
+rapidity--excellent in any poet--and it is carried forward by that
+vigour I have named, a force which drives it well upwards and forward to
+its foaming in the seventh line of the third verse.
+
+The sound of names was delightful to him, and he loved to use it; he had
+also that character of right verse, by which the poet loves to put
+little separate pictures like medallions into the body of his writing:
+this Villon loved, as I shall show in other examples, and he has it
+here.
+
+The end of the middle ages also is strongly in this appeal or confession
+of mortality; their legends, their delicacy, their perpetual
+contemplation of death.
+
+But of all the Poem's qualities, its run of words is far the finest.
+
+                           _THE DEAD LADIES._
+
+    _Dictes moy où, n'en quel pays
+    Est Flora la belle Rommaine;
+    Archipiada, ne Thaïs,
+    Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
+    Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine
+    Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
+    Qui beaulté ot trop plus qu'humaine?
+    Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?_
+
+    _Où est la très sage Hellois,
+    Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne
+    Pierre Esbaillart à Saint-Denis?
+    Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.
+    Semblablement, où est la royne
+    Qui commanda que Buridan
+    Fust gecté en ung sac en Saine?
+    Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!_
+
+    _La Royne Blanche comme un lis,
+    Qui chantoit à voix de seraine;
+    Berte au grant pié Bietris, Allis;
+    Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
+    Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
+    Qu'Englois brulerent à Rouan;
+    Où sont elles, Vierge souvraine?
+    Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!_
+
+                 _ENVOI._
+
+    _Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
+    Où elles sont, ne de cest an,
+    Que ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
+    Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!_
+
+
+
+                  AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.
+                          (_Stanzas 75-79._)
+
+
+Villon's whole surviving work is in the form of two rhymed wills--one
+short, one long: and in the latter, Ballads and Songs are put in each in
+their place, as the tenour of the verse suggests them.
+
+Thus the last Ballade, that of the "Dead Ladies," comes after a couple
+of strong stanzas upon the necessity of death--and so forth.
+
+One might choose any passage, almost, out of the mass to illustrate the
+character of this "Testament" in which the separate poems are imbedded.
+I have picked those round about the 800th line, the verses in which he
+is perhaps least brilliant and most tender.
+
+
+                 _AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT._
+
+
+    LXXV.
+
+    _Premier je donne ma povre ame
+    A la benoiste Trinité,
+    Et la commande à Nostre Dame
+    Chambre de la divinité;
+    Priant toute la charité
+    Des dignes neuf Ordres des cieulx,
+    Que par eulx soit ce don porté
+    Devant le trosne precieux._
+
+    LXXVI.
+
+    _Item, mon corps je donne et laisse
+    A notre grant mere la terre;
+    Les vers n'y trouveront grant gresse:
+    Trop luy a fait faim dure guerre.
+    Or luy soit delivré grant erre:
+    De terre vint, en terre tourne.
+    Toute chose, se par trop n'erre,
+    Voulentiers en son lieu retourne;_
+
+    LXXVII.
+
+    _Item, et à mon plus que pere
+    Maistre Guillaume de Villon
+    Qui m'esté a plus doulx que mere,
+    Enfant eslevé de maillon,
+    Degeté m'a de maint boullon
+    Et de cestuy pas ne s'esjoye
+    Et luy requiers à genoullon
+    Qu'il n'en laisse toute la joye._
+
+    LXXVIII.
+
+    _Je luy donne ma Librairie
+    Et le Romman du Pet au Deable
+    Lequel Maistre Guy Tabarie
+    Grossa qui est homs veritable.
+    Por cayers est soubz une table,
+    Combien qu'il soit rudement fait
+    La matiere est si très notable,
+    Q'elle amende tout le mesfait._
+
+    LXXIX.
+
+    _Item donne à ma povre mere
+    Pour saluer nostre Maistresse,
+    Qui pour moy ot doleur amere
+    Dieu le scet, et mainte tristesse;
+    Autre Chastel n'ay ni fortresse
+    Où me retraye corps et ame
+    Quand sur moy court malle destresse
+    Ne ma mere, la povre femme!_
+
+
+
+                         THE BALLADE OF OUR LADY.
+                  (_Written by Villon for his mother._)
+
+
+The abrupt ending of the last extract, the 79th stanza of the "Grant
+Testament"--"I give..." and then no objective (apparently) added--is an
+excellent example of the manner in which the whole is conceived and of
+the way in which the separate poems are pieced into the general work.
+
+What "he gives..." to his mother is this "Ballade of our Lady," written,
+presumably, long before the "will" and put in here and thus after being
+carefully led up to.
+
+These thirty-seven lines are more famous in their own country than
+abroad. They pour from the well of a religion which has not failed in
+the place where Villon wrote, and they present that religion in a manner
+peculiar and national.
+
+Apart from its piety and its exquisite tenderness, two qualities of
+Villon are to be specially found in this poem: his vivid phrase, such
+as:
+
+    _"Emperiere des infernaux paluz,"_
+
+(a discovery of which he was so proud that he repeated it elsewhere) or:
+
+    _"sa tres chiere jeunesse."_
+
+And secondly the curiously processional effect of the metre and of the
+construction of the stanzas--the extra line and the extra foot lend
+themselves to a chaunt in their balanced slow rhythm, as any one can
+find for himself by reading the lines to some church sing-song as he
+goes.
+
+                     _THE BALLADE OF OUR LADY._
+
+    _Dame des cieulx, regente terrienne,
+    Emperiere des infernaux paluz,
+    Recevez moy, vostre humble chrestienne,
+    Que comprinse soye entre vos esleuz,
+    Ce non obstant qu'oncques rien ne valuz.
+    Les biens de vous, ma dame et ma maistresse,
+    Sont trop plus grans que ne suis pecheresse,
+    Sans lesquelz biens ame ne peut merir
+    N'avoir les cieulx, je n'en suis jungleresse.
+    En ceste foi je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+    _A vostre fils dicte que je suis sienne;
+    De luy soyent mes pechiez aboluz:
+    Pardonne moy, comme à l'Egipcienne,
+    Ou comme il feist au clerc Théophilus,
+    Lequel par vous fut quitte et absoluz,
+    Combien qu'il eust au Deable fait promesse.
+    Preservez moy, que ne face jamais ce
+    Vierge portant, sans rompure encourir
+    Le sacrement qu'on celebre à la messe.
+    En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+    _Femme je suis povrette et ancienne
+    Qui riens ne scay; oncques lettre ne leuz;
+    Au moustier voy dont suis paroissienne
+    Paradis faint, où sont harpes et luz,
+    Et ung enfer où dampnez sont boulluz:
+    L'ung me fait paour, l'autre joye et liesse.
+    La joye avoir me fay, haulte Deesse,
+    A qui pecheurs doivent tous recourir,
+    Comblez de Foy, sans fainte ne paresse.
+    En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+                      _ENVOI_
+
+    _Vous portastes, digne vierge, princesse,
+    Jesus regnant, qui n'a ne fin ne cesse.
+    Le Tout Puissant, prenant notre foiblesse,
+    Laissa les cieulx et nous vint secourir,
+    Offrit à mort sa tres chiere jeunesse.
+    Nostre Seigneur tel est, tel le confesse,
+          En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+
+
+                              THE DEAD LORDS.
+
+As I have not wished to mix up smaller things with greater I have put
+this _ballade_ separate from that of "the Ladies," though it directly
+follows it as an after-thought in Villon's own book. For the former is
+one of the masterpieces of the world, and this, though very Villon, is
+not great.
+
+What it has got is the full latter mediaeval love of odd names and
+reminiscences, and also to the full, the humour of the scholarly tavern,
+which was the "Mermaid" of that generation: as the startling regret of:
+
+    Hélas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne
+    Duquel je ne sçay pas le nom....
+
+and the addition, after the false exit of "je me désiste".
+
+    _Encore fais une question_
+
+He laughed well over it, and was perhaps not thirsty when it was
+written.
+
+
+
+                            _THE DEAD LORDS._
+
+    _Qui plus? Où est le Tiers Calixte
+    Dernier decedé de ce nom,
+    Qui quatre ans tint le papaliste?
+    Alphonce, le roy d'Arragon,
+    Le Gracieux Duc de Bourbon,
+    Et Artus, le Duc de Bretaigne,
+    Et Charles Septiesme, le Bon?....
+    Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+    _Semblablement le roy Scotiste
+    Qui demy face ot, ce dit on,
+    Vermeille comme une amatiste
+    Depuis le front jusqu'au menton?
+    Le roy de Chippre, de renom?
+    Hélas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne
+    Duquel je ne sçay pas le nom?...
+    Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+    _D'en plus parler je me desiste
+    Le monde n'est qu'abusion.
+    Il n'est qui contre mort resiste
+    Le que treuve provision.
+    Encor fais une question:
+    Lancelot, le roy de Behaigne,
+    Où est il? Où est son tayon?....
+    Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+                  _ENVOI._
+
+    _Où est Claguin, le bon Breton?
+    Où le conte daulphin d'Auvergne
+    Et le bon feu Duc d'Alençon?...
+    Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+
+
+                               THE DIRGE.
+
+
+This is the best ending for any set of verses one may choose out of
+Villon. It follows and completes the epitaph which in his will he orders
+to be written in charcoal--or scratched--above his tomb: the sad,
+sardonic octave of "the little scholar and poor." It is a kind of added
+dirge to be read by those who pass and to be hummed or chaunted over him
+dead. But it is a rondeau.
+
+See how sharp it is with the salt and vinegar of his pressed courageous
+smile--and how he cannot run away from his religion or from his power
+over sudden and vivid beauty.
+
+"Sire--et clarté perpétuelle"--which last are the best two words that
+ever stood in the vulgar for _lux perpetua_.
+
+It is no wonder that as time went on, more and more people learnt these
+things by heart.
+
+
+                _RONDEAU._
+
+    _Repos éternel, donne à cil,
+    Sire, et clarté perpétuelle,
+    Qui vaillant plat ni escuelle
+    N'eut oncques, n'ung brain de percil.
+    Il fut rez, chief, barbe et sourcil,
+    Comme un navet qu'on ret ou pelle.
+        Repos éternel donne à cil.
+        Rigueur le transmit en exil
+    Et luy frappa au cul la pelle,
+    Non obstant qu'il dit "J'en appelle!"
+    Qui n'est pas terme trop subtil.
+        Repos éternel donne à cil._
+
+
+
+                              CLEMENT MAROT.
+
+If in Charles of Orleans the first note of the French Renaissance is
+heard, if in Villon you find first its energy appearing above ground,
+yet both are forerunners only.
+
+With Marot one is in the full tide of the movement. The discovery of
+America had preceded his birth by three or perhaps four years. His early
+manhood was filled with all that ferment, all that enormous branching
+out of human life, which was connected with the expansion of Spain; he
+was in the midst of the scarlet and the gold. A man just of age when
+Luther was first condemned, living his active manhood through the
+experience of the great battlefields in Italy, wounded (a valet rather
+than a soldier) at Pavia, the perpetual chorus of Francis I., privileged
+to witness the first stroke of the pickaxe against the mediaeval Louvre,
+and to see the first Italian dignity of the great stone houses on the
+Loire--being all this, the Renaissance was the stuff on which his life
+was worked.
+
+His blood and descent were typical enough of the work he had to do. His
+own father was one of the last set rhymers of the dying Middle Ages. All
+his boyhood was passed among that multitude of little dry "writers-down
+of verse" with which, in Paris, the Middle Ages died; they were not a
+swarm, for they were not living; they were a heap of dust. All his early
+work is touched with the learned, tedious, unbeautiful industry which
+was all that the elder men round Louis XII could bring to letters. By a
+happy accident there were mixed in him, however, two vigorous springs of
+inspiration, each ready to receive the new forces that were working in
+Europe, each destined to take the fullest advantage of the new time.
+These springs were first, learned Normandy, quiet, legal, well-founded,
+deep in grass, wealthy; and secondly, the arid brilliancy of the South:
+Quency and the country round Cahors. His father was a Norman pure bred,
+who had come down and married into that sharp land where the summer is
+the note of the whole year, and where the traveller chiefly remembers
+vineyards, lizards on the walls, short shadows, sleep at noon, and
+blinding roads of dust. The first years of his childhood were spent in
+the southern town, so that the south entered into him thoroughly. The
+language that he never wrote, the Languedoc, was that, perhaps, in which
+he thought during all his life. It was his mother's.
+
+It has been noticed by all his modern readers, it will be noticed
+probably with peculiar force by English readers, that the fame of Marot
+during his lifetime and his historical position as the leader of the
+Renaissance has in it something exaggerated and false. One cannot help a
+perpetual doubt as to whether the religious quarrel, the influence of
+the Court, the strong personal friendships and enmities which surrounded
+him had not had more to do with his reputation than his faculty, or even
+his genius, for rhyme. Whenever he wanted £100 he asked it of the King
+with the grave promise that he would bestow upon him immortality.
+
+From Ronsard, or from Du Bellay, we, here in the north, could understand
+that phrase; from Marot it carries a flavour of the grotesque. Ready
+song, indeed, and a great power over the material one uses in singing
+last indefinitely; they last as long as the sublime or the terrible in
+literature, but we forbear to associate with them--perhaps unjustly--the
+conception of greatness. If indeed anyone were to maintain that Marot
+was not an excellent and admirable poet he would prove himself ignorant
+of the language in which Marot wrote, but let the most sympathetic turn
+to what is best in his verse, let them turn for instance to that
+charming lyric: "A sa Dame Malade" or to "The Ballad of Old Time," or
+even to that really large and riotous chorus of the vine, and they will
+see that it is the kind of thing which is amplified by music, and which
+sometimes demands the aid of music to appear at all. They will see quite
+plainly that Marot took pleasure in playing with words and arranged them
+well, felt keenly and happily, played a full lyre, but they will doubt
+whether poetry was necessarily for him the most serious business of
+life.
+
+Why, then, has he taken the place claimed for him, and why is he firmly
+secure in the place of master of the ceremonies, as it were, to that
+glorious century whose dawn he enjoyed and helped to beautify?
+
+I will explain it.
+
+It is because he is national. He represents not what is most this, or
+most that--"highest", "noblest", "truest", "best", and all the rest of
+it--in his countrymen, but rather what they have most in common.
+
+Did you meet him to-day in the Strand you would know at once that you
+had to do with a Frenchman, and, probably, with a kind of poet.
+
+He was short, square in the shoulders, tending in middle age to fatness.
+A dark hair and beard; large brown eyes of the south; a great, rounded,
+wrinkled forehead like Verlaine's; a happy mouth, a nose very
+insignificant, completed him. When we meet somewhere, under cypress
+trees at last, these great poets of a better age, and find Ronsard a
+very happy man, Du Bellay, a gentleman; then Malherbe, for all that he
+was a northerner, we may mistake, if we find him, for a Catalonian.
+Villon, however Parisian, will appear the Bohemian that many cities have
+produced; Charles of Orleans may seem at first but one of that very high
+nobility remnants of which are still to be discovered in Europe. But
+when we see Marot, our first thought will certainly be, as I have said,
+that we have come across a Frenchman; and the more French for a touch of
+the commonplace.
+
+See how French was the whole career!
+
+Whatever is new attracts him. The reformation attracts him. It was
+_chic_ to have to do with these new things. He had the French ignorance
+of what was foreign and alien; the French curiosity to meddle with it
+because it had come from abroad; the French passion for opposing, for
+struggling;--and beneath it all the large French indifference to the
+problem of evil (or whatever you like to call it), the changeless French
+content in certitude, upon which ease, indeed, as upon a rock, the
+Church of Gaul has permanently stood and will continuously repose.
+
+He has been a sore puzzle to the men who have never heard of these
+things. Calvin (that appalling exception who had nothing in him of
+France except lucidity) could make neither head nor tail of him. Geneva
+was glad enough to chaunt through the nose his translations of the
+Psalms, but it was woefully puzzled at his salacity, and the town was
+very soon too hot to hold him in his exile. And as for the common,
+partial, and ignorant histories of France, written in our tongue, they
+generally make him a kind of backslider, who might have been a Huguenot
+(and--who knows?--have thrown the Sacrament to beasts with the best of
+them) save that, unhappily, he did not persevere. Whatever they say of
+him (and some have hardly heard of him) one thing is quite certain: that
+they do not understand him, and that if they did they would like him
+still less than they do.
+
+He was national in the rapidity of the gesture of his mind as in that of
+his body: in his being attracted here and there, watching this and that
+suddenly, like a bird.
+
+He was national in his power of sharp recovery from any emotion back
+into his normal balance.
+
+He was national in that he depended upon companions, and stood for a
+crowd, and deplored all isolation. He was national in that he had
+nothing strenuous about him, and that he was amiable, and if he had
+heard of "earnest" men, he would have laughed at them a little, as
+people who did not see the whole of life.
+
+He was especially national (and it is here that the poet returns) in
+that most national of all things--a complete sympathy with the
+atmosphere of the native tongue. Thus men debate a good deal upon the
+poetic value of Wordsworth, but it is certain, when one sees how bathed
+he is in the sense of English words, their harmony and balance, that the
+man is entirely English, that no other nation could have produced him,
+and that he will be most difficult for foreigners to understand. You
+will not translate into French or any other language the simplicity of:
+
+    "Glimpses that should make me less forlorn."
+
+Nor can you translate, so as to give its own kind of grandeur
+
+    "Et arrivoit pour bénistre la vigne."
+
+Apart from his place in letters, see how national he is in what he does!
+
+He buys two bits of land, he talks of them continually, sees to them,
+visits them. They are quite little bits of land. He calls one Clément,
+and the other Marot! Here is a whimsicality you would not find, I think,
+among another people.
+
+He has the hatred of "sprawling" in his particular art which is the
+chief aesthetic character of the French; but he has the tendency to
+excess in opinion or in general expression which is their chief
+political fault.
+
+It is thus, then, that I think he should be regarded and that I would
+desire to present him. It is thus, I am sure, that he should be read if
+one is to know why he has taken so great a place in the reverence and
+the history of the French people.
+
+And it is in this aspect that he may worthily introduce much greater
+things, the Pléiade and Ronsard.
+
+
+
+                         OF COURTING LONG AGO.
+                   (_The Eighth of the Roundels._)
+
+This is a fair enough specimen of Marot at his daily gait: an easy
+versifier "on a theme" and no more. I have said that it is unjust to
+judge him on that level, and I have said why; but I give this to give
+the man as he moved domestically to the admiration of the court and of
+his friends in a time which missed, for example, the epic character of
+the last six lines of "Le Beau Tettin," and which hardly comprehended of
+what value his pure lyric enthusiasms would be to a sadder and drier
+posterity.
+
+
+                      _OF COURTING LONG AGO._
+
+      _Au bon vieulx temps un train d'amour regnoit,
+    Qui sans grand art et dons se démenoit,
+    Si qu'un boucquet donné d'amour profonde
+    S'estoit donné toute la terre ronde:
+    Car seulement au cueur on se prenoit._
+
+      _Et si, par cas, à jouyr on venoit,
+    Sçavez-vous bien comme on s'entretenoit?
+    Vingt ans, trente ans; cela duroit ung monde
+            Au bon vieulx temps._
+
+      _Or est perdu ce qu'amour ordonnoit,
+    Rien que pleurs fainctz, rien que changes on n'oyt.
+    Qui vouldra donc qu'à aymer je me fonde,
+    Il fault, premier, que l'amour on refonde
+    Et qu'on la meine ainsi qu'on la menoit
+            Au bon vieulx temps._
+
+
+
+                                 NOËL.
+                    (_The Second of the Chansons._)
+
+
+But here, upon the contrary, is the spontaneity of his happy mind; it
+suggests a song; one can hardly read it without a tune in one's head, so
+simple is it and so purely lyrical: there is a touch of the dance in it,
+too.
+
+In these little things of Marot, which are neither learned (and he
+boasted of learning) nor set and dry (and his friends especially praised
+his precision), a great poet certainly appears--in short revelations,
+but still appears. Unfortunately there are not enough of them.
+
+That he thought "like a Southerner," as I have maintained and as I shall
+show by a further example, is made the more probable from the value he
+lends to the feminine e. The excellent rhythm of this poem you will only
+get by giving the feminine e the value of a drawn out syllable:
+
+                                "L'effect
+                                Est faict:
+                                La bel-le
+                                Pucel-le," etc.
+
+So Spaniards, Gascons, Provençaux, Italians, rhyme, and all those of the
+south who have retained their glorious "a's" and "o's".
+
+As for the spirit of it--God bless him!--it is a subject for perpetual
+merriment to think of such a man's being taken for a true Huguenot and
+enmeshed, even for a while, in the nasty cobweb of Geneva. But in the
+last thing I shall quote, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see
+it still more.
+
+                 _NOËL._
+
+      _Une pastourelle gentille
+    Et ung bergier en ung verger
+    L'autrhyer en jouant à la bille
+    S'entredisoient, pour abréger:
+            Roger
+            Bergier
+            Legière
+            Bergière,
+      C'est trop à la bille joué;
+      Chantons Noé, Noé, Noé._
+
+      _Te souvient-il plus du prophète
+    Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict,
+    Que d'une pucelle parfaicte
+    Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict?
+            L'effect
+            Est faict:
+            La belle
+            Pucelle
+      A eu ung filz du ciel voué:
+      Chantons Noé, Noé, Noé._
+
+
+
+                            TWO EPIGRAMS.
+       (_The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second._)
+
+These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness, the wit, the
+hard surface of Marot, and they needed no more poetry than was in
+Voltaire or Swift, but they needed style. It was this absolute and
+standard style which his contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the
+marvel was, that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and
+praised and supported only in that guise, he should have carried in him
+any, or rather so much, fire.
+
+The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king's sister had sent him. The
+second explains itself.
+
+
+                           _TWO EPIGRAMS._
+
+      _Mes créanciers, qui de dixains n'ont cure,
+    Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict:
+    "Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure,
+    La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit."
+    Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand crédict,
+    M'ont appelé monsieur à cry et cor,
+    Et m'a valu vostre escript aultant qu'or;
+    Car promis m'ont non seulement d'attendre,
+    Mais d'en prester, foy de marchant, encor,
+    Et j'ay promis, foy de Clément, d'en prendre._
+
+
+
+      _Paris, tu m'as faict maints alarmes,
+    Jusque à me poursuivre à la mort:
+    Je n'ay que blasonné tes armes:
+    Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord!
+    Encor la coulpe m'en remord.
+    Ne scay de toy comment sera;
+    Mais de nous deux le diable emport
+    Celuy qui recommencera._
+
+
+
+                         TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
+                          (_The 16th Epistle._)
+
+It is the way this is printed that makes some miss its value. It is,
+like all the best he wrote, a song; it needs the varying time of human
+expression, the effect of tone, the repose and the re-lifting of musical
+notes; illuminated thus it greatly charmed, and if any one would know
+the order of such a tune, why, it should follow the punctuation: a
+cessation at the third line; a rise of rapid accents to the thirteenth,
+and then a change; the last three lines of the whole very much fuller
+and strong.
+
+So I would hear it sung on a winter evening in an old house in Auvergne,
+and re-enter the sixteenth century as I heard.
+
+                        _TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS._
+
+
+                              _Ma mignonne,
+                              Je vous donne
+                              Le bon jour.
+                              Le séjour,
+                              C'est prison.
+                              Guérison
+                              Recouvrez,
+                              Puis ouvrez
+                              Vostre porte
+                              Et qu'on sorte
+                              Vistement;
+                              Car Clément
+                              Le vous mande.
+                              Va, friande
+                              De ta bouche,
+                              Qui se couche
+                              En danger
+                              Pour manger
+                              Confitures;
+                              Si tu dures
+                              Trop malade,
+                              Couleur fade
+                              Tu prendras
+                              Et perdras
+                              L'embonpoint.
+                              Dieu te doint,
+                              Santé bonne,
+                               Ma mignonne._
+
+
+
+
+                           THE VINEYARD SONG.
+                      (_The 4th of the Chansons._)
+
+
+Here is Marot's best--even though many of his native critics will not
+admit it so; but to feel it in full one must be exiled from the vines.
+
+It is a tapestry of the Renaissance; the jolly gods of the Renaissance,
+the old gods grown Catholic moving across a happier stage. Bacchus in
+long robes and with solemnity blessing the vine, Silenus and the
+hobbling smith who smithied the Serpe, the Holy Vineyard Knife in
+heaven, all these by their diction and their flavour recall the Autumn
+in Herault and the grapes under a pure sky, pale at the horizon, and
+labourers and their carts in the vineyard, and these set in the frame of
+that great time when Saturn did return.
+
+All the poem is wine. It catches its rhymes and weaves them in and in,
+and moves rapid and careless in a fugue, like the march from Asia when
+the Panthers went before and drew the car. The internal rhythm and pulse
+is the clapping of hands in barns at evening and the peasants' feet
+dancing freely on the beaten earth. It is a very good song; it remembers
+the treading of the grapes and is refreshed by the mists that rise at
+evening when the labour is done.
+
+                         _THE VINEYARD SONG._
+
+      _Changeons propos, c'est trop chanté d'amours,
+    Ce sont clamours, chantons de la Serpette,
+    Tous vignerons ont à elle recours,
+    C'est leur secours pour tailler la vignette.
+    O serpilette, ô la serpilonnette,
+    La vignolette est par toy mise sus,
+    Dont les bons vins, tous les ans, sont yssus!_
+
+      _Le dieu Vulcain, forgeron des haults dieux,
+    Forgea aux cieulx la serpe bien taillante,
+    De fin acier, trempé en bon vin vieulx,
+    Pour tailler mieulx et estre plus vaillante.
+    Bacchus le vante et dit qu'elle est séante
+    Et convenante à Noé le bonshom
+    Pour en tailler la vigne en la saison._
+
+      _Bacchus alors chappeau de treille avoit,
+    Et arrivoit pour bénistre la vigne;
+    Avec flascons Silénus le suivoit,
+    Lequel beuvoit aussi droict qu'une ligne;
+    Puis il trépigne, et se faict une bigne;
+    Comme une guigne estoit rouge son nez.
+    Beaucoup de gens de sa race sont nez._
+
+
+
+
+                                  RONSARD.
+
+If it be true that words create for themselves a special atmosphere, and
+that their mere sound calls up vague outer things beyond their strict
+meaning, so it is true that the names of the great poets by their mere
+sound, by something more than the recollection of their work, produce an
+atmosphere corresponding to the quality of each; and the name of Ronsard
+throws about itself like an aureole the characters of fecundity, of
+leadership, and of fame.
+
+A group of men to which allusion will be made in connection with Du
+Bellay set out with a programme, developed a determined school, and
+fixed the literary renaissance of France at its highest point. They
+steeped themselves in antiquity, and they put to the greatest value it
+has ever received the name of poet; they demanded that the poet should
+be a kind of king, or seer. Half seriously, half as a product of mere
+scholarship, the pagan conception of the muse and of inspiration filled
+them.
+
+More than that; in their earnest, and, as it seemed at first, artificial
+work, they formed the French language. Some of its most famous and most
+familiar words proceed from them--for instance, the word _Patrie_. Some
+few of their exotic Greek and Latin adaptations were dropped; the
+greater part remained. They have excluded from French--as some think to
+the impoverishment of that language--most elements of the Gothic--the
+inversion of the adjective, the frequent suppression of the relative,
+the irregularity of form, which had survived from the Middle Ages, and
+which make the older French poetry so much more sympathetic to the
+Englishman than is the new--all these were destroyed by the group of men
+of whom I speak. They were called by their contemporaries the Pleiade,
+for they were seven stars.
+
+Now, of these, Ronsard was easily the master. He had that power which
+our anaemic age can hardly comprehend, of writing, writing, writing,
+without fear of exhaustion, without irritability or self-criticism,
+without danger of comparing the better with the worse. Five great
+volumes of small print, all good--men of that facility never write the
+really paltry things--all good, and most of it glorious; some of it on
+the level which only the great poets reach here and there. It is in
+reading this man who rhymed unceasingly for forty years, who made of
+poetry an occupation as well as a glory, and who let it fill the whole
+of his life, that one feels how much such creative power has to do with
+the value of verse. There is a kind of good humility about it, the
+humility of a man who does not look too closely at himself, and the
+health of a soul at full stride, going forward. You may open Ronsard at
+any page, and find a beauty; you may open any one of the sonnets at
+random, and in translating it discover that you are compelled to a fine
+English, because he is saying, plainly, great things. And of these
+sonnets, note you, he would write thirty at a stretch, and then twenty,
+and then a second book, with seventy more. So that as one reads one
+cannot help understanding that Italian who said a man was no poet unless
+he could rap out a century of sonnets from time to time; and one is
+reminded of the general vigour of the age and of the way in which art of
+all sorts was mingled up together, when one remembers the tags of
+verses, just such verses as these, which are yet to be seen in our
+galleries set down doubtfully on the margin of their sketches by the
+great artists of Italy.
+
+Ronsard, with these qualities of a leader, unconscious, as all true
+leaders are, of the causes of his leadership, and caring, as all true
+leaders do, for nothing in leadership save the glory it brings with it,
+had also, as have all leaders, chiefly the power of drawing in a
+multitude of friends. The peculiar head of his own group, he very soon
+became the head of all the movement of his day. He had made letters
+really great in the minds of his contemporaries, and having so made
+them, appeared before them as a master of those letters. Certainly, as I
+shall quote him in a moment when I come to his dying speech, he was
+"satiated with glory."
+
+Yet this man did not in his personality convey that largeness which was
+his principal mark. His face was narrow, long and aquiline; his health
+uneven. It was evidently his soul which made men quickly forget the
+ill-matched case which bore it; for almost alone of the great poets he
+was consistently happy, and there poured out from him not only this
+unceasing torrent of verse, but also advice, sustenance, and a kind of
+secondary inspiration for others.
+
+In yet another matter he was a leader, and a leader of the utmost
+weight, not the cause, perhaps, but certainly the principal example of
+the trend which the mind of the nation was taking as the sixteenth
+century drew to a close. I mean in the matter of religion, upon whose
+colour every society depends, which is the note even of a national
+language, and which seems to be the ultimate influence beyond which no
+historical analysis can carry a thinking man.
+
+But even those who will not admit the truth of this should watch the
+theory closely, for with the religious trend of France is certainly
+bound up, and, as I would maintain, on such an influence is dependent,
+that ultimate setting of the French classic, that winding up of the
+Renaissance, with which I shall deal in the essay upon Malherbe.
+
+The stream of Catholicism was running true. The nation was tumbling back
+after a high and turbulent flood into the channel it had scoured for
+itself by the unbroken energies of a thousand years. It is no accident
+that Ronsard, that Du Bellay, were churchmen. It is a type. It is a type
+of the truth that the cloth admitted poets; of the truth that in the
+great battle whose results yet trouble Europe, here, on the soil where
+the great questions are fought out, Puritanism was already killed. The
+epicurean in them both, glad and ready in Ronsard, sombre and Lucretian
+in Du Bellay, jarred indeed in youth against their vows; but that it
+should have been tolerated, that it should have led to no excess or
+angry revolt, was typical of their moment. It was typical, finally, of
+their generation that all this mixture of the Renaissance with the
+Church matured at last into its natural fruit, for in the case of
+Ronsard we have a noble expression of perfect Christianity at the end.
+
+In the November of 1585 he felt death upon him; he had himself borne to
+his home as soon as the Huguenot bands had left it, ravaged and
+devastated as it was. He found it burnt and looted, but it reminded him
+of childhood and of the first springs of his great river of verse. A
+profound sadness took him. He was but in his sixty-second year, his mind
+had not felt any chill of age. He could not sleep; poppies and
+soporifics failed him. He went now in his coach, now on a litter from
+place to place in that country side which he had rendered famous, and
+saw the Vendomois for the last time; its cornfields all stubble under a
+cold and dreary sky. And in each place he waited for a while.
+
+But death troubled him, and he could not remain. Within a fortnight he
+ordered that they should carry him southward to the Loire, to that
+priory of which--by a custom of privilege, nobility and royal favour--he
+was the nominal head, the priory which is "the eye and delight of
+Touraine",--the Isle of St. Cosmo. He sickened as he went. The thirty
+miles or so took him three painful days; twice, all his strength failed
+him, and he lay half fainting in his carriage; to so much energy and to
+so much power of creation these episodes were an awful introduction of
+death.
+
+It was upon the 17th of November that he reached the walls wherein he
+was Superior; six weeks later, on the second day after Christmas, he
+died.
+
+Were I to describe that scene to which he called the monks, all men of
+his own birth and training, were I to dwell upon the appearance and the
+character of the oldest and the wisest, who was also the most famous
+there, I should extend this essay beyond its true limit, as I should
+also do were I to write down, even briefly, the account of his just,
+resigned, and holy death. It must suffice that I transcribe the chief of
+his last deeds; I mean, that declaration wherein he made his last
+profession of faith.
+
+The old monk had said to him: "In what resolution do you die?"
+
+He answered, somewhat angrily: "In what did you think? In the religion
+which was my father's and his father's, and his father's and his
+father's before him--for I am of that kind."
+
+Then he called all the community round him, as though the monastic
+simplicity had returned (so vital is the Faith, so simple its primal
+energies), and as though he had been the true prior of some early and
+fervent house, he told them these things which I will faithfully
+translate on account of their beauty. They are printed here, I think,
+for the first time in English, and must stand for the end of this essay:
+
+He said: "That he had sinned like other men, and, perhaps, more than
+most; that his senses had led him away by their charm, and that he had
+not repressed or constrained them as he should; but none the less, he
+had always held that Faith which the men of his line had left him, he
+had always clasped close the Creed and the unity of the Catholic Church;
+that, in fine, he had laid a sure foundation, but he had built thereon
+with wood, with hay, with straw. As for that foundation, he was sure it
+would stand; as for the light and worthless things he had built upon it
+he had trust in the mercy of the Saviour that they would be burnt in the
+fire of His love. And now he begged them all to believe hard, as he had
+believed; but not to live as he had lived; they must understand that he
+had never attempted or plotted against the life or goods of another, nor
+ever against any man's honour, but, after all, there was nothing therein
+wherewith to glorify one's self before God." When he had wept a little,
+he continued, saying, "that the world was a ceaseless turmoil and
+torment, and shipwreck after shipwreck all the while, and a whirlpool of
+sins, and tears and pain, and that to all these misfortunes there was
+but one port, and this port was Death. But, as for him, he carried with
+him into that port no desire and no regret for life. That he had tried
+every one of its pretended joys, that he had left nothing undone which
+could give him the least shadow of pleasure or content, but that at the
+end he had found everywhere the oracle of Wisdom, vanity of vanities."
+
+He ended with this magnificent thing, which is, perhaps, the last his
+human power conceived, and I will put it down in his own words:--
+
+"Of all those vanities, the loveliest and most praiseworthy is
+glory--fame. No one of my time has been so filled with it as I; I have
+lived in it, and loved and triumphed in it through time past, and now I
+leave it to my country to garner and possess it after I shall die. So do
+I go away from my own place as satiated with the glory of this world as
+I am hungry and all longing for that of God."
+
+
+
+                   DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.
+
+This is a little Amaboean thing not very well known but very Horatian
+and worth setting down here because it is in the manner of so much that
+he wrote.
+
+Its manner is admirable. Its gentleness, persistency and increase--are
+like those of his own small river the Loir. Its last stanza from the
+middle of the first line "_Ceux dont la fantaisie_" to the end, should,
+I think be famous; but an English reader can hardly forgive such an
+introduction as "_Voilà sagement dit_" to so noble a finale.
+
+
+
+                   _DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS._
+
+Ronsard. _Pour avoir trop aimé vostre bande inégale,
+         Muses, qui defiez (ce dites vous) le temps,
+         J'ay les yeux tout battus, la face toute pasle,
+         Le Chef grison et chauve, et je n'ay que trente ans._
+
+Muses.   _Au nocher qui sans cesse erre sur la marine
+         Le teint noir appartient; le soldat n'est point beau
+         Sans estre tout poudreux; qui courbe la poitrine
+         Sur nos livres, est laid s'il n'a pasle la peau._
+
+Ronsard. _Mais quelle recompense aurois-je de tant suivre
+         Vos danses nuict et jour, un laurier sur le front?
+         Et cependant les ans aux quels je deusse vivre
+         En plaisirs et en jeux comme poudre s'en vont._
+
+Muses.   _Vous aurez, en vivant, une fameuse gloire,
+         Puis, quand vous serez mort, votre nom fleurira
+         L'age, de siècle en siècle, aura de vous memoire;
+         Vostre corps seulement au tombeau pourrira._
+
+Ronsard. _O le gentil loyer! Que sert au viel Homère,
+         Ores qu'il n'est plus rien, sous la tombe, là-bas,
+         Et qu'il n'a plus ny chef, ny bras, ny jambe entiere
+         Si son renom fleurist, ou s'il ne fleurist pas!_
+
+Muses.   _Vous estes abusé. Le corps dessous la lame
+         Pourry ne sent plus rien, aussy ne luy en chaut.
+         Mais un tel accident n'arrive point à l'ame,
+         Qui sans matière vist immortelle là haut._
+
+Ronsard. _Bien! Je vous suyvray donc d'une face plaisante,
+         Dussé-je trespasser de l'estude vaincu,
+         Et ne fust-ce qu'à fin que la race suyvante
+         Ne me reproche point qu'oysif j'aye vescu._
+
+Muses.   _Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie
+         Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu
+         Tousjours acheveront quelque grand poesie,
+         Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu._
+
+
+
+                          THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS.
+
+Seven years after Rabelais died, Ronsard wrote this off-hand. I give it,
+not for its value, but because it connects these two great names. The
+man who wrote it had seen that large and honorable mouth worshipping
+wine: he had reverenced that head of laughter which has corrected all
+our philosophy. It would be a shame to pass such a name as Ronsard's
+signed to an epitaph on such a work as that of Rabelais, poetry or no
+poetry.
+
+Ronsard also from a tower at Meudon used to creep out at night and drink
+with that fellow-priest, vicar of the Parish, Rabelais: a greater man
+than he.
+
+By a memory separate from the rest of his verse, Ronsard was moved to
+write this Rabelaisian thing. For he had seen him "full length upon the
+grass and singing so."
+
+There is no need of notes, for these great names of Gargantua, Panurge
+and Friar John are household to every honest man.
+
+
+
+                         _THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS._
+
+
+    _Si d'un mort qui pourri repose
+    Nature engendre quelque chose,
+    Et si la génération
+    Se faict de la corruption,
+    Une vigne prendra naissance
+    Du bon Rabelais qui boivoit
+    Tousjours ce pendant qu'il vivoit;_
+
+    _Demi me se troussoit les bras
+    Et se couchoit tout plat à bas
+    Sur la jonchée entre les tasses
+    Et parmy les escuelles grasses_
+
+    _Il chantait la grande massue
+    Et la jument de Gargantue,
+    Le grand Panurge et le jaïs
+    Des papimanes ébahis,
+    Leurs loix, leurs façons et demeures
+    Et Frère Jean des Antonneures.
+    Et d'Espisteme les combas.
+    Mais la Mort qui ne boivoit pas
+    Tira le beuveur de ce monde
+    Et ores le fait boire de l'onde
+    Du large fleuve d'Achéron._
+
+
+
+                  "MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
+                  (_The 17th Ode of the First Book._)
+
+
+"In these eighteen lines," says very modernly a principal critic, "lies
+Ronsard's fame more surely than in all the remaining mass of his works."
+He condemns by implication Ronsard's wide waste of power; but the few
+other poems that I have here had room to print, should make the reader
+careful of such judgements. It is true that in the great hoard which
+Ronsard left his people there are separate and particular jewels set in
+the copper and the gold, but the jewels are very numerous: indeed it was
+almost impossible to choose so few as I have printed here.
+
+If it be asked why this should have become the most famous, no answer
+can be given save the "flavour of language." It is the perfection of his
+tongue. Its rhythm reaches the exact limit of change which a simple
+metre will tolerate: where it saddens, a lengthy hesitation at the
+opening of the seventh line introduces a new cadence, a lengthy
+lingering upon the last syllables of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth
+closes a grave complaint. So, also by an effect of quantities, the last
+six lines rise out of melancholy into their proper character of appeal
+and vivacity: an exhortation.
+
+Certainly those who are so unfamiliar with French poetry as not to know
+that its whole power depends upon an extreme subtlety of rhythm, may
+find here the principal example of the quality they have missed.
+Something much less weighty than the stress of English lines, a just
+perceptible difference between nearly equal syllables, marks the
+excellent from the intolerable in French prosody: and to feel this truth
+in the eighteen lines that follow it is necessary to read them virtually
+in the modern manner--for the "s" in "vesprée" or "vostre" were
+pedantries in the sixteenth century--but one must give the mute "e's"
+throughout as full a value as they have in singing. Indeed, reading this
+poem, one sees how it must have been composed to some good and simple
+air in the man's head.
+
+If the limits of a page permitted it, I would also show how worthy the
+thing was of fame from its pure and careful choice of verb--"Tandis que
+vostre age _fleuronne_"--but space prevents me, luckily, for all this is
+like splitting a diamond.
+
+                    "_MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE._"
+
+    _Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
+    Qui ce matin avoit desclose
+    Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
+    A point perdu ceste vesprée
+    Les plis de sa robe pourprée
+    Et son teint au vostre pareil_
+
+      _Las! Voyez comme en peu d'espace
+    Mignonne, elle a dessus la place,
+    Las! Las! ses beautez laissé cheoir!
+    O vrayment marastre nature,
+    Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure
+    Que du matin jusques au soir!_
+
+    _Donc si vous me croyez, Mignonne,
+    Tandis que vostre age fleuronne
+    En sa plus verte nouveauté,
+    Cuillez, Cuillez vostre jeunesse:
+    Comme à ceste fleur, la veillesse
+    Fera ternir vostre beauté._
+
+
+
+                        THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE"
+            (_The 42nd and 43rd Sonnets of the Second Book._)
+
+Hélène was very real. A young Maid of Honour to Catherine de Medicis;
+Spanish by blood, Italian by breeding, called in France "de Sugères,"
+she was the gravest and the wisest, and, for those who loved serenity,
+the most beautiful of that high and brilliant school.
+
+The Sonnets began as a task; a task the Queen had set Ronsard, with
+Hélène for theme: they ended in the last strong love of Ronsard's life.
+A sincere lover of many women, he had come to the turn of his age when
+he saw her, like a memory of his own youth. He has permitted to run
+through this series, therefore, something of the unique illusion which
+distance in time or space can lend to the aspect of beauty. An emotion
+so tenuous does not appear in any other part of his work: here alone you
+find the chastity or weakness which made something in his mind come near
+to the sadder Du Bellay's: his soul is regardant all the while as he
+writes: visions rise from her such as never rose from Cassandra; as this
+great picture at the opening of the 58th Sonnet of the Second Book:
+
+    Seule sans compagnie en une grande salle
+    Tu logeois l'autre jour pleine de majesté.
+
+These "Sonnets for Hélène" should be common knowledge: they are (with Du
+Bellay's) the evident original upon which the author of Shakespeare's
+Sonnets modelled his work: they are the late and careful effort of
+Ronsard's somewhat spendthrift genius.
+
+Here are two of them. One, the second, most famous, the other, the
+first, hardly known: both are admirable.
+
+It is the perfection of their sound which gives them their peculiar
+quality. The very first lines lead off with a completed harmony: it is
+as thoroughly a winter night as that in Shakespeare's song, but it is
+more solemn and, as it were, more "built of stone...."
+
+"La Lune Ocieuse, tourne si lentement son char tout à l'entour", is like
+a sleeping statue of marble.
+
+To this character, the second adds a vivid interest of emotion which has
+given it its special fame. Even the populace have come to hear of this
+sonnet, and it is sung to a lovely tune. It has also what often leads to
+permanent reputation in verse, a great simplicity of form. The Sextet is
+well divided from the Octave, the climax is clearly underlined. Ronsard
+was often (to his hurt) too scholarly to achieve simplicity: when, under
+the clear influence of some sharp passion or gaiety he did achieve it,
+then he wrote the lines that will always remain:
+
+    A fin qu'à tout jamais de siècle en siècle vive,
+    La Parfaicte amitié que Ronsard la portait.
+
+
+
+                       _THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE."_
+
+XLII
+
+    _Ces longues nuicts d'hyver, où la Lune ocieuse
+        Tourne si lentement son char tout à l'entour,
+        Où le Coq si tardif nous annonce le jour,
+    Où la nuict semble un an à l'ame soucieuse:
+    Je fusse mort d'ennuy sans ta forme douteuse
+        Qui vient par une feinte alleger mon amour,
+        Et faisant toute nue entre mes bras séjour
+    Me pipe doucement d'une joye menteuse.
+        Vraye tu es farouche, et fière en cruauté:
+        De toy fausse on jouyst en toute privauté.
+            Pres ton mort je m'endors, pres de luy je repose:
+        Rien ne m'est refusé. Le bon sommeil ainsi
+        Abuse pour le faux mon amoureux souci.
+            S'abuser en Amour n'est pas mauvaise chose._
+
+XLIII
+
+    _Quand vous serez bien vieille, au Soir à la chandelle,
+        Assise aupres du feu, dévidant et filant,
+        Direz chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant,
+    Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j'estois belle.
+    Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle
+        Desia sous le labeur à demy sommeillant
+        Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s'aille resveillant,
+    Bénissant vostre nom de louange immortelle._
+
+    _Je seray sous la terre et fantôme sans os
+    Par les ombres myrteux je prendray mon repos.
+        Vous serez au foyer une veille accroupie,
+    Regrettant mon amour et vostre fier desdain.
+    Vivez, si m'en croyez; n'attendez à demain.
+        Cueillez des aujourdhuy les roses de la vie._
+
+
+
+
+                             JOACHIM DU BELLAY.
+
+
+In Du Bellay the literary Renaissance, French but transfigured by Italy,
+middle-north of the plains but looking southward to the Mediterranean,
+came to one soul and concentrated upon it, as the plastic expression of
+the same influence concentrated in Goujon. Very central in time, half
+soldier, half priest, all student; traveller and almost adventurer, a
+pilgrim throughout of the Idea, everything about him is symbolic of the
+generation he adorned.
+
+In its vigour, at least, the Renaissance was a glorious youth--he, Du
+Bellay, died at thirty-five. Its leap and soaring were taken from the
+firm platform of strong scholarship--he was a scholar beyond the rest.
+It fixed special forms--he the French sonnet. It felt the lives of all
+things running through it as a young man feels them in the spring
+woods--he gathered in the cup of his verse, and retains for us, the
+nerve of all that life which is still exultant in the forest beyond his
+river. His breeding, his high name, his leisured poverty, his passionate
+friendship, his looking forward always to a new thing, a creation--all
+this, was the Renaissance in person.
+
+Moreover, the Renaissance had in France its seat where, between rolling
+lands whose woods are the walls of gardens, the broad and shallow inland
+Loire runs from Orleans, past Blois and Tours and Saumur, and Ancenis,
+until near Nantes at last it feels the tide: salt and adventures and the
+barbaric sea. This varied sheltered land of aged vineyards and great
+wealth has, for the French Renaissance, the one special quality of
+beginnings and Edens, namely, that it preserves on to a later time the
+outward evidences of an original perfection. This place, the nest or
+seed-plot of the new civilisation, still shows its castles--Blois,
+Amboise, Chambord. Here Leonardo died, Rabelais, Ronsard himself was
+born. Here the kings of the Change built in their fantastic pride, and
+founded a France that still endures. It is as truly the soil of the
+modern thing as are the provinces north of it (the Isle de France,
+Normandy, Picardy and Champagne), the soil of the earlier mediaeval
+flower, and of the Gothic which they preserve unique to our own time.
+
+Now, of this district, Du Bellay was more than a native; he was part of
+it; he pined away from it; he regretted, as no other man of the time
+regretted, his father's land: Anjou and the fields of home. He may be
+said, with some exaggeration, to have died in the misfortune of his
+separation from the security and sober tradition of his own walls. That
+great early experience of his, which I have already written down--his
+meeting with Ronsard--had come to him not far from his own hill, south
+of the great river. His name, unlike Ronsard's, recalled the gentry of
+that countryside up to and beyond the beginning of its history; alone of
+the Pleiade he translated the valley of the Loire, its depth, its
+delicacy, its rich and subtle loneliness.
+
+Again, the Renaissance lived in France an inspired and an exalted life,
+so that there necessarily ran through it a fore-knowledge of sudden
+ending. This tragedy repeated itself in the career of Du Bellay.
+
+His name was famous. The three Du Bellays, the councillor, the soldier,
+the great Cardinal, were in the first rank of the early sixteenth
+century. Rabelais had loved them. Francis I had leaned upon and rewarded
+their service. His father (their first-cousin and Governor of Brest) was
+a poor noble, who, as is the fashion of nobles, had married a wife to
+consolidate a fortune. This wife, the mother of Joachim, was heiress to
+the house of Tourmélière in Liré, just by the Loire on the brow that
+looks northward over the river to the bridge and Ancenis. In this house
+he was born. On his parents' early death he inherited the place, not to
+enjoy it, but to wander. An early illness had made him forsake the
+career of arms for that of the Church; but Orders were hardly so much as
+a cloak to him; it is difficult to remember, as one reads the few
+evidences of his life, that he wore the cloth at all: in his verse all
+trace of it is entirely absent. He lived still in that lineage which the
+reform had not touched. The passionate defence of the Catholic Faith,
+the Assault converging on the church throughout Europe, the raising of
+the Siege, the Triumph which developed, at last, on the political side
+the League, and on the literary the final rigidity of Malherbe, the
+noise of all these had not reached his circle, kind, or family.
+
+Of that family the Cardinal seems to have regarded him as the principal
+survivor. He had determined to make of the young poet the heir of its
+glory. It came to nothing. He accompanied his relative to Rome: but the
+diplomacy of the mission ill-suited him. Of the Royal ladies at court
+who befriended him, the marriage of one, the death of another,
+increased his insecurity. He had inherited, to his bane, another
+estate--Gonor--from his elder brother. It was encumbered, the cause
+litigious, and he had inherited with it the tutelage of a sickly child.
+He never shook off the burden. A tragic error marked his end. He died,
+certainly broken-hearted, just when his powerful cousin, by a conversion
+perhaps unknown to the poet himself, had rejected calumnies, and had
+determined to resign to him the great Archbishopric of Bordeaux.
+
+Eustache Du Bellay, yet another cousin, was Bishop of Paris. He had made
+Joachim, on his return from Rome, a Canon of Notre Dame, and in that
+capacity the poet, dying in Paris, was buried in the cathedral. The
+action of the Chapter in the eighteenth century, when they replaced the
+old tombstones by the present pavement, has destroyed the record of his
+grave; I believe it to lie in the southern part of the ambulatory.
+
+In this abrupt descent, following upon so fierce an activity of thought,
+he prefigured, I say, the close of the Renaissance as his genius
+typified its living spirit; for all the while, as you read him, you see
+the cloud about his head, and the profound, though proud and constant,
+sadness of his eyes.
+
+This, also, was pure Renaissance in him, that the fields in which he
+wandered, and which he loved to sing--a man of elegies--were dominated
+by the awful ruins of Rome. These it was that lent him his gravity, and
+perhaps oppressed him. He sang them also with a comprehension of the
+superb.
+
+He was second to Ronsard. Though he was the sharp voice of the Pleiade,
+though it was he who published their famous manifesto, though his
+scholarship was harder, though his energy could run more fiercely to one
+point and shine there more brilliantly in one small climax; yet he was
+second. He himself thought it of himself, and called himself a disciple.
+All up and down his works you find an astonished admiration directed
+towards his greater friend--
+
+                       ... Un amy que les Dieux
+    Guydent si hault au sentier des plus vieux.
+
+Or again--
+
+    Divin Ronsard qui de l'arc a sept cordes
+    Tiras premier au but de la mémoire
+    Les traicts ailez de la Françoise gloire.
+
+Everywhere it is his friend rather than he that has touched the mark of
+the gods and called up from the tomb the ghost of Rome which all that
+company worshipped.
+
+I say he saw himself that he was second. Old Durat saw it clearly in
+that little college of poets where he taught the unteachable thing: De
+Baif, Belleau--all the comrades would have taken it for granted. Ronsard
+led and was chief, because he had the firm largeness, the laughter and
+the permanence which are the marks of those who determine the fortunes
+of the French in letters or in arms. Ronsard made. His verses, in their
+great mass and unfailing level, were but one example of the power that
+could produce a school, call up a general enthusiasm, and for forty
+years govern the taste of his country. There was in him something
+public, in Du Bellay something domestic and attached, as in the
+relations of a king and of a herald. Or again, the one was like an
+ordered wood with a rich open plain about it, the other was like a
+garden. Ronsard was the Beauce; Du Bellay was Anjou. It might be said of
+the first that he stood a symbol for the wheat and corn-land of the
+Vendômois, and of the second, that he recalled that subtle wine of the
+southern Loire to which Chinon gives the most famous label.
+
+Du Bellay was second: nevertheless, when he is well known in this
+country it will be difficult to convince Englishmen of that truth. There
+is in his mind a facet which exactly corresponds to a facet of our own,
+and that is a quality so rare in the French classics that it will
+necessarily attract English readers to him: for, of all people, we
+nowadays criticise most in letters by the standard of our immediate
+emotions, and least by what was once called "reason." He was capable of
+that which will always be called "poignancy," and what for the moment we
+call "depth." He was less careful than are the majority of his
+countrymen to make letters an art, and so to treat his own personality
+as a thing apart. On the contrary, he allowed that personality to pierce
+through continually, so that simplicity, directness, a certain
+individual note as of a human being complaining--a note we know very
+well in our own literature--is perpetually discovered.
+
+Thus, in a spirit which all Englishmen will understand, a lightness
+almost sardonic lay above the depths of his grief, and the tenderness
+which attached to his home played around the things that go with
+quietude--his books and animals. I shall quote hereafter the epitaphs he
+wrote for his dog and for his cat, this singer of sublime and ruined
+things.
+
+Of the dog who--
+
+                  ... allait tousjours suivant
+    Quelquefois allait devant.
+    Faisant ne sçay quelle feste
+    D'un gai branslement de teste.
+
+and of whom he says, in a pretty imitation of Catullus, that he--
+
+                ... maintenant pourmeine
+    Parmy cette ombreuse plaine
+    Dont nul ne revient vers nous.
+
+Or of the cat who was--
+
+                            ... par aventure
+    Le plus bel oeuvre que nature
+    Fit onc en matière de chats.
+
+All that delicate side of him we understand very well.
+
+Nor is it to modern Englishmen alone that he will appeal. He powerfully
+affected, it may be presumed, the English Renaissance which succeeded
+him. Spenser--thirty years after his death--was moved to the translation
+of his famous lament for Rome, and no one can read the sonnets to which
+he gave their final form without catching the same note in the great
+English cycle of the generation after him--the close of the sixteenth
+and the opening of the seventeenth centuries.
+
+But his verse read will prove all this and suggest much more.
+
+
+
+               EXTRACTS FROM THE "ANTIQUITEZ DE ROME."
+
+Of the high series which Rome called forth from Du Bellay during that
+bitter diplomatic exile of his, I have chosen these three sonnets,
+because they seem best to express the majesty and gloom which haunted
+him. It is difficult to choose in a chain of cadences so equal and so
+exalted, but perhaps the last, "Telle que dans son char la
+Berecynthienne" is the most marvellous. The vision alone of Rome like
+the mother of the Gods in her car would have made the sonnet immortal.
+He adds to the mere picture a noise of words that is like thunder in the
+hills far off on summer afternoons: the words roll and crest themselves
+and follow rumbling to the end: he could not have known as he wrote it
+how great a thing he was writing. It has all the character of verse that
+increases with time and seems superior to its own author's intention.
+
+
+                      _THE "ANTIQUITEZ DE ROME."_
+
+III.
+
+    _Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome,
+        Et rien de Rome en Rome n'apperçois,
+        Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcz que tu vois
+    Et ces vieux Murs, c'est ce que Rome on nomme.
+    Voy quel orgueil, quelle ruine, et comme
+        Celle que mist le monde sous ses loix
+        Pour donter tout, se donta quelquefois,
+    Et devint proye au temps, qui tout consomme._
+
+        _Rome de Rome est le seul monument,
+        Et Rome Rome a vaincu seulement.
+            Le Tybre seul, qui vers la mer s'enfuit,
+        Reste de Rome. O mondaine inconstance!
+            Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps destruit,
+        Et se qui fuit, au temps fait résistance._
+
+IV.
+
+    _Celle qui de son chef les estoilles passoit,
+        Et d'un pied sur Thetis, l'autre dessous l'Aurore
+        D'une main sur le Scythe, et l'autre sur le More,
+    De la terre, et du Ciel, la rondeur compassoit,
+    Juppiter ayant peur, si plus elle croissoit
+        Que l'orgueil des Geans se relevast encore,
+        L'accabla sous ces monts, ces sept monts qui font ore
+    Tumbeaux de la grandeur qui le ciel menassoit._
+
+            _Il luy meist sur le chef la croppe Saturnale
+            Puis dessus l'estomac assist le quirinale
+        Sur le ventre il planta l'antique Palatin,
+            Mist sur la dextre main la hauteur Celienne,
+            Sur la senestre assist l'eschine Exquilienne
+        Viminal sur un pied: sur l'autre L'Aventin._
+
+VI.
+
+    _Telle que dans son Char la Berecynthienne
+        Couronnée de tours, et joyeuse d'avoir
+        Enfanté tant de Dieux, telle se faisoit voir
+    En ses jours plus heureux ceste ville ancienne:
+    Ceste ville qui fust plus que la Phrygienne
+        Foisonnante en enfants et de qui le pouvoir
+        Fust le pouvoir du Monde, et ne se peult revoir
+    Pareille à sa grandeur, grandeur si non la sienne._
+
+            _Rome seule pouvoit à Rome ressembler,
+            Rome seule pouvoit Rome faire trembler:
+        Aussi n'avoit permis l'ordonnance fatale,
+            Qu'autre pouvoir humain, tant fust audacieux,
+        Se vantast d'égaler celle qui fust égale
+            Sa puissance à la terre, et son courage au cieux._
+
+
+
+                         THE SONNET OF EXILE.
+
+This sonnet dates from the same period at Rome, or possibly from his
+return. It has a different note. It is the most personal and passionate
+of all his writings, in which so much was inspired by personal regret.
+On this account it has a special literary interest as the most _modern_
+thing of the Renaissance. It would be far less surprising to find this
+written by one of the young republicans under the Second Empire (for
+instance) than to find a couplet of Malherbe's straying into our time.
+
+
+                        _THE SONNET OF EXILE._
+
+    _France, Mère des arts, des armes, et des loix,
+        Tu m'as nourry long temps du laict de ta mamelle:
+        Ores, comme un aigneau qui sa nourisse appelle,
+    Je remplis de ton nom les antres et les bois,
+    Si tu m'as pour enfant advoué quelquefois
+        Que ne me respons-tu maintenant, ô cruelle?
+        France, France, respons à ma triste querelle:
+    Mais nul, sinon Echo, ne respond à ma voix._
+
+    _Entre les loups cruels j'erre parmy la plaine
+    Je sens venir l'hyver, de qui la froide haleine
+        D'une tremblante horreur fait hérisser ma peau.
+    Las! tes autres agneaux n'ont faute de pasture,
+    Ils ne craignent le loup, le vent, ny la froidure;
+        Si ne suis-je pourtant le pire du troppeau._
+
+
+
+               THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE."
+                  (_The 31st of the "Regrets"_).
+
+It was of a large gray house, moated, a town beside it, yet not far from
+woods and standing in rough fields, pure Angevin, Tourmélière, the Manor
+house of Liré, his home, that Du Bellay wrote this, the most dignified
+and perhaps the last of his sonnets. The sadness which is the permanent,
+though sometimes the unrecognized, moderator of his race, which had
+pierced through in his latter misfortunes, and which had tortured him to
+the cry that has been printed on the preceding page, here reached a
+final and a most noble form: something much higher than melancholy, and
+more majestic than regret. He turned to his estate, the mould of his
+family, a roof, the inheritance of which had formed his original burden
+and had at last crushed him; but he turned to it with affection. If one
+may use so small a word in connection with a great poet, the gentleman
+in him remembered an ancestral repose.
+
+There is very much in the Sonnet to mark that development of French
+verse in which Du Bellay played so great a part. The inversion of the
+sentence, a trick which gives a special character to all the later
+formal drama is prominent: the convention of contrast, the purely
+classical allusion, are mixed with a spirit that is still spontaneous
+and even naïf. But every word is chosen, and it is especially noteworthy
+to discover so early that restraint in epithet which is the charm but
+also the danger of what French style has since become. Of this there are
+two examples here: the eleventh line and the last, which rhymes with it.
+To contrast slate with marble would be impossible prose save for the
+exact adjective "_fine_," which puts you at once into Anjou. The last
+line, in spite of its exquisite murmur, would be grotesque if the "_air
+marin_" were meant for the sea-shore. Coming as it does after the
+suggestions of the Octave it gives you suddenly sea-faring: Ulysses,
+Jason, his own voyages, the long way to Rome, which he knew; and in the
+"_douceur Angevine_" you have for a final foil to such wanderings, not
+only in the meaning of the words, but in their very sound, the hearth
+and the return.
+
+               _THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE"_
+
+
+        _Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage
+    Ou comme cestuy là qui conquit la Toison
+    Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
+        Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age!
+        Quand revoirai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
+    Fumer la cheminée: et en quelle saison
+    Revoirai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
+        Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup d'avantage?_
+
+        _Plus me plaist le séjour qu'ont basty mes aieux
+        Que des palais Romains le front audacieux:
+    Plus que le mabre dur me plaist l'ardoise fine,
+        Plus mon Loyre gaulois que le Tybre Latin,
+        Plus mon petit Lyré que le Mont Palatin,
+    Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur Angevine._
+
+
+
+                   THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE WINDS.
+
+This delicate air of summer, this reminiscence and comfort for men who
+no longer see the Eure or the Bievre or any of their northern rivers,
+this very mirror of Du Bellay's own exiled mind--was written for an
+"exercise." It is a translation--a translation from the Latin of a
+forgotten Venetian scholar.
+
+When a man finds in reading such a startling truth, it convinces him
+that letters have a power of their own and are greater of themselves
+than the things which inspired them: for when, to show his skill in
+rendering Latin into French verse, Du Bellay had written this down, he
+created and fixed for everybody who was to read him from then onwards
+the permanent picture of a field by the side of a small, full river,
+with a band of trees far off, and, above, the poplar leaves that are
+never still. It runs to a kind of happy croon, and has for a few moments
+restored very many who have read it to their own place; and Corot should
+have painted it.
+
+                  _THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE WINDS._
+
+
+                       _A vous troppe legere
+                       Qui d'aele passagere
+                       Par le monde volez,
+                       Et d'un sifflant murmure
+                       L'ombrageuse verdure
+                       Doulcement esbranlez,
+                         J'offre ces violettes,
+                       Ces lis et ces fleurettes
+                       Et ces roses ici,
+                       Ces vermeillettes roses
+                       Tout freschement escloses,
+                       Et ces oeilletz aussi.
+                         De vostre doulce haleine
+                       Eventez ceste plaine
+                       Eventez ce séjour,
+                         Ce pendant que j'ahanne
+                       A mon blé que je vanne
+                       A la chaleur du jour._
+
+
+
+                THE FUNERAL ODES OF THE DOG AND THE CAT.
+
+Here are extracts from those two delightful and tender things to which
+allusion has already been made. The epitaphs upon his little dog and his
+little cat.
+
+It was a character in this sad man to make little, humble, grotesque,
+pleasing images of grief; as it were, little idols of his goddess; and
+he fashioned them with an exquisite humour and affection. What animal of
+the sixteenth century lives so clearly as these two? None, I think,
+except some few in the pictures of the painters of the low countries.
+
+I wish I had space to print both these threnodies in full, but they are
+somewhat long, and I must beg my reader to find them in the printed
+works of Du Bellay. It is well worth the pains of looking.
+
+
+               _THE DOG._
+
+      _Dessous ceste motte verte
+    De lis et roses couverte
+    Gist le petit Peloton
+    De qui le poil foleton
+    Frisoit d'une toyson blanche
+    Le doz, le ventre, et la hanche._
+
+      _Son exercice ordinaire
+    Estoit de japper et braire,
+    Courir en hault et en bas,
+    Et faire cent mille esbas,
+    Tous estranges et farouches,
+    Et n'avoit guerre qu'aux mousches,
+    Qui luy faisoient maint torment.
+    Mais Peloton dextrement
+
+    Leur rendoit bien la pareille:
+    Car se couchant sur l'oreille,
+    Finement il aguignoit
+    Quand quelqu'une le poingnoit:
+    Lors d'une habile soupplesse
+    Happant la mouche traistresse,
+    La serroit bien fort dedans,
+    Faisant accorder ses dens_
+
+      _Peloton ne caressoit,
+    Sinon ceulx qu'il cognoissoit,
+    Et n'eust pas voulu repaistre
+    D'autre main que de son maistre,
+    Qu'il alloit tousjours suyvant:
+    Quelquefois marchoit devant,
+    Faisant ne scay quelle feste
+    D'un gay branlement de teste._
+
+      _Mon Dieu, quel plaisir c'estoit,
+    Quand Peloton se grattoit,
+    Faisant tinter sa sonnette
+    Avec sa teste folette!
+    Quel plaisir, quand Peloton
+    Cheminoit sur un baston,
+    Ou coifé d'un petit linge,
+    Assis comme un petit singe,
+    Se tenoit mignardelet,
+    D'un maintien damoiselet!_
+
+      _Las, mais ce doulx passetemps
+    Ne nous dura pas long temps:
+    Car la mort ayant anvie
+    Sur l'ayse de nostre vie,
+    Envoya devers Pluton
+    Nostre petit Peloton,
+    Qui maintenant se pourmeine
+    Parmi ceste umbreuse plaine,
+    Dont nul ne revient vers nous._
+
+
+
+                _THE CAT_
+
+    _Pourquoy je suis tant esperdu
+    Ce n'est pas pour avoir perdu
+    Mes anneaux, mon argent, ma bource:
+    Et pourquoy est ce donc? pource
+    Que j'ay perdu depuis trois jours
+    Mon bien, mon plaisir, mes amours:
+    Et quoy? ô Souvenance greve
+    A peu que le cueur ne me creve
+    Quand j'en parle ou quand j'en ecris:
+    C'est Belaud, mon petit chat gris:
+    Belaud qui fust, paraventure
+    Le plus bel oeuvre que nature
+    Feit onc en matiere de chats:
+    C'etoit Belaud, la mort au rats
+    Belaud dont la beauté fut telle
+    Qu'elle est digne d'estre immortelle._
+
+    _Mon-dieu, quel passetemps c'estoit
+    Quand ce Belaud vire-voltoit
+    Follastre autour d'une pelote!
+    Quel plaisir, quand sa teste sotte
+    Suyvant sa queue en mille tours,
+    D'un rouet imitoit le cours!
+    Ou quand assis sur le derriere
+    Il s'en faisoit une jartiere,
+    Et monstrant l'estomac velu
+    De panne blanche crespelu,_
+
+    _Sembloit, tant sa trogne estoit bonne,
+    Quelque docteur de la Sorbonne!
+    Ou quand alors qu'on l'animoit,
+    A coups de patte il escrimoit,
+    Et puis appasoit sa cholere
+    Tout soudain qu'on luy faisoit chere._
+
+      _Belaud estoit mon cher mignon,
+    Belaud estoit mon compagnon
+    A la chambre, au lict, à la table,
+    Belaud estoit plus accointable
+    Que n'est un petit chien friand,
+    Et de nuict n'alloit point criand
+    Comme ces gros marcoux terribles,
+    En longs miaudemens horribles:
+    Aussi le petit mitouard
+    N'entra jamais en matouard:
+    Et en Belaud, quelle disgrâce!
+    De Belaud s'est perdue la race.
+      Que pleust a Dieu, petit Belon,
+    Qui j'eusse l'esprit assez bon,
+    De pouvoir en quelque beau style
+    Blasonner ta grace gentile,
+    D'un vers aussi mignard que toy:
+    Belaud, je te promets ma foy,
+    Que tu vivrois, tant que sur terre
+    Les chats aux rats feront la guerre._
+
+
+
+
+                                 MALHERBE.
+
+
+The French Renaissance ended in the Classic. The fate of all that
+exuberance was to find order, and that chaos of generation settled down
+to the obedience of unchanging laws. This transition, which fixed,
+perhaps for ever, the nature of the French tongue, is bound up with the
+name of Malherbe.
+
+When what the French have entitled "the great time," when the generation
+of Louis XIV looked back to find an origin for its majestic security in
+letters, it was in Malherbe that such an origin was discovered; he had
+tamed the wildness of the Renaissance, he had bent its vigour to an
+arrangement and a frame; by him first were explicitly declared those
+rules within which all his successors were content to be narrowed. The
+devotion to his memory is nowhere more exalted or more typically
+presented than in the famous cry--_enfin Malherbe vint_. His name
+carried with it a note of completion and of an end.
+
+When the romantic revival of our own time sought for one mind on which
+to lay the burden of its anger, one hard master or pedant who could be
+made responsible for the drying up of the wells, Malherbe again was
+found. He became the butt of Hugo's splendid ridicule. He was the god of
+plaster that could not hear or speak or feel, but which fools had
+worshipped; a god easy to break to pieces. His austerity--for them
+without fullness--his meagre output, his solemn reiterated code of
+"perfect taste," moved them to a facile but intense aggression. He it
+was that had turned to fossil stone the living matter of the sixteenth
+century: He that had stifled and killed the spirit they attempted to
+recall.
+
+This man so praised, so blamed, for such a quality, was yet exactly,
+year for year, the contemporary of Shakespeare, born earlier and dying
+later. No better example could be discovered of the contrast between the
+French and English tempers.
+
+The Romantics, I say, believed that they had destroyed Malherbe and left
+the Classic a ruined, antiquated thing. They were in error. Victor Hugo
+himself, the leader, who most believed the classic to have become
+isolated and past, was yet, in spite of himself, constrained by it.
+Lamartine lived in it. After all the fantastic vagaries of mystics and
+realists and the rest, it is ruling to-day with increasing power,
+returning as indeed the permanent religion, the permanent policy, of the
+nation are also returning after a century of astounding adventures: for
+the Classic has in it something necessary to the character of the French
+people.
+
+Consider what the Classic is and why all mighty civilisations have
+demanded and obtained some such hard, permanent and, as it were, sacred
+vehicle for the expression of their maturity.
+
+Nations that have a long continuous memory of their own past, nations
+especially whose gods have suffered transformation, but never death,
+develop the somewhat unelastic wisdom of men in old age. They mistrust
+the taste of the moment. They know that things quite fresh and violent
+seem at first greater than they are: that such enthusiasm forms no
+lasting legacy for posterity. Their very ancient tradition gives them a
+thirst for whatever shall certainly remain. The rigid Classic satisfies
+that need.
+
+Again, you will discover that those whose energy is too abundant seek
+for themselves by an instinct the necessary confines without which such
+energy is wasted--and wasted the more from its excess. They canalise for
+their own security a torrent which, undisciplined, would serve but to
+destroy. Such an instinct is apparent in every department of French
+life. To their jurisprudence the French have ever attempted to attach a
+code, to their politics the stone walls of a Constitution, or, at the
+least, of a fundamental theory. Their theology from Athanasius through
+St. Germanus to the modern strict defence against all "liberals" has
+glorified the unchanging. Every outburst of the interior fires in the
+history of Gaul has been followed by a rapid, plastic action which
+reduced to human use what might otherwise have crystallised into an
+amorphous lava. So the wild freedom of the twelfth century was captured
+to form the Monarchy, the University, the full Gothic of the thirteenth:
+so the Revolution permitted Napoleon and produced, not the visionary
+unstable grandeur of the Gironde, but the schools and laws and roads and
+set government we see to-day. So the spring storms of the Renaissance
+settled, I say, into that steady summer of stable form which has now for
+three hundred years dominated the literature of the country.
+
+Caught on with this aspect of energy producing the Classic is the truth
+that energy alone can dare to be classical. Where the great currents of
+the soul run feebly a perpetual acceleration, whether by novelty or by
+extravagance, will be demanded; where they run full and heavy, then,
+under the restraint of form, they will but run more proudly and more
+strong. It is the flickering of life that fears hard rules in verse and
+may not feel the level classics of our Europe. Their rigidity is not
+that of marble; they are not dead. A human acquaintance with their
+sobriety soon fills us as we read. If we lie in the way of the giants
+who conceived them (let me say Corneille or the great Dryden),
+re-reading and further knowledge--especially a deeper experience of
+common life about us--reveal to us the steadfast life of these images;
+the eyes open, the lips might almost move; the statue descends and
+lives.
+
+The man who imposed design and authority and unity upon the letters of
+his country, and who so closed the epoch with which I have been dealing,
+was singularly suited to his task. Observant, something of a stoic,
+uninspired; courageous, witty, a soldier; lucid, critical of method
+only, he corresponded to the movement which, all around him, was
+ushering in the Bourbons: the hardening of Goujon's and de l'Orme's
+luxuriance into the conventions of the great colonnades and the sombre
+immensity of the new palaces; the return of one national faith to a
+people weary of so many random quarrels; the mistrust of an ill-ordered
+squirearchy; the firm founding of a central government.
+
+He was Norman. Right of that north whence the vigour, though not the
+inspiration, of the Renaissance had proceeded, and into which it
+returned. Caen gave him birth, and still remembers him. Normans still
+edit his works--and dedicate these books to the town which also bred
+Corneille. Norman, learned with that restrained but vigorous learning of
+the province, he was also of the province in his blood, for he came of
+one of those fixed families whose heads held great estates all round
+Falaise, and whose cadets branched off into chances abroad: one of the
+Boughtons, in Kent, is still "Boughton Malherbe[1]."
+
+[Footnote 1: Not from the Conquest. It is near Charing, originally de
+Braose land, but an heiress married a Malherbe in the early twelfth
+century.]
+
+He was poor. His father, who held one of those magistracies which the
+smaller nobility bought or inherited, had not known where to turn in the
+turmoil of the central century. In a moment of distress he called
+himself Huguenot when that party seemed to triumph, and Malherbe in
+anger against the apostasy went down south, a boy of nineteen, and
+fought as a soldier--but chiefly duels; for he loved that sport. He lay
+under a kind of protection from the great Catholic houses, though still
+poor, till in 1601--he was a man of forty-six--Henri IV heard of him. In
+all these years he had worked at the rule of poetry like an artisan,
+thinking of nothing else, not even of fame. Those who surrounded him
+took it for granted that he was a master critic--a sort of judge without
+appeal, but it was a very little provincial circle surrounding a very
+unimportant house in Provence. Thus, careless it seems of everything
+except that "form of language" which was with him a passion, like the
+academic or theological passions, he was astonished on coming to Paris
+in 1605 to discover how suited such a pre-occupation was to such a time,
+and how rapidly he became the first name in contemporary letters. Of men
+who poured out verse the age was satiated; of men who could seize the
+language at this turn in its fortune, fix it and give it rules, the age
+had no knowledge till he came: the age fastened upon him, and insisted
+upon making him a master.
+
+A full twenty years from 1607 he governed the transformation, not of
+thought, for that he little changed, but of method and of expression. He
+decided what should be called the typical metres, the alternative of
+feminine and masculine in verse, the order of emphasis, the proportion
+of inversion tolerable, the propriety, the modernity, the archaism of
+words. It is a function to our time meaningless and futile: to such a
+period as that, indispensable and even noble. He interpreted and
+published the national sentiment upon this major thing, the architecture
+of letters. The power of his mind, tortured and insufficient in actual
+production, was supreme in putting forth clearly and finally that
+criticism which ran as an unspoken and obscure current of opinion in the
+mind of his age. This was his glory, and it was true.
+
+His dryness was extraordinary. In a life of seventy-two years, during
+which he wrote and erased incessantly, he, the poet, wrote just so much
+verse as will fill in large type a little pocket volume of 250 pages; to
+be accurate, forty-three lines a year. Of this scraping and pumice stone
+in the mind a better example than his verse is to be found in his
+letters. A number remain. They might seem to be written by two different
+men! Half a dozen are models of that language he adored--they cost him,
+to our knowledge, many days--the rest are slipshod notes that any man
+might write, for he thought they would not survive, and, indeed, the
+majority of his editors have had the piety to suppress them.
+
+No one will understand Malherbe who only hears of how, like a dusty
+workman, he cut and polished, and so fixed the new jewel of letters. In
+our less happy age the academic spirit is necessarily associated with a
+lethargic stupidity. In his it was not so. His force, by which this work
+was carried through, lay in a character of penetration. His face
+expresses it. His very keen and ready eyes, his high lifted brow, his
+sharp nose, and the few active lines of his cheek and forehead, the
+poise of his head, the disdain of his firm mouth, all build him back
+alive for us. His talk, which stammered in its volubility, was incessant
+and varied; his temper ready; his bodily command of gesture and
+definition perfect in old age: he was of good metal all those years.
+
+Of his intense Toryism, his vivacity, his love of arms, his tenacity of
+perception, Racan gives us in his biography an admirable picture. Just
+before he died his son was killed in a duel--he, at seventy-two, desired
+passionately to kill the adversary. "Gambling," he said, "my pence of
+life against the gold of his twenty-five years." He had wit, and he
+hated well--hating men after death:
+
+    Here richly with ridiculous display
+    Killed by excess was Wormwood laid away,
+    While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
+    I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
+
+His zeal for his tongue was real. As he lay upon his death-bed making
+his confession after so vigorous a life, he heard his nurse say
+something to herself which sounded ungrammatical and, turning round from
+the priest, he put her right in a manner most violent and sudden. His
+confessor, startled, said: "The time is not relevant". "All times are
+relevant!" he answered, sinking back. "I will defend with my last breath
+the purity and grandeur of the French tongue."
+
+To such a man the meaning of the solution at which his people had
+arrived after a century of civil war lay, above all, in their ancient
+religion. On that converged those deeper and more permanent things in
+his soul of which even his patriotism and his literary zeal were but the
+surface. In the expression of that final solution his verse, which was
+hardly that of a poet, rises high into poetry; under the heat and
+pressure of his faith, single lines here and there have crystallized
+into diamonds. By far the most vigorous of so many frigid odes is the
+battle cry addressed by him in old age to Louis XIII setting out against
+La Rochelle. He visited that siege, but had the misfortune to die a bare
+week before the fall of the city. The most powerful of his sonnets, or
+rather the only powerful one, is that in which he calls to Our Lord for
+vengeance against the men who killed his son. Catholicism in its every
+effect, political and personal, as it were literary too, possessed the
+man, so that in ending the types of the French Renaissance with him you
+see how the terms in which ultimately the French express themselves are
+and will remain religious. The last two lines of his most famous and
+most Catholic poem have about them just that sound which saves them, in
+spite of their too simple words, from falling into the vulgar
+commonplace of vague and creedless men. In writing them down one seems
+to be writing down the fate of the great century now tamed, alas! and
+ordered, as must be the violence of over-human things:--
+
+    Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule Science
+              Qui nous met en repos.
+
+
+
+                                 EXTRACTS.
+
+     (_From the "Ode to Louis XIII setting out against La Rochelle,"
+                and the "Sonnet on his son's death."_)
+
+It has been remarked that Malherbe in his most vigorous years
+deliberately employed the strength of his mind to the repression of
+emotion in his verse, and used it only to fashion, guide, control, and
+at last fix permanently the rules of the language. It is certainly true
+that as his bodily vigour declined, a certain unexpected anger and
+violence enters into his verse, to the great relief of us moderns: not
+to that of his contemporaries.
+
+Of this feature in him, the two following extracts are sufficient proof.
+They were written, the first at the close of his seventy-second, the
+other at the entry of his seventy-third year. In each, something close
+to his heart was at issue, and in each he gives some vent--far more than
+had been his wont--to passion.
+
+The first is a cry to Louis XIII to have done with the Huguenot. It was
+written to the camp before La Rochelle. I know of nothing in French
+literature which more expresses the intense current of national feeling
+against the nobility and rich townsmen who had attempted to warp the
+national tradition and who had re-introduced into French life the
+element which France works perpetually to throw out as un-European,
+ill-cultured and evil. Indeed, the reading of it is of more value to the
+comprehension of the national attitude than any set history you may
+read.
+
+The second is in its way a thing equally religious and equally catholic.
+This call for vengeance to God was not only an expression of anger
+called forth by his son's death, it was also, and very largely, the
+effect of a reaction against the ethics of Geneva: an attack on the
+idolatry at once of meekness and of fatality which was to him so
+intolerable a corruption of the Christian religion.
+
+There is some doubt as to whether it is his last work. I believe it to
+be so; but Blaise, in his excellent edition, prints the dull and
+unreadable ode to Lagade later, and ascribes it to the same year.
+
+                         _ODE TO LOUIS XIII._
+
+    _Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la France
+    Les fronts trop élevés de ces ames d'enfer;
+    Et n'épargne contre eux, pour notre délivrance,
+              Ni le feu ni le fer.
+
+    Assez de leurs complots l'infidèle malice
+    A nourri le désordre et la sédition:
+    Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justice
+              En leur punition.
+
+    Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies,
+    Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs,
+    Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies
+              Ne causent que des pleurs.
+
+    Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères,
+    Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien
+    Que l'inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipères
+              Ne renouvelle au tien?
+
+    Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes désertes,
+    Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changes,
+    Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,
+              Que par ces enrages?
+
+    Marche, va les détruire, éteins-en la semence,
+    Et suis jusqu'à leur fin ton courroux généreux,
+    Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémence
+              Qui te parle pour eux.
+
+    Toutes les autres morts n'ont mérite ni marque;
+    Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux,
+    Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barque
+              A la table des dieux._
+
+
+
+                     _SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH._
+
+    _Que mon fils ait perdu sa dépouille mortelle,
+    Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,
+    Je ne l'impute point à l'injure du sort,
+    Puis que finir à l'homme est chose naturelle.
+
+    Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidèle
+    Ait terminé ses jours d'une tragique mort,
+    En cela ma douleur n'a point de réconfort,
+    Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.
+
+    O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,
+    Le trouble de mon ame étant sans guérison,
+    Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu légitime,
+
+    Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifié;
+    Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crime
+    Sont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifié._
+
+
+
+              EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."
+
+These stanzas, which are among the best-known as they are, in the
+opinion of many, the dullest, in French literature, serve well to close
+this book.
+
+One verse at least (the fourth) is most legitimately famous, though it
+is hackneyed from the constant repetition of fools. For the rest a
+certain simplicity, a great precision, may or may not atone for their
+deliberate coldness.
+
+What is certain is that, poetry or not, they admirably express the
+spirit of his pen and its prodigious effect. They express the classical
+end of the French Renaissance with as much weight and hardness as the
+great blank walls of stone that were beginning to show in the rebuilding
+of Paris. It is for this quality that I have printed them here, using
+them as the definite term of that long, glorious, and uncertain phase in
+European letters.
+
+
+                  _THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."_
+
+    _Ta douleur, du Perrier, sera donc éternelle?
+      Et les tristes discours
+    Que te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelle
+      L'augmenteront toujours?_
+
+    _Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descendue
+      Par un commun trépas,
+    Est-ce quelque dédale où ta raison perdue
+      Ne se retrouve pas?_
+
+    _Je sais de quels appas son enfance étoit pleine,
+      Et n'ai pas entrepris,
+    Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peine
+      Avecque son mépris._
+
+    _Mais elle étoit du monde, où les plus belles choses
+      Ont le pire destin;
+    Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses
+      L'espace d'un matin._
+
+    _Puis quand ainsi seroit que, selon ta prière,
+      Elle auroit obtenu
+    D'avoir en cheveux blancs terminé sa carrière,
+      Qu'en fût-il avenu?_
+
+    _Penses-tu que, plus vieille, en la maison céleste
+      Elle eût eu plus d'accueil,
+    Ou qu'elle eût moins senti la poussière funeste
+      Et les vers du cercueil?_
+
+    _De moi, déja deux fois d'une pareille foudre
+      Je me suis vu perclus;
+    Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait résoudre,
+      Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus._
+
+    _Non qu'il ne me soit mal que la tombe posséde
+      Ce qui me fut si cher;
+    Mais en un accident qui n'a point de reméde,
+      Il n'en faut point chercher._
+
+    _La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles:
+      On a beau la prier;
+    La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,
+      Et nous laisse crier._
+
+    _Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,
+      Est sujet à ses lois;
+    Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre
+      N'en défend point nos rois._
+
+    _De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience,
+      Il est mal à propos;
+    Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
+      Qui nous met en repos._
+
+    "_Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
+              Qui nous met en repos._"
+
+
+
+
+                                NOTES.
+
+
+                         CHARLES OF ORLEANS.
+
+THE COMPLAINT.
+
+Line 5. _Prins._ An inaccurate pedantic past participle of _prendre_.
+
+Line 14. _Faulse._ There is to be noted here and elsewhere throughout
+these extracts, until the modern spelling at the close of the period,
+the redundant "l" in many words. It was an effect of pure pedantry. The
+latin "l" had become _u_ in northern French. _Falsa_ made, naturally,
+"Fausse." The partial learning of the later middle ages reintroduced an
+"l" which was not known to be transformed, but was thought omitted.
+
+Line 24. _Liesse._ One of the commonest words of this epoch, lost to
+modern French. It means joy=_laetitia_.
+
+Line 25. Note the gender of "Amour," feminine even in the singular
+throughout the middle ages and renaissance--right up to the seventeenth
+century.
+
+THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.
+
+I
+
+Line 1. _Fourriers._ The servants who go before to find lodging. The
+term survives in French military terminology. The _Fourriers_ are the
+non-commissioned officers and party who go forward and mark the
+Billeting of a regiment.
+
+Line 9. _Pieça=il y a pièce_; "lately". _Cf._ _naguère_="_il n'y a
+guère...."_
+
+Line 11. _Prenez pais_="take the fields," begone.
+
+Line 19. Note "_Chant_," the regular form of the subjunctive=_Cantet_.
+The only latin vowel preserved after the tonic syllable is a=French e
+(mute). Thus _contat_="chante" which form has in modern French usurped
+the subjunctive.
+
+Line 23. _Livrée_="Liberata," _i.e._, things given out. A term
+originally applied not only to clothing, but to the general allowance of
+the king's household. Hence our word "livery."
+
+
+THE FAREWELL.
+
+Line 2. _Chiere lie._ "Happy countenance." _Chiere_ here is the
+substantive, _lie_=_laeta_, is the adjective. _Bonne chère_ means "a
+good time" where _chère_ is an old word for "head" (Greek: kara).
+
+Line 5. _Baillie_=Bailliwick, "For Age that has me now within her
+bounds."
+
+Line 7. _Mye._ "Crumb". "I am not a whit (not a crumb) with her (_Joie_)
+to-day."
+
+Line 15. "Well braced," literally "well girthed" (as a horse is).
+
+
+
+                               VILLON.
+
+THE DEAD LADIES.
+
+Stanza 1, line 1. Note the redundant negative; it is characteristic of
+mediaeval French, as of all primitive work, that the general suggestion
+of doubt is sufficient to justify a redundant negative.
+
+Line 2. _Flora_, etc. It is worth while knowing who these women were.
+_Flora_ is Juvenal's Flora (Sat. II. 9), a legend in the university. Of
+_Archipiada_ I know nothing. _Thaïs_ was certainly the Egyptian
+courtesan turned anchoress and canonized, famous in the middle ages and
+revived to-day in the repulsive masterpiece of M. Anatole France.
+_Elois_ is, of course, _Heloïse_, and _Esbaillart_ is Abelard. The
+queen, who in the legend had Buridan (and many others) drowned, was the
+Dowager of Burgundy that lived in the Tour de Nesle, where the Palais
+Mazarin is now, and had half the university for a lover: in sober
+history she founded that college of Burgundy from which the École de
+Médecine is descended; the legend about her is first heard of (save in
+this poem) in 1471, from the pen of a German in Leipzig. _Blanche_ may
+be Blanche of Castille, but more likely she was a vision of Villon's
+own, for what did St. Louis' mother ever sing? _Berte_ is the legendary
+mother of Charlemagne in the Epics; _Beatris_ is any Beatrice you
+choose, for they have all died. _Allis_ may just possibly be one of the
+Troubadour heroines, more likely she is here introduced for rhyme and
+metre; _Haremburgis_ is strictly historical: she was the Heiress of
+Maine who married Foulque of Anjou in 1110 and died in 1126: an
+ancestress, therefore, of the Plantagenets. _Jehanne_ is, of course,
+Joan of Arc.
+
+Line 8. _D'Antan_ is _not_ "Yester-year." It is "Ante annum," all time
+past before _this_ year. Rossetti's "Yester-year" moreover, is an absurd
+and affected neologism; "Antan" is an excellent and living French word.
+
+Stanza II, line 2. Note the pronunciation of "Moyne" to rhyme (more or
+less) with "eine": the oi, ai and ei sounds were very similar till the
+sixteenth century at earliest. They are interchangeable in many popular
+provincialisms and in some words, _e.g._, Fouet, pronounced "Foit" the
+same tendency survives. The transition began in the beginning of the
+seventeenth century as we learn from Vaugelas: and the influence towards
+the modern sound came from the Court.
+
+Stanza III, line 2. _Seraine_="Syren."
+
+Line 5. "_Jehanne_", "_Jehan_", in spite of the classical survival in
+their spelling, were monosyllables from the earliest times.
+
+Line 7. The "_elles_" here would not scan but for the elided "e" in
+"_souv'raine_" at the end of the line. In some editions "_ils_" is found
+and _souveraine_ is spelt normally. _Ils_ and _els_ for a feminine
+plural existed in the middle ages.
+
+_Envoi._ The envoi needs careful translation. The "que" of the third
+line="sans que" and the whole means, "Do not ask this week or this year
+where they are, _without_ letting this refrain haunt you". "Que" might
+possibly mean "de peur que", did not the whole sense of the poem forbid
+such an interpretation.
+
+AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.
+
+Stanza 75, line 4. A charming example of those "flashes" which reveal
+Villon.
+
+Stanza 76, line 2. Note the spelling of _Grant_ in the feminine without
+an _e_. Adjectives of the third declension whose feminine was not
+distinguishable in Latin took no "e" in early French. A survival of this
+is found in grand' rue, grand' messe, etc.
+
+Line 5. _Grant erre_, "quickly", and the whole line reads: "Let it (my
+body) be delivered to it (luy=la terre) quickly," the "erre" here is
+from the popular late Latin "_iterare_"="_iter facere_". It survives in
+the nautical idiom "reprendre son erre"="to get under weigh again."
+
+Line 7. "_Erre_" here comes, on the contrary, from _errare_, to make a
+mistake, to err.
+
+Stanza 77, line 4. _Maillon._ Swaddling clothes.
+
+Line 5. _Boullon_, scrape. The two lines are obscure but seem to read:
+"He has got me out of many a scrape which gave him no joy" (_esioye_
+from _esjouir_=_rejouir_).
+
+Line 7 and 8. These are obscure but apparently="And beseech him on my
+knees not to forsake all joy on that account."
+
+Stanza 78, line 2. "_Le Romman du Pet au Deable_." The Pet au Deable was
+a great stone at the door of a private house in the university. The
+students took it away and all Paris fought over the matter. The "Roman"
+was a set of verses, now lost, which Villon wrote on the quarrel.
+
+Line 3. _Guy Tabarie_ who _grossa_ (wrote out), these verses was a
+friend of Villon's: soon hanged.
+
+Line 5. _Soubz._ The "b" is pedantic, the _ou_ indicates of itself the
+loss of the _b_. The "z" (and the "s" in the modern _sous_) are due to
+the derivation not from _sub_ but _subtus_.
+
+THE BALLAD OF OUR LADY.
+
+Stanza 2, line 3. _Egypcienne._ St. Mary of Egypt.
+
+Line 4. _Theophilus._ This was that clerk who sold his soul to the Devil
+and whom Our Lady redeemed. You may find the whole story sculptured on
+the Tympanum of the exquisite northern door of Notre Dame in Paris.
+
+Line 8. _Vierge Portant_="Virgin that bore a son".
+
+Stanza 3, line 4. _Luz_="luthus". "S" becomes "z."
+
+The Envoi. Note the Acrostic "Villon" in the first letters of the first
+six lines. It is a trick he played more than once.
+
+THE DEAD LORDS.
+
+Stanza 1, line 1. _Calixte._ These names are of less interest. _Calixte_
+was Pope Calixtus III, Alphonso Borgia, who died in 1458--in Villon's
+twenty-sixth year. _Alphonse_ is Alphonso V of Arragon, who died in that
+same year. The _Duc de Bourbon_ is Charles the First of Bourbon, who
+died at the end of the year 1456, "gracieux" because his son protected
+Villon. _Artus_ (Arthur) of Brittany is that same Richemont who
+recaptured Paris from Willoughby. Charles VII is Charles VII. The _Roy
+Scotiste_ is James II, who died in 1460: the _Amethyst_ half of his
+face was a birthmark. The _King of Cyprus_ is probably John III, who
+died in that same fatal year, 1458. Pedants will have it that the _King
+of Spain_ is John II of Castille, who died in 1454--but it is a better
+joke if it means nobody at all. _Lancelot_ is Vladislas of Bohemia, who
+died in 1457. _Cloquin_ is Bertrand de Guesclin who led the reconquest.
+_The Count Daulphin_ of Auvergne is doubtful; _Alençon_ is presumably
+the Alençon of Joan of Arc's campaign, who still survived, and is called
+"feu" half in ridicule, because in 1458 he had lost his title and lands
+for treason.
+
+Stanza 2, line 3. _Amatiste_=amethyst.
+
+Stanza 3, line 7. _Tayon_=Ancestor. "_Etallum._" Latin "_Stallio_."
+
+THE DIRGE.
+
+Line 1. _Cil_=celui-ci. The Latin "_ecce illum_."
+
+Line 3. _Escuelle_=bowl. "With neither bowl nor platter."
+
+Line 4. Note again the constant redundant negative of the populace in
+this scholar: "Had never, no--not a sprig of parsley."
+
+Line 5. _Rez_=ras, cropped.
+
+
+
+                                 MAROT.
+
+OF COURTING LONG AGO.
+
+Line 5. _On se prenoit_, one attacked--"it was but the heart one
+sought."
+
+Line 11. _Fainctz_=sham; "_changes_" is simply like the English
+"changes": the form survives in the idiom: "donner le change."
+
+Line 13. _Refonde_=recast.
+
+NOËL.
+
+Verse 1, line 3. _L'Autre hyer_=alterum heri, "t'other day."
+
+Line 10. _Noé._ The tendency to drop final letters, especially the _l_,
+is very marked in popular patois, and this is, of course, a song based
+on popular language. Most French peasants north of the Loire would still
+say "Noé" for "Noël." _Noël_ is, of course, _Natalem_ (diem).
+
+Verse 2, line 2. _Cas de si hault faict_=so great a matter.
+
+
+TWO EPIGRAMS. Epigram 1, line 2. _Vostre._ Marguerite of Navarre. As I
+have remarked, in the text, she had sent him a Dixaine (some say he
+wrote it himself). This one is written in answer.--_Ay._ Note, till the
+verb grew over simple in the classical French of the seventeenth century
+there was no more need for the pronoun than in Latin. Thus Montaigne
+will omit the pronoun, but Malherbe never.
+
+Line 5. _Cuydans_=thinking (_Cogitare_=_Cogtare_=_Coyde_=_cuider_, the
+_oi_ became _ui_ by a common transition; _cf._ noctem, octem, noit,
+nuit, huit.) The word is now archaic.
+
+Line 9. _Encor._ Without the final e. This is not archaic but poetic
+licence. _Encore_="hanc horam," and a post tonic "am" in Latin always
+means a final mute e in French.
+
+Epigram 2, line 1. _Maint_ (now archaic) is a word of Teutonic origin,
+our _many_.
+
+Line 6. _Coulpe_=Culpam, of course; a fault.
+
+Line 9. _Emport_. Note the old subjunctive without the final e. _Vide
+supra_, on "_Chant_." The modern usage is incorrect. For the first
+conjugation making its subjunctive in _em_, should lose the final
+syllable in French: a post tonic _em_ always disappears. The modern
+habit of putting a final e to all subjunctives is due to a false analogy
+with verbs from the third conjugation. These made their subjunctive in
+_am_, a termination which properly becomes the mute e of French.
+
+TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
+
+Line 4. _Sejour_=(here) "staying at home."
+
+Line 14, 15. _Friande de la bouche_, glutton.
+
+Line 17. _Danger._ The first meaning of "Danger" is simply "to be in
+lordship" (Dominicarium). The modern is the English "Danger." This is
+between the two; "held to your hurt."
+
+Line 26. _Doint._ This subjunctive should properly be _don_ (_donem_,
+post tonic _em_ is lost). The "oint" is from a false analogy with the
+fourth conjugation, as though the Latin had been _doniam_.
+
+THE VINEYARD SONG.
+
+Verse 1, line 2. _Clamours._ See how southern this is, with its
+Lanquedoc forms, "clamours" for "_clameurs_."
+
+Line 5. So are these diminutions all made up at random, as southern as
+can be, and note the tang of the verse, fit for a snapping of the
+fingers to mark the rapid time.
+
+Verse 3, line 2. _Bénistre._ The older form of _bénir_ from
+_Benedicere_; the _c_ between vowels at the end of the tonic syllable
+becomes _s_: the _t_ is added for euphony, to help one to pronounce the
+_s_.
+
+Line 3. _Silenus_ for _Silène_. Because the name was new, the Latin form
+is kept. The genius of the French, unlike that of modern English, is to
+absorb a foreign name (as we did once). Thus once we said "Anthony"
+"Tully": but Montaigne wrote "Cicero"--his descendants say "Ciceron."
+
+Line 4. _Aussi droict qu'une ligne_="right out of the flask." The flask
+held above one and the wine poured straight into the mouth. The happy
+south still know the way.
+
+Line 5. _Bigne_: a lump, a knock, a bruise.
+
+Line 6. _Guigne_=cherry.
+
+
+
+                                RONSARD.
+
+DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.
+
+Stanza 1, line 3. _Chef grison_=gray head. When he says "trente ans,"
+that is all rubbish, he was getting on for forty-three: it was written
+in 1567.
+
+Stanza 2, line 1. _Nocher_=pilot; rare but hardly archaic.
+
+Stanza 3, line 3. _Cependant_=meanwhile. The word is now seldom used in
+prose, save in the sense of "notwithstanding", "nevertheless".
+
+Stanza 5, line 1. _Loyer_=Condition of tenure.
+
+Line 2. _Ores_=Now that. Should be "_ore_" (horam). The parasitic "s"
+probably crept in by false analogy with the adverbs in "s."
+
+Stanza 6, line 1. _Lame_=tombstone. The word is no longer used.
+
+Line 4. See how, even in his lighter or prosaic manner, he cannot avoid
+great lines.
+
+Stanza 8, line 1. _Vela_=Voilà. Then follows that fine ending which I
+have put on the title-page of this book.
+
+"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
+
+Line 1. _Mignonne_ is, of course, his Cassandre: her personality was
+always known through his own verse. She was fifteen when he met her and
+her brown eyes: it was in 1546 at Blois, her birthplace, whither he had
+gone to visit the Court, during his scholar's life in Paris. He met her
+thus young when he himself was but in his twenty-third year, and all
+that early, violent, not over-tilled beginning of his poetry was
+illumined by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained
+long a matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was
+Cassandre, and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantôme called it
+"a false name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or
+true, time conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble."
+There need have been no doubt. D'Aubigné's testimony is sufficient. She
+was a Mlle de Pie, and such was the vagary of Ronsard's life, that it
+was her niece, Diane Salviati de Taley whom in later life he espoused
+and nearly wed.
+
+Line 3. Note _Pourpre_, and in line 5 _Pourprée_ so in line 9 _Beautez_,
+and in the last line _Beauté_: so little did he fear repetition and so
+heartily could his power carry it.
+
+Line 4. _A point_: the language was still in flux. The phrase would
+require a negative _n'_ in modern French.
+
+Line 10, 11. _Marastre... puisqu'une..._ There is here an elliptical
+construction never found in later French. Harsh stepmother nature (whom
+I call harsh) since... etc.
+
+SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE.
+
+Sonnet XLII, line 1. _Ocieuse_="otiosa," langorous.
+
+Line 5. _Ennuy_, in the sixteenth century meant something fuller than,
+and somewhat different from the word "ennui" to-day. It was a weariness
+which had in it some permanent chagrin.
+
+Line 8. _Pipe_, "cajoles": a word which (now that it is unusual) mars
+the effect of its meaning by its insignificant sound.
+
+Lines 8 and 9. Note _ioye_, _vraye_, a feminine "e" following another
+vowel is, since Malherbe, forbidden in the interior of a verse, unless
+elided.
+
+Line 11. _Ton mort_, "your ghost."
+
+Sonnet XLIII, line 6. _Desia_=dejà.
+
+Line 7. _De mon nom._ I have printed the line thus because Ronsard
+himself wished it so, and so corrected it with his own hand. But the
+original form is far finer "_Au bruit de Ronsard._"
+
+
+
+                              DU BELLAY.
+
+THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE."
+
+Line 3. _Usage._ A most powerful word in this slightly archaic sense:
+the experience of long travel: familiar knowledge of things seen.
+
+Line 12. _Loire._ This word has puzzled more than one editor. There are
+two rivers: the great river Loire, which is feminine, and the little
+Loir, which is masculine. Here Du Bellay spells the name of the great
+river, but puts it in the masculine gender. It has been imagined that he
+was talking of the smaller river. But he was not. The Loire alone has
+any connection with Liré or with his life, and as for the gender,
+strained as the interpretation may seem, I believe that Du Bellay
+deliberately used it in the parallel with the Tiber and the idea of the
+"Fleuve Paternel," to which he alludes so often elsewhere.
+
+Line 13. _Lyré._ The modern Liré, his birthplace, on the left bank of
+the Loire, just opposite Ancenis. As you go along the Poitiers road to
+the bridge it stands up on your right, just before the river.
+
+THE DOG.
+
+Line 1. _Motte_=a turf.
+
+Line 40. _Damoiselet._ Still used more or less in its old sense of a
+young man _armed_: not merely a young page or a cadet of the
+gentry,="like a little sentry."
+
+Line 43. _Anvie_=(of course) "envie."
+
+THE CAT.
+
+Line 22. _Rouët_=spinning-wheel.
+
+Line 26. _Panne_=the Italian _Panno_--cloth.
+
+Line 27. _Troigne_=the mouth and face of an animal, the muzzle.
+
+Line 32. _Chere_=(originally) "head" and one of the few old French words
+derived from Greek, but the first signification has long been lost. Here
+the phrase is equivalent to "faire bonne chere" which has for centuries
+been used proverbially for what we call "a good time." _V. supra_ in
+"The Farewell" of Charles of Orleans.
+
+
+
+                                MALHERBE.
+
+EXTRACTS FROM THE "ODE TO LOUIS XIII."
+
+Stanza 3, line 1. _Centième._ He dates the Huguenot trouble from a
+century. It may be said to have originated in the placards threatening
+the defilement of the Sacrament, placards which appeared in the streets
+of Paris in 1525.
+
+Stanza 2, line 3. _Le nom de Juste._ Louis XIII had no particular
+affectation of that title: it is rather a reminiscence of his distant
+collatoral and namesake who closed the fifteenth century.
+
+Last stanza, line 1. _Toutes les autres morts._ He has just been
+speaking of death in battle against the factions.
+
+SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH.
+
+Line 1. _Mon fils._ The only survivor of his many children, a young man,
+just called to the bar at Aix and passionately loved by his father, he
+bore the curious name of Marc-Anthony. A M. de Piles killed him in a
+duel, having for second his brother-in-law. The whole was an honourable
+bit of business, and the death such as men of honour must be prepared to
+risk: but Malherbe would see no reason and defamed the adversary.
+
+Line 9. _La Raison._ The idea runs all through Malherbe's work. It is
+his distinguishing note, and is the spirit which differentiates him so
+powerfully from the sixteenth century, that this stoical balance or
+regulator which he calls "La Raison," and which governed France for two
+hundred years, is his rule and text for verse and prose as well as for
+practical life. Even the grandeur to which it gave rise seemed to him
+accidental. He demanded "la raison" only, and felt the necessity of it
+in art as acutely as though its absence were something immoral.
+
+EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."
+
+Stanza 1, line 1. _Duperrier._ A critic of sorts and a gentleman, living
+in Provence and perhaps of Provençal ancestry. The verses were written
+while Malherbe's fame was still local, two years before the king's visit
+had lifted him to Paris.
+
+Stanza 2, line 2. _Ta fille._ The child Marguerite. Her name does not
+appear in the poem nor in any letter; we have it from Racan.
+
+Stanza 10, line 3. _Et la garde, etc._ These two lines are quoted,
+sometimes, not often, by admirers who would prove that Malherbe was not
+incapable of colour or of warmth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc
+
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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+  <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Avril, by H. Belloc</title>
+
+
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+
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+
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+.poem p.i4 	{margin-left: 2em; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold}
+.poem p.i6 	{margin-left: 3em}
+.poem p.i8 	{margin-left: 4em}
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+.poem p.i14 	{margin-left: 7em}
+.poem p.i16 	{margin-left: 8em}
+.poem p.i18 	{margin-left: 9em}
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+.poem p.i30 	{margin-left: 15em}
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Avril
+       Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
+
+Author: H. Belloc
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #18839]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AVRIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Rénald Lévesque and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>AVRIL</h1>
+
+<h3>BEING</h3>
+
+<h2>ESSAYS ON THE POETRY OF THE<br>
+FRENCH RENAISSANCE</h2>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>H. BELLOC</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">... Ceux dont la Fantaisie</p>
+<p class="i18">Sera religieuse et dévote envers Dieu</p>
+<p class="i18">Tousjours achèveront quelque grant Poésie,</p>
+<p class="i18">Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="mid">LONDON<br>
+DUCKWORTH AND CO.<br>
+3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVE NT GARDEN, W.C.</p>
+
+<p class="mid">1904</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="mid">CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO</p>
+<p class="mid">TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="mid">Part of this book originally appeared</p>
+<P class="mid">in "The Pilot," and is here reprinted</p>
+<p class="mid">by kind permission of the Editor.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="mid"><a href="#ch1">CHARLES OF ORLEANS</a></p>
+<p class="mid"><a href="#ch2">VILLON</a></p>
+<p class="mid"><a href="#ch3">MAROT</a></p>
+<p class="mid"><a href="#ch4">RONSARD</a></p>
+<p class="mid"><a href="#ch5">Du BELLAY</a></p>
+<p class="mid"><a href="#ch6">MALHERBE</a></p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>DEDICATION<br>
+TO<br>
+F.Y. ECCLES</h3>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>MY DEAR ECCLES,</p>
+
+<p>You will, I know, permit me to address you these essays
+which are more the product of your erudition than of my enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>With the motives of their appearance you are familiar.</p>
+
+<p>We have wondered together that a society so avid of experience
+and enlargement as is ours, should ignore the chief expression of its
+closest neighbour, its highest rival and its coheir in Europe: should
+ignore, I mean, the literature of the French.</p>
+
+<p>We have laughed together, not without despair, to see the mind
+of England, for all its majesty and breadth, informed at the most
+critical moments in the policy of France by such residents of Paris as
+were at the best fanatical, at the worst (and most ordinary) corrupt.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing around us here a philosophy and method drawn from northern
+Germany, a true and subtle sympathy with the Italians, and a
+perpetual, just and accurate comment upon the minor nationalities
+of Europe, a mass of recorded travel superior by far to that of other
+countries, we marvelled that France in particular should have remained
+unknown.</p>
+
+<p>We were willing, in an earlier youth, to read this riddle in somewhat
+crude solutions. I think we have each of us arrived, and in a
+final manner, at the sounder conclusion that historical accident is
+principally to blame. The chance concurrence of this defeat with
+that dynastic influence, the slip by which the common sense of
+political simplicity missed footing in England and fell a generation
+behind, the marvellous industrial activities of this country, protected
+by a tradition of political discipline which will remain unique in
+History; the contemporaneous settling down of France into the
+equilibrium of power--an equilibrium not established without five
+hearty civil wars and perhaps a hundred campaigns--all these so
+separated the two worlds of thought as to leave France excusable
+for her blindness towards the destinies and nature of England, and
+England excusable for her continued emptiness of knowledge upon
+the energy and genius of France: though these were increasing
+daily, immensely, at our very side.</p>
+
+<p>We have assisted at some straining of such barriers. A long peace,
+the sterility of Germany, the interesting activities of the Catholic
+Church, have perhaps not yet changed, but have at least disturbed
+the mind of the north, and ours, a northern people's, with it. The
+unity, the passionate patriotism, the close oligarchic polity, the very
+silence of the English has arrested the eyes of France. By a law
+which is universal where bodies are bound in one system, an extreme
+of separation has wrought its own remedy and the return towards
+a closer union is begun. I do not refer to such ephemeral and artificial
+manifestations as a special and somewhat humiliating need
+may demand; I consider rather that large sweep of tendency which
+was already apparent fifteen years after the Franco-Prussian War.
+An approach in taste, manners and expression well defined during
+our undergraduate years, has now introduced much of our inmost
+life to the French, to us already a hint of their philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>I think you believe, as I do, that the return has begun.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not live to see that fine unity of the west which lent
+the latter seventeenth and eighteenth centuries their classical repose.
+No common rule of verse or prose will satisfy men's permanent
+desire for harmony: no common rule of manners, of honour, of international
+ethics, of war. We shall not live to see, though we are
+young now, a Paris reading some new Locke or Hume, a London
+moved to attentive delight in some latter trinity of Dramatists, some
+future Voltaire.... The high, protected class, which moved at
+ease between the Capitals of the World, has disappeared; that which
+should take its place is not yet formed. We are both of that one
+Faith which can but regard our Christendom as the front of mankind
+and which, therefore, looks forward, as to a necessary goal, to
+the re-establishment of its common comprehension. But the reversion
+to such stability is slow. We shall not live to see it.</p>
+
+<p>It is none the less our duty (if I may use a word of so unsavoury
+a connotation) to advance the accomplishment of this good fatality.</p>
+
+<p>Not indeed that a vulgar cosmopolitan beatitude can inspire an
+honest man. To abandon one's patriotism, and to despise a frontier
+or a flag, is, we are agreed, the negation of Europe. There are
+Frenchmen who forget their battles, and Englishmen to whom a
+gold mine, a chance federal theory, a colonial accent, or a map, is
+more of an inheritance than the delicate feminine profile of Nelson
+or the hitherto unbroken traditions of our political scheme. To
+such men arms are either abhorrent, or, what is worse, a very
+cowardly (and thank God! unsuccessful) method of acquiring or
+defending their very base enjoyments. Let us forget them. It is
+only as nationalists, and only in an intense sympathy with the highly
+individual national unities of Europe that we may approach the
+endeavour of which I have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>With us, I fear, that endeavour must take a literary form, but
+such a channel is far from ignoble or valueless. He that knows
+some part of the letters of a foreign nation, be it but the graces or
+even the vagaries of such letters, knows something of that nation's
+mind. To portray for the populace one religion welding the west
+together, to spread a common philosophy, or to interpret and arrange
+political terms, would certainly prove a more lasting labour: but
+you will agree with me that mere sympathy in letters is not to be
+despised.</p>
+
+<p>We have observed together that the balance in this matter is
+heavily against the English. M. Jusserand is easily the first authority
+upon popular life in England at the close of the middle ages.
+M. Boutmy has produced an analysis of our political development
+which our Universities have justly recognized. Our friend M. Angellier
+of the École Normale has written what is acknowledged by
+the more learned Scotch to be the principal existing monograph
+upon Robert Burns; Mr. Kipling himself has snatched the attention
+of M. Chevrillon. You know how many names might be added
+to this list to prove the close, applied and penetrating manner in
+which French scholars have latterly presented our English writers
+to their fellow-citizens.</p>
+
+<p>We have both believed that something of the sort might be
+attempted in the converse; that a view could be given--a glimpse
+at least--of that vast organism whose foundations are in Rome,
+Coeval with the spring of Christianity, and whose last growth seems
+as vigorous and as fecund as though it were exempt from any
+laws of age.</p>
+
+<p>But, I say, we know how heavy is the balance against us.</p>
+
+<p>The Gallic ritual is unrecognized, even by our over-numerous
+class of clerical antiquarians. The Carolingian cycle is neglected,
+save perhaps for a dozen men who have seen the Song of Roland.
+The Complaints of Rusteboeuf, the Fabliaux, all the local legendary
+poetry, all the chroniclers (save Froissart--for he wrote of us), the
+tender simplicity of Joinville, the hard steel of Villehardouin, no
+one has handled.</p>
+
+<p>The fifteenth century, the storm of the Renaissance, are not
+taught. Why, Rabelais himself might be but an unfamiliar name
+had not a northern squire of genius rendered to the life three
+quarters of his work.</p>
+
+<p>The list is interminable. Even the great Drama of the great
+century is but a text for our schools leaving no sort of trace upon
+the mind: and as for the French moderns (I have heard it from
+men of liberal education) they are denied to have written any poetry
+at all: so exact, so subtle, so readily to be missed, are the proportions
+of their speech.</p>
+
+<p>If you ask me why I should myself approach the matter, I can
+plead some inheritance of French blood, comparable, I believe, to
+your own; and though I have no sort of claim to that unique and
+accomplished scholarship which gives you a mastery of the French
+tongue unmatched in England, and a complete familiarity with its
+history, application and genius, yet I can put to my credit a year
+of active, if eccentric, experience in a French barrack room, and a
+complete segregation during those twelve memorable months
+wherein I could study the very soul of this sincere, creative, and
+tenacious people.</p>
+
+<p>Your learning, my singular adventure, have increased in us, it
+must be confessed, a permanent and reasoned admiration for this
+people's qualities. Such an attitude of mind is rare enough and
+often dangerous: it is but a qualification the more for beginning
+the work. It permits us to follow the main line of the past of the
+French, to comprehend and not to be troubled by the energy of
+their present, to catch the advancing omens of their future.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, if anything of France is to be explained in English and
+to people reading English, I could not desire a better alliance than
+yours and mine.</p>
+
+<p>But if you ask me why the Renaissance especially--or why in the
+Renaissance these six poets alone--should have formed the subject
+of my first endeavour, I can only tell you that in so vast a province,
+whereof the most ample leisure could not in a lifetime exhaust a
+tithe, Chance, that happy Goddess, led me at random to their
+groves.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it will be possible to continue such interpretation I do
+not know, but if it be so possible, I know still less what next may
+be put into my hands: Racine, perhaps, may call me, or those forgotten
+men who urged the Revolution with phrases of fire.</p>
+
+<p>H. BELLOC.<br>
+CHELSEA, <i>January, 1904.</i></p>
+<a name="ch1" id="ch1"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+<h2>CHARLES OF ORLEANS.</h2>
+
+<p>I put down Charles of Orleans here as the first representative
+of that long glory which it is the business of this
+little book to recall: but to give him such a place at the
+threshold requires some apology.</p>
+
+<p>The origins of a literary epoch differ according as that
+epoch is primal or derivative. There are those edifices of
+letters which start up, not indeed out of nothing, but out
+of things wholly different. Produced by a shock or a
+revelation, as two gases lit will, in a sharp explosion, unite
+to form a liquid wholly unlike either, so after a great conquest,
+a battle, the sudden preaching of a creed, these
+primal literatures appear in an epic or a dithyrambic code
+of awful law. Their first effort is their mightiest. They
+come mature. They are allied to that element of the
+catastrophic which the modern world (taking its general
+philosophy from its social condition) denies, but which is
+yet at the limits of all things separate and themselves;
+accompanies every birth, and strikes agony into every
+transition of death.</p>
+
+<p>Those other much commoner epochs in the history of
+letters, which may be called derivative, have this current
+and obvious quality, that their beginnings merge into
+the soil that bred them, also (very often) their decay will
+lapse imperceptibly into newer things. They are quite
+definite, but also definitely parented. We know their
+special stuff and harmony, but we can point out clearly
+enough the elements which formed that stuff, the tones
+which unite in that harmony. We can show with dates
+and citations the parts meeting and blending; our difficulty
+is not to determine the influences which have mixed to
+make the general school, but rather to fix the beginning
+and the end of its effect upon men.</p>
+
+<p>In the first of these the leader, sometimes the unique
+example of the school, stands out great, but particular
+and clear, on a background vague or dark. He is as
+stupendous, yet as sharp and certain, as a mountain facing
+the morning, with only sky behind. In the second the
+originator, if there be one, is vague, tentative, perhaps unknown.
+More often many minor men together introduce
+a slow and general transition.</p>
+
+<p>Now the French Renaissance has this peculiar mark,
+that it holds quite plainly by one side of it to the first by
+the other to the second of these spirits.</p>
+
+<p>It was primal and catastrophic in that it made something
+completely new. A new architecture, new cities, a new
+poetry, almost a new language, a new kind of government--ultimately
+the modern world.</p>
+
+<p>It was derivative in that the shock, the revelation, which
+produced it, was the return of something allied to the
+French blood, something rooted in the French memory.
+Rome surviving or risen had made that Italy, which was
+now beginning to trouble the Alps, and would surely creep in
+by every channel of influence, and at last pervade all Europe.
+Rome, also, in her full vigour, had once framed and ordered
+Gaul. The French of the Renaissance were woken suddenly,
+but as they started they recognized the face and the hand
+of the awakener.</p>
+
+<p>On this account you will find one mind indeed at the
+very beginning of the change in letters, but not a dominating
+mind. There is but one man who is certainly an origin,
+but he is not a master. You see an unique and single personality,
+distinct but without force, founding no school--the
+grave, abiding, kind but covert face of Charles of
+Orleans. He, linked to the French Renaissance, is like the
+figure of a gentle friend playing in some garden with a
+child whose manners are new and pleasing to him, but of
+whose great destiny he makes no guess. That child was to
+be Du Bellay, Brantome, Montaigne a hundred-sided, huge
+Rabelais, Ronsard. Or perhaps this metaphor will put it
+better. To say that Charles of Orleans's equal and persistent
+music was like a string harped on distinctly in a chorus
+of flutes and hautboys, till one by one harps from here and
+there caught up the similar tang of chords and at last the
+whole body of sound was harping only.</p>
+
+<p>His life was suited to such difference and such origination.
+Italy, still living, filled him. An Italian secretary
+wrote from his mouth the most sumptuous of his manuscripts.
+He banded on Italy as a goal and his Italian land
+as a legacy to the French crown--to his own son; till (years
+after his death) the soldiers roared through Briançon and
+broke the crusted snow of Mont Genèvre. An Italian
+mother, the most beautiful of the Viscontis, come out of
+Italy, rich in her land of Asti and her half million of pure
+gold, had borne him in her youth to the King of France's
+brother: a man luxurious, over fine, exact in taste, a lover
+of magnificence in stories and words, decadent in a dying
+time, very brave. Through that father the Valois blood,
+unjustly hated or still more unjustly despised according to
+the varied ignorance of modern times, ran in him nobly.</p>
+
+<p>Take the Valois strain entire and you will find the pomp
+or rather the fantasy of their great palace of St. Paul;
+turrets and steep blue roofs of slate, carved woodwork,
+heavy curtains, and incense and shining bronze. The
+Valois were, indeed, the end of the middle ages. Some
+cruelty, a fury in battle, intelligence and madness alternately,
+and always a sort of keenness which becomes now revenge,
+now foresight, now intrigue, now strict and terrible government:
+at last a wild adventure out beyond the hills: Fornovo,
+Pavia.</p>
+
+<p>Their story is like the manuscripts, which beyond all other
+things they loved and collected, and which they were the
+last to possess or to have made; for while it contains in
+vivid pictures the noblest and the basest subjects: (Joan of
+Arc and also her betrayal, their country dominant and almost
+engulfed, Marigano, and then again Pavia) it always glitters
+with hard enamelled colours against skies of gold, and is
+drawn and sharp and clean as a thing can be.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the whole line, but look at this one Valois and
+you see all the qualities of his race toned by a permanent
+sadness down to a good and even temper, not hopeful but
+still delighting in beauty and possessed as no other Valois
+had been of charity. Less passionate and therefore much
+less eager and useful than most of his race, yet the taint of
+madness never showed in him, nor the corresponding evil
+of cruelty, nor the uncreative luxury of his immediate
+ancestry. All the Valois were poets in their kind; his life
+by its every accident caused him to write. At fifteen they
+wedded him to that lovely child whom Richard II had
+lifted in his arms at Windsor as he rode out in fatal pomp
+for Ireland. Three years later, when their marriage was real,
+she died in childbirth, and it is to her I think that he wrote
+in his prison the ballad which ends:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i16">Dieu sur tout souverain seigneur</p>
+<p class="i16">Ordonnez par grace et douceur</p>
+<p class="i16">De l'ame d'elle tellement</p>
+<p class="i16">Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement</p>
+<p class="i16">En peine souci et douleur.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Already, in the quarrel that so nearly wrecked the crown,
+the anti-national factions had killed his father. He was planning
+vengeance, engraving little mottoes of hate upon his
+silver, when the wars came on them all. A boy of twenty-four,
+well-horsed, much more of a soldier than he later
+seemed, he charged, leading the centre of the three tall
+troops at Agincourt. In the evening of that disaster they
+pulled him out from under a great heap of the ten thousand
+dead and brought him prisoner into England, to Windsor
+then to Pomfret Castle. Chatterton, Cobworth, at last John
+Cornwall, of Fanhope, were his guardians. To some one
+of these--probably the last--he wrote the farewell:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Mon très bon hôte et ma très douce hôtesse.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For his life as a prisoner, though melancholy, was not
+undignified; he paid no allegiance, he met the men of his
+own rank, nor was he of a kind to whom poverty, the chief
+thorn of his misfortune, brought dishonour.</p>
+
+<p>Henry V had left it strictly in his will that Orleans the
+general and the head of the French nationals should not
+return. For twenty-five years, therefore--all his manhood--he
+lived under this sky, rhyming and rhyming: in English
+a little, in French continually, and during that isolation there
+swept past him far off in his own land the defence, the
+renewal, the triumph of his own blood: his town relieved,
+his cousin crowned at Rheims. His river of Loire, and then
+the Eure, and then the Seine, and even the field where he
+had fallen were reconquered. Willoughby had lost Paris to
+Richemont four years before Charles of Orleans was freed
+on a ransom of half his mother's fortune. It was not until
+the November of 1440 that he saw his country-side again.</p>
+
+<p>The verse formed in that long endurance (a style which
+he preserved to the end in the many poems after his release)
+may seem at a first reading merely mediæval. There is
+wholly lacking in it the riot of creation, nor can one see
+at first the Renaissance coming in with Charles of Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed it was laid aside as mediæval, and was wholly
+forgotten for three hundred years. No one had even heard
+of him for all those centuries till Sallier, that learned priest,
+pacing, full of his Hebrew and Syriac, the rooms of the
+royal library which Louis XV had but lately given him to
+govern, found the manuscript of the poems and wrote an
+essay on them for the Academy.</p>
+
+<p>The verse is full of allegory; it is repetitive; it might
+weary one with the savour of that unhappy fifteenth century
+when the human mind lay under oppression, and only the
+rich could speak their insignificant words; a foreigner
+especially might find it all dry bones, but his judgement
+would be wrong. Charles of Orleans has a note quite new
+and one that after him never failed, but grew in volume
+and in majesty until it filled the great chorus of the Pleiade--the
+Lyrical note of direct personal expression. Perhaps the
+wars produced it in him; the lilt of the marching songs
+was still spontaneous:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">Gentil Duc de Lorraine, vous avez grand renom,</p>
+<p class="i8">Et votre renommée passe au delà des monts</p>
+<p class="i8">Et vous et vos gens d'arme, et tous vos compagnons</p>
+<p class="i8">Au premier coup qu'ils frappent, abattent les Donjons.</p>
+<p class="i8">Tirez, tirez bombardes, serpentines, Canons!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whatever the cause, this spontaneity and freshness run
+through all the mass of short and similar work which he
+wrote down.</p>
+
+<p>The spring and sureness, the poise of these light nothings
+make them a flight of birds.</p>
+
+<p>See how direct is this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">Dieu! qu'il la fait bon regarder!</p>
+<p class="i8">La gracieuse, bonne et belle.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>or this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">Le lendemain du premier jour de Mai</p>
+<p class="i8">Dedans mon lit ainsi que je dormoye</p>
+<p class="i8">Au point du jour advint que je sonjeay.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Everywhere his words make tunes for themselves and
+everywhere he himself appears in his own verses, simple,
+charming, slight, but with memories of government and of
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>This style well formed, half his verse written, he returned
+to his own place. He was in middle age--a man of fifty.
+He married soberly enough Mary of Cleves, ugly and
+young: he married her in order to cement the understanding
+with Burgundy. She did not love him with his shy
+florid face, long neck and features and mild eyes. His age
+for twenty-five years passed easily, he had reached his
+"castle of No Care." As late as 1462 his son (Louis XII)
+was born; his two daughters at long intervals before. His
+famous library moved with him as he went from town to
+town, and perpetually from himself and round him from
+his retinue ran the continual stream of verse which only
+ended with his death. His very doctor he compelled to
+rhyme.</p>
+
+<p>All the singers of the time visited or remained with
+him--wild Villon for a moment, and after Villon a crowd
+of minor men. It was in such a company that he recited
+the last ironical but tender song wherein he talks of his
+lost youth and vigour and ends by bidding all present a
+salute in the name of his old age.</p>
+
+<p>So he sat, half regal, holding a court of song in Blois
+and Tours, a forerunner in verse of what the new time was
+to build in stone along the Loire. And it was at Amboise
+that he died.</p>
+
+<br>
+<h3>THE COMPLAINT.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 57th Ballade of those written during his imprisonment.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>There is some dispute in the matter, but I will believe,
+as I have said, that this dead Princess, for whose soul he
+prays, was certainly the wife of his boyhood, a child whom
+Richard II had wed just before that Lancastrian usurpation
+which is the irreparable disaster of English history.
+She was, I say, a child--a widow in name--when Charles
+of Orleans, himself in that small royal clique which was
+isolated and shrivelling, married her as a mere matter of
+state. It is probable that he grew to love her passionately,
+and perhaps still more her memory when she had died in
+child-bed during those first years, even before Agincourt,
+"en droicte fleur de jeunesse,"--for even here he is able to
+find an exact and sufficient line.</p>
+
+<p>There is surely to be noted in this delicate ballad, something
+more native and truthful in its pathos than in the
+very many complaints he left by way partly of reminiscence,
+partly of poetic exercise. For, though he is restrained, as
+was the manner of his rank when they attempted letters,
+yet you will not read it often without getting in you a share
+of its melancholy.</p>
+
+<p>That melancholy you can soon discover to be as permanent
+a quality in the verse as it was in the mind of
+the man who wrote it.</p>
+<a name="ch1a" id="ch1a"></a>
+
+
+<h3><i><b>THE COMPLAINT.</b></i></h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">Las! Mort qui t'a fait si hardie,</p>
+<p class="i4">De prendre la noble Princesse</p>
+<p class="i4">Qui estoit mon confort, ma vie,</p>
+<p class="i4">Mon bien, mon plaisir, ma richesse!</p>
+<p class="i4">Puis que tu as prins ma maistresse,</p>
+<p class="i4">Prens moy aussi son serviteur,</p>
+<p class="i4">Car j'ayme mieulx prouchainement</p>
+<p class="i4">Mourir que languir en tourment</p>
+<p class="i4">En paine, soussi et doleur.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="i4">  Las! de tous biens estoit garnie
+<p class="i4">Et en droite fleur de jeunesse!
+<p class="i4">Je pry à Dieu qu'il te maudie,
+<p class="i4">Faulse Mort, plaine de rudesse!
+<p class="i4">Se prise l'eusses en vieillesse,
+<p class="i4">Ce ne fust pas si grant rigueur;
+<p class="i4">Mais prise l'as hastivement
+<p class="i4">Et m'as laissié piteusement
+<p class="i4">En paine, soussi et doleur.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="i4">  Las! je suis seul sans compaignie!</p>
+<p class="i4">Adieu ma Dame, ma liesse!</p>
+<p class="i4">Or est nostre amour departie,</p>
+<p class="i4">Non pour tant, je vous fais promesse
+<p class="i4">Que de prieres, à largesse,</p>
+<p class="i4">Morte vous serviray de cueur,</p>
+<p class="i4">Sans oublier aucunement;</p>
+<p class="i4">Et vous regretteray souvent</p>
+<p class="i4">En paine, soussi et doleur.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="i12">ENVOI.</p><br>
+
+
+<p class="i4">Dieu, sur tout souverain Seigneur,</p>
+<p class="i4">Ordonnez, par grace et doulceur,</p>
+<p class="i4">De l'ame d'elle, tellement</p>
+<p class="i4">Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement</p>
+<p class="i4">En paine, soussi et doleur.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br>
+
+
+<h3>THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 41st and 43rd of the "Rondeaux."</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>These two Rondeaux, of which we may also presume,
+though very vaguely, that they were written in England
+(for they are in the manner of his earlier work), are by far
+the most famous of the many things he wrote; and justly,
+for they have all these qualities.</p>
+
+<p><i>First</i>, they are exact specimens of their style. The
+Roundel should interweave, repeat itself, and then recover
+its original strain, and these two exactly give such unified
+diversity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Secondly</i>: they were evidently written in a moment of
+that unknown power when words suggest something fuller
+than their own meaning, and in which simplicity itself
+broadens the mind of the reader. So that it is impossible
+to put one's finger upon this or that and say this adjective,
+that order of the words has given the touch of vividness.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thirdly</i>: they have in them still a living spirit of reality;
+read them to-day in Winter, and you feel the Spring. It is
+this quality perhaps which most men have seized in them,
+and which have deservedly made them immortal.</p>
+
+<p>A further character which has added to their fame, is
+that, being perfect lyrics, they are also specimens of an
+old-fashioned manner and metre peculiar to the time. They
+are the resurrection not only of the Spring, but of a Spring
+of the fifteenth century. Nor is it too fantastic to say that
+one sees in them the last miniatures and the very dress of
+a time that was intensely beautiful, and in which Charles
+of Orleans alone did not feel death coming.</p>
+
+<a name="ch1b" id="ch1b"></a>
+<h3><i><b>THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.</b></i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">Les fourriers d'Esté sont venus</p>
+<p class="i4">Pour appareillier son logis,</p>
+<p class="i4">Et ont fait tendre ses tappis,</p>
+<p class="i4">De fleurs et verdure tissus.</p>
+<p class="i6">En estandant tappis velus</p>
+<p class="i4">De verte herbe par le pais,</p>
+<p class="i4">Les fourriers d'Esté sont venus</p>
+<p class="i4">Pour appareillier son logis.</p>
+<p class="i6">Cueurs d'ennuy pieça morfondus,</p>
+<p class="i4">Dieu merci, sont sains et jolis;</p>
+<p class="i4">Alez vous en, prenez pais,</p>
+<p class="i4">Yver vous ne demourrez plus;</p>
+<p class="i4">Les fourriers d'Esté sont venus.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="i4">Le temps a laissié son manteau</p>
+<p class="i4">De vent, de froidure et de pluye,</p>
+<p class="i4">Et s'est vestu de brouderie,</p>
+<p class="i4">De soleil luyant, cler et beau.</p>
+<p class="i6">Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau,</p>
+<p class="i4">Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou crie;</p>
+<p class="i4">Le temps a laissié son manteau</p>
+<p class="i4">De vent de froidure et de pluye.</p>
+<p class="i6">Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau</p>
+<p class="i4">Portent, en livrée jolie,</p>
+<p class="i4">Gouttes d'argent d'orfavrerie,</p>
+<p class="i4">Chascun s'abille de nouveau.</p>
+<p class="i4">Le temps a laissié son manteau.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<br>
+<h3>HIS LOVE AT MORNING.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 6th of the "Songs".</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>In this delightful little song the spontaneity and freshness
+which saved his work, its vigour and its clarity are best
+preserved.</p>
+
+<p>It does indeed defy death and leaps four centuries: it is
+young and perpetual. It thrills with something the failing
+middle ages had forgotten: it reaches what they never
+reached, a climax, for one cannot put too vividly the flash
+of the penultimate line, "I am granted a vision when I
+think of her."</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was written in later life, and who she was, or
+whether she lived at all, no one knows.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>HIS LOVE AT MORNING.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Dieu qu'il la fait bon regarder</p>
+<p class="i10">La gracieuse bonne et belle!</p>
+<p class="i10">Pour les grans biens qui sont en elle,</p>
+<p class="i10">Chascun est prest de la louer</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui se pourroit d'elle lasser!</p>
+<p class="i10">Tousjours sa beaulté renouvelle.</p>
+<p class="i10">Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder,</p>
+<p class="i10">La gracieuse, bonne et belle!</p>
+<p class="i12">Par deça, ne delà la mer,</p>
+<p class="i10">Ne sçay Dame ne Damoiselle</p>
+<p class="i10">Qui soit en tous biens parfais telle;</p>
+<p class="i10">C'est un songe que d'y penser.</p>
+<p class="i10">Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<br>
+<h3>THE FAREWELL.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 310th Roundel.</b></i>)</p>
+
+<p>Here is the last thing--we may presume--that Charles of
+Orleans ever wrote: "Salute me all the company, I pray."</p>
+
+<p>In that "company" not only the Court at Amboise, but
+the men of the early wars, his companions, were round him,
+and the dead friends of his gentle memory.</p>
+
+<p>He was broken with age; he was already feeling the
+weight of isolation from the Royal Family; he was beginning
+to suffer the insults of the king. But, beneath all this,
+his gaiety still ran like a river under ice, and in the ageing
+of a poet, humour and physical decline combined make a
+good, human thing.</p>
+
+<p>There is an excellent irony in the refrain: "Salute me,
+all the company," whose double interpretation must not
+be missed, though it may seem far-fetched.</p>
+
+<p>Till the last line it means, without any question, "Salute
+the company in my name," but I think there runs through
+it also, the hint of "Salute me for my years, all you present
+who are young," and that this certainly is the note in the
+last line of all. It must be remembered of the French, that
+they never expand or explain their ironical things, for in
+art it is their nature to detest excess.</p>
+
+<p>This last thing of his, then, I say, is the most characteristic
+of him and of his Valois blood, and of the national
+spirit in general to which he belonged: for he, and it,
+and they, loved and love contrast, and the extra-meaning
+of words.</p>
+
+<a name="ch1c" id="ch1c"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE FAREWELL.</b></i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Saluez moy toute la compaignie</p>
+<p class="i12">Où à present estes à chiere lie,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et leur dictes que voulentiers seroye</p>
+<p class="i12">Avecques eulx, mais estre n'y porroye,</p>
+<p class="i12">Pour Vieillesse qui m'a en sa baillie.</p>
+<p class="i14">Au temps passé, Jeunesse si jolie</p>
+<p class="i12">Me gouvernoit; las! or n'y suis je mye,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et pour cela pour Dieu, que excusé soye;</p>
+<p class="i12">Saluez moy toute la compaignie</p>
+<p class="i12">Où à present estes à chiere lie,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et leur dictes que voulentiers seroye.</p>
+<p class="i14">Amoureux fus, or ne le suis je mye,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et en Paris menoye bonne vie;</p>
+<p class="i12">Adieu Bon temps ravoir ne vous saroye,</p>
+<p class="i12">Bien sanglé fus d'une estroite courroye.</p>
+<p class="i14">Que, par Aige, convient que la deslie.</p>
+<p class="i12">Saluez moy toute la compaignie.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<a id="ch2" name="ch2"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+<h2>VILLON.</h2>
+
+<p>I have said that in Charles of Orleans the middle ages are
+at first more apparent than the advent of the Renaissance.
+His forms are inherited from an earlier time, his terminology
+is that of the long allegories which had wearied three
+generations, his themes recall whatever was theatrical
+in the empty pageantry of the great war. It is a spirit
+deeper and more fundamental than the mere framework of
+his writing which attaches him to the coming time. His
+clarity is new; it proceeds from natural things; it marks
+that return to reality which is the beginning of all beneficent
+revolutions. But this spirit in him needs examination and
+discovery, and the reader is confused between the mediaeval
+phrases and the something new and troubling in the voice
+that utters them.</p>
+
+<p>With Villon, the next in order, a similar confusion
+might arise. All about him as he wrote were the middle
+ages: their grotesque, their contrast, their disorder. His
+youth and his activity of blood forbad him any contact with
+other than immediate influences. He was wholly Northern;
+he had not so much as guessed at what Italy might be.
+The decrepit University had given him, as best she could,
+the dregs of her palsied philosophy and something of Latin.
+He grew learned as do those men who grasp quickly the
+major lines of their study, but who, in details, will only be
+moved by curiosity or by some special affection. There
+was nothing patient in him, and nothing applied, and in all
+this, in the matter of his scholarship as in his acquirement
+of it, he is of the dying middle ages entirely.</p>
+
+<p>His laughter also was theirs: the kind of laughter that
+saluted the first Dance of Death which as a boy he had
+seen in new frescoes round the waste graveyard of the Innocents.
+His friends and enemies and heroes and buffoons
+were the youth of the narrow tortuous streets, his visions
+of height were the turrets of the palaces and the precipitate
+roofs of the town. Distance had never inspired him, for in
+that age its effect was forgotten. No one straight street
+displayed the greatness of the city, no wide and ordered
+spaces enhanced it. He crossed his native river upon
+bridges all shut in with houses, and houses hid the banks
+also. The sweep of the Seine no longer existed for his
+generation, and largeness of all kinds was hidden under the
+dust and rubble of decay. The majestic, which in sharp
+separate lines of his verse he certainly possessed, he discovered
+within his own mind, for no great arch or cornice,
+nor no colonnade had lifted him with its splendour.</p>
+
+<p>That he could so discover it, that a solemnity and order
+should be apparent in the midst of his raillery whenever he
+desires to produce an effect of the grand, leads me to speak
+of that major quality of his by which he stands up out of
+his own time, and is clearly an originator of the great renewal.
+I mean his vigour.</p>
+
+<p>It is all round about him, and through him, like a storm
+in a wood. It creates, it perceives. It possesses the man
+himself, and us also as we read him. By it he launches his
+influence forward and outward rather than receives it from
+the past. To it his successors turn, as to an ancestry, when
+they had long despised and thrown aside everything else
+that savoured of the Gothic dead. By it he increased in
+reputation and meaning from his boyhood on for four
+hundred years, till now he is secure among the first lyric
+poets of Christendom. It led to no excess of matter, but
+to an exuberance of attitude and manner, to an inexhaustibility
+of special words, to a brilliancy of impression unique
+even among his own people.</p>
+
+<p>He was poor; he was amative; he was unsatisfied. This
+vigour, therefore, led in his actions to a mere wildness;
+clothed in this wildness the rare fragments of his life have
+descended to us. He professed to teach, but he haunted
+taverns, and loved the roaring of songs. He lived at random
+from his twentieth year in one den or another along
+the waterside. Affection brought him now to his mother,
+now to his old guardian priest, but not for long; he returned
+to adventure--such as it was. He killed a man, was arrested,
+condemned, pardoned, exiled; he wandered and
+again found Paris, and again--it seems--stumbled down
+his old lane of violence and dishonour.</p>
+
+<p>Associated also with this wildness is a curious imperfection
+in our knowledge of him. His very name is not
+his own--or any other man's. His father, if it were his
+father, took his name from Mont-Corbier--half noble.
+Villon is but a little village over beyond the upper Yonne,
+near the division, within a day of the water-parting where
+the land falls southward to Burgundy and the sun in what
+they call "The Slope of Gold." From this village a priest,
+William, had come to Paris in 1423. They gave him a
+canonry in that little church called "St. Bennets Askew,"
+which stood in the midst of the University, near Sorbonne,
+where the Rue des Écoles crosses the Rue St. Jacques
+to-day. Hither, to his house in the cloister, he brought
+the boy, a waif whom he had found much at the time
+when Willoughby capitulated and the French recaptured
+the city. He had him taught, he designed him for the
+University, he sheltered him in his vagaries, he gave him
+asylum. The young man took his name and called him
+"more than father." His anxious life led on to 1468, long
+after the poet had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>For it is in 1461, in his thirtieth year, that Villon last
+writes down a verse. It is in 1463 that his signature is last
+discovered. Then not by death or, if by death, then by
+some death unrecorded, he leaves history abruptly--a most
+astonishing exit!... You may pursue fantastic legends,
+you will not find the man himself again. Some say a final
+quarrel got him hanged at last--it is improbable: no record
+or even tradition of it remains. Rabelais thought him a
+wanderer in England. Poitou preserves a story of his later
+passage through her fields, of how still he drank and sang
+with boon companions, and of how, again, he killed a
+man.... Maybe, he only ceased to write; took to teaching
+soberly in the University, and lived in a decent inheritance
+to see new splendours growing upon Europe. It may
+very well be, for it is in such characters to desire in early
+manhood decency, honour, and repose. But for us the man
+ends with his last line. His body that was so very real,
+his personal voice, his jargon--tangible and audible things--spread
+outward suddenly a vast shadow upon nothingness.
+It was the end, also, of a world. The first Presses
+were creaking, Constantinople had fallen, Greek was in
+Italy, Leonardo lived, the stepping stones of the Azores
+were held--in that new light he disappears.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>Of his greatness nothing can be said; it is like the greatness
+of all the chief poets, a thing too individual to seize
+in words. It is superior and exterior to the man. Genius
+of that astounding kind has all the qualities of an extraneous
+thing. A man is not answerable for it. It is
+nothing to his salvation; it is little even to his general
+character. It has been known to come and go, to be put
+off and on like a garment, to be lent by Heaven and taken
+away, a capricious gift.</p>
+
+<p>But of the manner of that genius it may be noted that,
+as his vigour prepared the flood of new verse, so in another
+matter his genius made him an origin. Through him first,
+the great town--and especially Paris--appeared and became
+permanent in letters.</p>
+
+<p>Her local spirit and her special quality had shone fitfully
+here and there for a thousand years--you may find it in
+Julian, in Abbo, in Joinville. But now, in the fifteenth
+century, it had been not only a town but a great town for
+more than a century--a town, that is, in which men live
+entirely, almost ignorant of the fields, observing only other
+men, and forgetting the sky. The keen edge of such a life,
+its bitterness, the mockery and challenge whereby its evils
+are borne, its extended knowledge, the intensity of its
+spirit--all these are reflected in Villon, and first reflected
+in him. Since his pen first wrote, a shining acerbity like
+the glint of a sword-edge has never deserted the literature
+of the capital.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the metropolitan, it was the Parisian
+spirit which Villon found and fixed. That spirit which is
+bright over the whole city, but which is not known in the
+first village outside; the influence that makes Paris Athenian.</p>
+
+<p>The ironical Parisian soul has depths in it. It is so lucid
+that its luminous profundity escapes one--so with Villon.
+Religion hangs there. Humility--fatally divorced from
+simplicity--pervades it. It laughs at itself. There are
+ardent passions of sincerity, repressed and reacting upon
+themselves. The virtues, little practised, are commonly
+comprehended, always appreciated, for the Faith is there
+permanent. All this you will find in Villon, but it is too
+great a matter for so short an essay as this.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<h3>THE DEAD LADIES.</h3>
+
+<p>It is difficult or impossible to compare the masterpieces of
+the world. It is easy and natural to take the measure of
+a particular writer and to establish a scale of his work.</p>
+
+<p>Villon is certainly in the small first group of the poets.
+His little work, like that of Catullus, like that of Gray, is
+up, high, completed and permanent. And within that
+little work this famous Ballade is by far the greatest
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>It contains all his qualities: not in the ordinary proportion
+of his character, but in that better, exact proportion
+which existed in him when his inspiration was most ardent:
+for the poem has underlying it somewhere a trace of his
+irony, it has all his ease and rapidity--excellent in any poet--and
+it is carried forward by that vigour I have named,
+a force which drives it well upwards and forward to its
+foaming in the seventh line of the third verse.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of names was delightful to him, and he loved
+to use it; he had also that character of right verse, by
+which the poet loves to put little separate pictures like
+medallions into the body of his writing: this Villon loved,
+as I shall show in other examples, and he has it here.</p>
+
+<p>The end of the middle ages also is strongly in this appeal
+or confession of mortality; their legends, their delicacy,
+their perpetual contemplation of death.</p>
+
+<p>But of all the Poem's qualities, its run of words is far
+the finest.</p>
+<br>
+<a name="ch2a" id="ch2a"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE DEAD LADIES.</b></i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Dictes moy où, n'en quel pays</p>
+<p class="i12">Est Flora la belle Rommaine;</p>
+<p class="i12">Archipiada, ne Thaïs,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui fut sa cousine germaine;</p>
+<p class="i12">Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine</p>
+<p class="i12">Dessus riviere ou sus estan,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui beaulté ot trop plus qu'humaine?</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Où est la très sage Hellois,</p>
+<p class="i12">Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne</p>
+<p class="i12">Pierre Esbaillart à Saint-Denis?</p>
+<p class="i12">Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.</p>
+<p class="i12">Semblablement, où est la royne</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui commanda que Buridan</p>
+<p class="i12">Fust gecté en ung sac en Saine?</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">La Royne Blanche comme un lis,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui chantoit à voix de seraine;</p>
+<p class="i12">Berte au grant pié Bietris, Allis;</p>
+<p class="i12">Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qu'Englois brulerent à Rouan;</p>
+<p class="i12">Où sont elles, Vierge souvraine?</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">ENVOI.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine</p>
+<p class="i12">Où elles sont, ne de cest an,</p>
+<p class="i12">Que ce reffrain ne vous remaine:</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<h3>AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>Stanzas 75-79.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>Villon's whole surviving work is in the form of two
+rhymed wills--one short, one long: and in the latter,
+Ballads and Songs are put in each in their place, as the
+tenour of the verse suggests them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the last Ballade, that of the "Dead Ladies," comes
+after a couple of strong stanzas upon the necessity of death--and
+so forth.</p>
+
+<p>One might choose any passage, almost, out of the mass
+to illustrate the character of this "Testament" in which
+the separate poems are imbedded. I have picked those
+round about the 800th line, the verses in which he is perhaps
+least brilliant and most tender.</p>
+<br>
+
+<a name="ch2b" id="ch2b"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.</b></i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">LXXV.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Premier je donne ma povre ame</p>
+<p class="i12">A la benoiste Trinité,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et la commande à Nostre Dame</p>
+<p class="i12">Chambre de la divinité;</p>
+<p class="i12">Priant toute la charité</p>
+<p class="i12">Des dignes neuf Ordres des cieulx,</p>
+<p class="i12">Que par eulx soit ce don porté</p>
+<p class="i12">Devant le trosne precieux.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">LXXVI.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Item, mon corps je donne et laisse</p>
+<p class="i12">A notre grant mere la terre;</p>
+<p class="i12">Les vers n'y trouveront grant gresse:</p>
+<p class="i12">Trop luy a fait faim dure guerre.</p>
+<p class="i12">Or luy soit delivré grant erre:</p>
+<p class="i12">De terre vint, en terre tourne.</p>
+<p class="i12">Toute chose, se par trop n'erre,</p>
+<p class="i12">Voulentiers en son lieu retourne;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">LXXVII.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Item, et à mon plus que pere</p>
+<p class="i12">Maistre Guillaume de Villon</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui m'esté a plus doulx que mere,</p>
+<p class="i12">Enfant eslevé de maillon,</p>
+<p class="i12">Degeté m'a de maint boullon</p>
+<p class="i12">Et de cestuy pas ne s'esjoye</p>
+<p class="i12">Et luy requiers à genoullon</p>
+<p class="i12">Qu'il n'en laisse toute la joye.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">LXXVIII.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Je luy donne ma Librairie</p>
+<p class="i12">Et le Romman du Pet au Deable</p>
+<p class="i12">Lequel Maistre Guy Tabarie</p>
+<p class="i12">Grossa qui est homs veritable.</p>
+<p class="i12">Por cayers est soubz une table,</p>
+<p class="i12">Combien qu'il soit rudement fait</p>
+<p class="i12">La matiere est si très notable,</p>
+<p class="i12">Q'elle amende tout le mesfait.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">LXXIX.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Item donne à ma povre mere</p>
+<p class="i12">Pour saluer nostre Maistresse,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui pour moy ot doleur amere</p>
+<p class="i12">Dieu le scet, et mainte tristesse;</p>
+<p class="i12">Autre Chastel n'ay ni fortresse</p>
+<p class="i12">Où me retraye corps et ame</p>
+<p class="i12">Quand sur moy court malle destresse</p>
+<p class="i12">Ne ma mere, la povre femme!</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<h3>THE BALLADE OF OUR LADY.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>Written by Villon for his mother.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>The abrupt ending of the last extract, the 79th stanza of
+the "Grant Testament"--"I give..." and then no objective
+(apparently) added--is an excellent example of the
+manner in which the whole is conceived and of the way in
+which the separate poems are pieced into the general work.</p>
+
+<p>What "he gives..." to his mother is this "Ballade of
+our Lady," written, presumably, long before the "will"
+and put in here and thus after being carefully led up to.</p>
+
+<p>These thirty-seven lines are more famous in their own
+country than abroad. They pour from the well of a religion
+which has not failed in the place where Villon wrote, and
+they present that religion in a manner peculiar and national.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from its piety and its exquisite tenderness, two
+qualities of Villon are to be specially found in this poem:
+his vivid phrase, such as:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Emperiere des infernaux paluz,"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>(a discovery of which he was so proud that he repeated it
+elsewhere) or:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"sa tres chiere jeunesse."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And secondly the curiously processional effect of the metre
+and of the construction of the stanzas--the extra line and
+the extra foot lend themselves to a chaunt in their balanced
+slow rhythm, as any one can find for himself by reading
+the lines to some church sing-song as he goes.</p>
+
+<a name="ch2c" id="ch2c"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE BALLADE OF OUR LADY.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Dame des cieulx, regente terrienne,</p>
+<p class="i12">Emperiere des infernaux paluz,</p>
+<p class="i12">Recevez moy, vostre humble chrestienne,</p>
+<p class="i12">Que comprinse soye entre vos esleuz,</p>
+<p class="i12">Ce non obstant qu'oncques rien ne valuz.</p>
+<p class="i12">Les biens de vous, ma dame et ma maistresse,</p>
+<p class="i12">Sont trop plus grans que ne suis pecheresse,</p>
+<p class="i12">Sans lesquelz biens ame ne peut merir.</p>
+<p class="i12">N'avoir les cieulx, je n'en suis jungleresse.</p>
+<p class="i12">En ceste foi je veuil vivre et mourir</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">A vostre fils dicte que je suis sienne;</p>
+<p class="i12">De luy soyent mes pechiez aboluz:</p>
+<p class="i12">Pardonne moy, comme à l'Egipcienne,</p>
+<p class="i12">Ou comme il feist au clerc Théophilus,</p>
+<p class="i12">Lequel par vous fut quitte et absoluz,</p>
+<p class="i12">Combien qu'il eust au Deable fait promesse.</p>
+<p class="i12">Preservez moy, que ne face jamais ce.</p>
+<p class="i12">Vierge portant, sans rompure encourir.</p>
+<p class="i12">Le sacrement qu'on celebre à la messe.</p>
+<p class="i12">En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Femme je suis povrette et ancienne</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui riens ne scay; oncques lettre ne leuz;</p>
+<p class="i12">Au moustier voy dont suis paroissienne</p>
+<p class="i12">Paradis faint, où sont harpes et luz,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et ung enfer où dampnez sont boulluz:</p>
+<p class="i12">L'ung me fait paour, l'autre joye et liesse.</p>
+<p class="i12">La joye avoir me fay, haulte Deesse,</p>
+<p class="i12">A qui pecheurs doivent tous recourir,</p>
+<p class="i12">Comblez de Foy, sans fainte ne paresse.</p>
+<p class="i12">En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i30">ENVOI</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Vous portastes, digne vierge, princesse,</p>
+<p class="i12">Jesus regnant, qui n'a ne fin ne cesse.</p>
+<p class="i12">Le Tout Puissant, prenant notre foiblesse,</p>
+<p class="i12">Laissa les cieulx et nous vint secourir,</p>
+<p class="i12">Offrit à mort sa tres chiere jeunesse.</p>
+<p class="i12">Nostre Seigneur tel est, tel le confesse,</p>
+<p class="i18">En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<h3>THE DEAD LORDS.</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>As I have not wished to mix up smaller things with greater
+I have put this <i>ballade</i> separate from that of "the Ladies,"
+though it directly follows it as an after-thought in Villon's
+own book. For the former is one of the masterpieces of
+the world, and this, though very Villon, is not great.</p>
+
+<p>What it has got is the full latter mediaeval love of odd
+names and reminiscences, and also to the full, the humour
+of the scholarly tavern, which was the "Mermaid" of that
+generation: as the startling regret of:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Hélas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne</p>
+Duquel je ne sçay pas le nom....
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and the addition, after the false exit of "je me désiste"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Encore fais une question</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He laughed well over it, and was perhaps not thirsty
+when it was written.</p>
+
+<br>
+<a name="ch2d" id="ch2d"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE DEAD LORDS.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Qui plus? Où est le Tiers Calixte</p>
+<p class="i12">Dernier decedé de ce nom,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui quatre ans tint le papaliste?</p>
+<p class="i12">Alphonce, le roy d'Arragon,</p>
+<p class="i12">Le Gracieux Duc de Bourbon,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et Artus, le Duc de Bretaigne,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et Charles Septiesme, le Bon?....</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Semblablement le roy Scotiste</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui demy face ot, ce dit on,</p>
+<p class="i12">Vermeille comme une amatiste</p>
+<p class="i12">Depuis le front jusqu'au menton?</p>
+<p class="i12">Le roy de Chippre, de renom?</p>
+<p class="i12">Hélas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne</p>
+<p class="i12">Duquel je ne sçay pas le nom?...</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">D'en plus parler je me desiste</p>
+<p class="i12">Le monde n'est qu'abusion.</p>
+<p class="i12">Il n'est qui contre mort resiste</p>
+<p class="i12">Le que treuve provision.</p>
+<p class="i12">Encor fais une question:</p>
+<p class="i12">Lancelot, le roy de Behaigne,</p>
+<p class="i12">Où est il? Où est son tayon?....</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i30">ENVOI.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Où est Claguin, le bon Breton?</p>
+<p class="i12">Où le conte daulphin d'Auvergne</p>
+<p class="i12">Et le bon feu Duc d'Alençon?...</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne!</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<a name="ch2e" id="ch2e"></a>
+<h3>THE DIRGE.</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>This is the best ending for any set of verses one may choose
+out of Villon. It follows and completes the epitaph which
+in his will he orders to be written in charcoal--or scratched--above
+his tomb: the sad, sardonic octave of "the little
+scholar and poor." It is a kind of added dirge to be read
+by those who pass and to be hummed or chaunted over
+him dead. But it is a rondeau.</p>
+
+<p>See how sharp it is with the salt and vinegar of his
+pressed courageous smile--and how he cannot run away
+from his religion or from his power over sudden and vivid
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Sire--et clarté perpétuelle"--which last are the best
+two words that ever stood in the vulgar for <i>lux perpetua</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder that as time went on, more and more
+people learnt these things by heart.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><b><i>RONDEAU.</i></b></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Repos éternel, donne à cil,</p>
+<p class="i12">Sire, et clarté perpétuelle,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui vaillant plat ni escuelle</p>
+<p class="i12">N'eut oncques, n'ung brain de percil.</p>
+<p class="i12">Il fut rez, chief, barbe et sourcil,</p>
+<p class="i12">Comme un navet qu'on ret ou pelle.</p>
+<p class="i16">Repos éternel donne à cil.</p>
+<p class="i16">Rigueur le transmit en exil</p>
+<p class="i12">Et luy frappa au cul la pelle,</p>
+<p class="i12">Non obstant qu'il dit "J'en appelle!"</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui n'est pas terme trop subtil.</p>
+<p class="i16">Repos éternel donne à cil.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<a name="ch3" id="ch3"></a>
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CLEMENT MAROT.</h2>
+<br><br>
+
+<p>If in Charles of Orleans the first note of the French Renaissance
+is heard, if in Villon you find first its energy
+appearing above ground, yet both are forerunners only.</p>
+
+<p>With Marot one is in the full tide of the movement.
+The discovery of America had preceded his birth by three
+or perhaps four years. His early manhood was filled with
+all that ferment, all that enormous branching out of human
+life, which was connected with the expansion of Spain; he
+was in the midst of the scarlet and the gold. A man just
+of age when Luther was first condemned, living his active
+manhood through the experience of the great battlefields
+in Italy, wounded (a valet rather than a soldier) at Pavia,
+the perpetual chorus of Francis I., privileged to witness
+the first stroke of the pickaxe against the mediaeval Louvre,
+and to see the first Italian dignity of the great stone houses
+on the Loire--being all this, the Renaissance was the stuff
+on which his life was worked.</p>
+
+<p>His blood and descent were typical enough of the work
+he had to do. His own father was one of the last set
+rhymers of the dying Middle Ages. All his boyhood was
+passed among that multitude of little dry "writers-down of
+verse" with which, in Paris, the Middle Ages died; they
+were not a swarm, for they were not living; they were a
+heap of dust. All his early work is touched with the learned,
+tedious, unbeautiful industry which was all that the elder
+men round Louis XII could bring to letters. By a happy
+accident there were mixed in him, however, two vigorous
+springs of inspiration, each ready to receive the new forces
+that were working in Europe, each destined to take the
+fullest advantage of the new time. These springs were first,
+learned Normandy, quiet, legal, well-founded, deep in grass,
+wealthy; and secondly, the arid brilliancy of the South:
+Quency and the country round Cahors. His father was a
+Norman pure bred, who had come down and married into
+that sharp land where the summer is the note of the whole
+year, and where the traveller chiefly remembers vineyards,
+lizards on the walls, short shadows, sleep at noon, and blinding
+roads of dust. The first years of his childhood were
+spent in the southern town, so that the south entered into
+him thoroughly. The language that he never wrote, the
+Languedoc, was that, perhaps, in which he thought during
+all his life. It was his mother's.</p>
+
+<p>It has been noticed by all his modern readers, it will be
+noticed probably with peculiar force by English readers,
+that the fame of Marot during his lifetime and his historical
+position as the leader of the Renaissance has in it something
+exaggerated and false. One cannot help a perpetual
+doubt as to whether the religious quarrel, the influence of
+the Court, the strong personal friendships and enmities
+which surrounded him had not had more to do with his
+reputation than his faculty, or even his genius, for rhyme.
+Whenever he wanted £100 he asked it of the King
+with the grave promise that he would bestow upon him
+immortality.</p>
+
+<p>From Ronsard, or from Du Bellay, we, here in the
+north, could understand that phrase; from Marot it carries
+a flavour of the grotesque. Ready song, indeed, and a great
+power over the material one uses in singing last indefinitely;
+they last as long as the sublime or the terrible in literature,
+but we forbear to associate with them--perhaps unjustly--the
+conception of greatness. If indeed anyone were to
+maintain that Marot was not an excellent and admirable
+poet he would prove himself ignorant of the language in
+which Marot wrote, but let the most sympathetic turn to
+what is best in his verse, let them turn for instance to that
+charming lyric: "A sa Dame Malade" or to "The Ballad
+of Old Time," or even to that really large and riotous chorus
+of the vine, and they will see that it is the kind of thing
+which is amplified by music, and which sometimes demands
+the aid of music to appear at all. They will see quite
+plainly that Marot took pleasure in playing with words and
+arranged them well, felt keenly and happily, played a full
+lyre, but they will doubt whether poetry was necessarily
+for him the most serious business of life.</p>
+
+<p>Why, then, has he taken the place claimed for him, and
+why is he firmly secure in the place of master of the ceremonies,
+as it were, to that glorious century whose dawn
+he enjoyed and helped to beautify?</p>
+
+<p>I will explain it.</p>
+
+<p>It is because he is national. He represents not what is
+most this, or most that--"highest," "noblest," "truest,"
+"best," and all the rest of it--in his countrymen, but rather
+what they have most in common.</p>
+
+<p>Did you meet him to-day in the Strand you would know
+at once that you had to do with a Frenchman, and, probably,
+with a kind of poet.</p>
+
+<p>He was short, square in the shoulders, tending in middle
+age to fatness. A dark hair and beard; large brown eyes
+of the south; a great, rounded, wrinkled forehead like
+Verlaine's; a happy mouth, a nose very insignificant, completed
+him. When we meet somewhere, under cypress trees
+at last, these great poets of a better age, and find Ronsard
+a very happy man, Du Bellay, a gentleman; then Malherbe,
+for all that he was a northerner, we may mistake, if we find
+him, for a Catalonian. Villon, however Parisian, will appear
+the Bohemian that many cities have produced; Charles of
+Orleans may seem at first but one of that very high nobility
+remnants of which are still to be discovered in Europe.
+But when we see Marot, our first thought will certainly be,
+as I have said, that we have come across a Frenchman; and
+the more French for a touch of the commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>See how French was the whole career!</p>
+
+<p>Whatever is new attracts him. The reformation attracts
+him. It was <i>chic</i> to have to do with these new things. He
+had the French ignorance of what was foreign and alien;
+the French curiosity to meddle with it because it had come
+from abroad; the French passion for opposing, for struggling;--and
+beneath it all the large French indifference to
+the problem of evil (or whatever you like to call it), the
+changeless French content in certitude, upon which ease,
+indeed, as upon a rock, the Church of Gaul has permanently
+stood and will continuously repose.</p>
+
+<p>He has been a sore puzzle to the men who have never
+heard of these things. Calvin (that appalling exception
+who had nothing in him of France except lucidity) could
+make neither head nor tail of him. Geneva was glad enough
+to chaunt through the nose his translations of the Psalms,
+but it was woefully puzzled at his salacity, and the town
+was very soon too hot to hold him in his exile. And as for
+the common, partial, and ignorant histories of France,
+written in our tongue, they generally make him a kind of
+backslider, who might have been a Huguenot (and--who
+knows?--have thrown the Sacrament to beasts with the
+best of them) save that, unhappily, he did not persevere.
+Whatever they say of him (and some have hardly heard
+of him) one thing is quite certain: that they do not understand
+him, and that if they did they would like him still
+less than they do.</p>
+
+<p>He was national in the rapidity of the gesture of his
+mind as in that of his body: in his being attracted here and
+there, watching this and that suddenly, like a bird.</p>
+
+<p>He was national in his power of sharp recovery from
+any emotion back into his normal balance.</p>
+
+<p>He was national in that he depended upon companions,
+and stood for a crowd, and deplored all isolation. He was
+national in that he had nothing strenuous about him, and
+that he was amiable, and if he had heard of "earnest" men,
+he would have laughed at them a little, as people who did
+not see the whole of life.</p>
+
+<p>He was especially national (and it is here that the poet
+returns) in that most national of all things--a complete
+sympathy with the atmosphere of the native tongue. Thus
+men debate a good deal upon the poetic value of Wordsworth,
+but it is certain, when one sees how bathed he is in
+the sense of English words, their harmony and balance,
+that the man is entirely English, that no other nation could
+have produced him, and that he will be most difficult for
+foreigners to understand. You will not translate into French
+or any other language the simplicity of</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Glimpses that should make me less forlorn."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Nor can you translate, so as to give its own kind of grandeur</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Et arrivoit pour bénistre la vigne."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Apart from his place in letters, see how national he is in
+what he does!</p>
+
+<p>He buys two bits of land, he talks of them continually,
+sees to them, visits them. They are quite little bits of land.
+He calls one Clément, and the other Marot! Here is a
+whimsicality you would not find, I think, among another
+people.</p>
+
+<p>He has the hatred of "sprawling" in his particular art
+which is the chief aesthetic character of the French; but he
+has the tendency to excess in opinion or in general expression
+which is their chief political fault.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus, then, that I think he should be regarded and
+that I would desire to present him. It is thus, I am sure,
+that he should be read if one is to know why he has taken
+so great a place in the reverence and the history of the
+French people.</p>
+
+<p>And it is in this aspect that he may worthily introduce
+much greater things, the Pléiade and Ronsard.</p>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<h3>OF COURTING LONG AGO.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The Eighth of the Roundels.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>This is a fair enough specimen of Marot at his daily gait:
+an easy versifier "on a theme" and no more. I have said
+that it is unjust to judge him on that level, and I have said
+why; but I give this to give the man as he moved domestically
+to the admiration of the court and of his friends in
+a time which missed, for example, the epic character of the
+last six lines of "Le Beau Tettin," and which hardly comprehended
+of what value his pure lyric enthusiasms would
+be to a sadder and drier posterity.</p>
+
+<br>
+<a name="ch3a" id="ch3a"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>OF COURTING LONG AGO.</b></i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i16">Au bon vieulx temps un train d'amour regnoit,</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui sans grand art et dons se démenoit,</p>
+<p class="i12">Si qu'un boucquet donné d'amour profonde</p>
+<p class="i12">S'estoit donné toute la terre ronde:</p>
+<p class="i16">Car seulement au cueur on se prenoit.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Et si, par cas, à jouyr on venoit,</p>
+<p class="i12">Sçavez-vous bien comme on s'entretenoit?</p>
+<p class="i12">Vingt ans, trente ans; cela duroit ung monde</p>
+<p class="i16">Au bon vieulx temps.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Or est perdu ce qu'amour ordonnoit,</p>
+<p class="i12">Rien que pleurs fainctz, rien que changes on n'oyt.</p>
+<p class="i12">Qui vouldra donc qu'à aymer je me fonde,</p>
+<p class="i12">Il fault, premier, que l'amour on refonde</p>
+<p class="i12">Et qu'on la meine ainsi qu'on la menoit</p>
+<p class="i16">Au bon vieulx temps.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<h3>NOËL.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The Second of the Chansons.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>But here, upon the contrary, is the spontaneity of his happy
+mind; it suggests a song; one can hardly read it without
+a tune in one's head, so simple is it and so purely lyrical:
+there is a touch of the dance in it, too.</p>
+
+<p>In these little things of Marot, which are neither learned
+(and he boasted of learning) nor set and dry (and his
+friends especially praised his precision), a great poet certainly
+appears--in short revelations, but still appears. Unfortunately
+there are not enough of them.</p>
+
+<p>That he thought "like a Southerner," as I have maintained
+and as I shall show by a further example, is made the
+more probable from the value he lends to the feminine e.
+The excellent rhythm of this poem you will only get by
+giving the feminine e the value of a drawn out syllable:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">"L'effect</p>
+<p class="i20">Est faict:</p>
+<p class="i20">La bel-le</p>
+<p class="i20">Pucel-le," etc.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So Spaniards, Gascons, Provençaux, Italians, rhyme,
+and all those of the south who have retained their glorious
+"a's" and "o's".</p>
+
+<p>As for the spirit of it--God bless him!--it is a subject
+for perpetual merriment to think of such a man's being
+taken for a true Huguenot and enmeshed, even for a while,
+in the nasty cobweb of Geneva. But in the last thing I
+shall quote, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see it
+still more.</p>
+
+<a name="ch3b" id="ch3b"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>NOËL.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i14">Une pastourelle gentille</p>
+<p class="i10">Et ung bergier en ung verger</p>
+<p class="i10">L'autrhyer en jouant à la bille</p>
+<p class="i10">S'entredisoient, pour abréger:</p>
+<p class="i18">Roger</p>
+<p class="i18">Bergier</p>
+<p class="i18">Legière</p>
+<p class="i18">Bergière,</p>
+<p class="i12">C'est trop à la bille joué;</p>
+<p class="i12">  Chantons Noé, Noé, Noé.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i14">Te souvient-il plus du prophète
+<p class="i10">Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict,
+<p class="i10">Que d'une pucelle parfaicte
+<p class="i10">Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict?
+<p class="i18">L'effect
+<p class="i18">Est faict:
+<p class="i18">La belle
+<p class="i18">Pucelle
+<p class="i12">A eu ung filz du ciel voué:
+<p class="i12">Chantons Noé, Noé, Noé.
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<h3>TWO EPIGRAMS.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness,
+the wit, the hard surface of Marot, and they needed no
+more poetry than was in Voltaire or Swift, but they needed
+style. It was this absolute and standard style which his
+contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the marvel was,
+that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and
+praised and supported only in that guise, he should have
+carried in him any, or rather so much, fire.</p>
+
+<p>The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king's sister had
+sent him. The second explains itself.</p>
+
+<br>
+<a name="ch3c" id="ch3c"></a>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>TWO EPIGRAMS.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Mes créanciers, qui de dixains n'ont cure,</p>
+<p class="i12">Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict:</p>
+<p class="i12">"Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure,</p>
+<p class="i12">La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit."</p>
+<p class="i12">Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand crédict,</p>
+<p class="i12">M'ont appelé monsieur à cry et cor,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et m'a valu vostre escript aultant qu'or;</p>
+<p class="i12">Car promis m'ont non seulement d'attendre,</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais d'en prester, foy de marchant, encor,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et j'ay promis, foy de Clément, d'en prendre.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="i12">Paris, tu m'as faict maints alarmes,</p>
+<p class="i12">Jusque à me poursuivre à la mort:</p>
+<p class="i12">Je n'ay que blasonné tes armes:</p>
+<p class="i12">Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord!</p>
+<p class="i12">Encor la coulpe m'en remord.</p>
+<p class="i12">Ne scay de toy comment sera;</p>
+<p class="i12">Mais de nous deux le diable emport</p>
+<p class="i12">Celuy qui recommencera.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 16th Epistle.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p>It is the way this is printed that makes some miss its value.
+It is, like all the best he wrote, a song; it needs the varying
+time of human expression, the effect of tone, the repose
+and the re-lifting of musical notes; illuminated thus it
+greatly charmed, and if any one would know the order of
+such a tune, why, it should follow the punctuation: a
+cessation at the third line; a rise of rapid accents to the
+thirteenth, and then a change; the last three lines of the
+whole very much fuller and strong.</p>
+
+<p>So I would hear it sung on a winter evening in an old
+house in Auvergne, and re-enter the sixteenth century as
+I heard.</p>
+
+<a name="ch3d" id="ch3d"></a>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.</b></i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">Ma mignonne,</p>
+<p class="i20">Je vous donne</p>
+<p class="i20">Le bon jour.</p>
+<p class="i20">Le séjour,</p>
+<p class="i20">C'est prison.</p>
+<p class="i20">Guérison</p>
+<p class="i20">Recouvrez,</p>
+<p class="i20">Puis ouvrez</p>
+<p class="i20">Vostre porte</p>
+<p class="i20">Et qu'on sorte</p>
+<p class="i20">Vistement;</p>
+<p class="i20">Car Clément</p>
+<p class="i20">Le vous mande.</p>
+<p class="i20">Va, friande</p>
+<p class="i20">De ta bouche,</p>
+<p class="i20">Qui se couche</p>
+<p class="i20">En danger</p>
+<p class="i20">Pour manger</p>
+<p class="i20">Confitures;</p>
+<p class="i20">Si tu dures</p>
+<p class="i20">Trop malade,</p>
+<p class="i20">Couleur fade</p>
+<p class="i20">Tu prendras</p>
+<p class="i20">Et perdras</p>
+<p class="i20">L'embonpoint.</p>
+<p class="i20">Dieu te doint,</p>
+<p class="i20">Santé bonne,</p>
+<p class="i20">Ma mignonne.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>THE VINEYARD SONG.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 4th of the Chansons.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>Here is Marot's best--even though many of his native
+critics will not admit it so; but to feel it in full one must
+be exiled from the vines.</p>
+
+<p>It is a tapestry of the Renaissance; the jolly gods of
+the Renaissance, the old gods grown Catholic moving
+across a happier stage. Bacchus in long robes and with
+solemnity blessing the vine, Silenus and the hobbling smith
+who smithied the Serpe, the Holy Vineyard Knife in heaven,
+all these by their diction and their flavour recall the Autumn
+in Herault and the grapes under a pure sky, pale at the
+horizon, and labourers and their carts in the vineyard, and
+these set in the frame of that great time when Saturn did
+return.</p>
+
+<p>All the poem is wine. It catches its rhymes and weaves
+them in and in, and moves rapid and careless in a fugue,
+like the march from Asia when the Panthers went before
+and drew the car. The internal rhythm and pulse is the
+clapping of hands in barns at evening and the peasants'
+feet dancing freely on the beaten earth. It is a very good
+song; it remembers the treading of the grapes and is refreshed
+by the mists that rise at evening when the labour
+is done.</p>
+<a name="ch3e" id="ch3e"></a>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE VINEYARD SONG.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Changeons propos, c'est trop chanté d'amours,</p>
+<p class="i12">Ce sont clamours, chantons de la Serpette,</p>
+<p class="i12">Tous vignerons ont à elle recours,</p>
+<p class="i12">C'est leur secours pour tailler la vignette.</p>
+<p class="i12">O serpilette, ô la serpilonnette,</p>
+<p class="i12">La vignolette est par toy mise sus,</p>
+<p class="i12">Dont les bons vins, tous les ans, sont yssus!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Le dieu Vulcain, forgeron des haults dieux,</p>
+<p class="i12">Forgea aux cieulx la serpe bien taillante,</p>
+<p class="i12">De fin acier, trempé en bon vin vieulx,</p>
+<p class="i12">Pour tailler mieulx et estre plus vaillante.</p>
+<p class="i12">Bacchus le vante et dit qu'elle est séante</p>
+<p class="i12">Et convenante à Noé le bonshom</p>
+<p class="i12">Pour en tailler la vigne en la saison.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Bacchus alors chappeau de treille avoit,</p>
+<p class="i12">Et arrivoit pour bénistre la vigne;</p>
+<p class="i12">Avec flascons Silénus le suivoit,</p>
+<p class="i12">Lequel beuvoit aussi droict qu'une ligne;</p>
+<p class="i12">Puis il trépigne, et se faict une bigne;</p>
+<p class="i12">Comme une guigne estoit rouge son nez.</p>
+<p class="i12">Beaucoup de gens de sa race sont nez.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<a name="ch4" id="ch4"></a>
+<br><br><br>
+
+<h2>RONSARD.</h2>
+
+<p>If it be true that words create for themselves a special
+atmosphere, and that their mere sound calls up vague outer
+things beyond their strict meaning, so it is true that the
+names of the great poets by their mere sound, by something
+more than the recollection of their work, produce an atmosphere
+corresponding to the quality of each; and the
+name of Ronsard throws about itself like an aureole the
+characters of fecundity, of leadership, and of fame.</p>
+
+<p>A group of men to which allusion will be made in
+connection with Du Bellay set out with a programme,
+developed a determined school, and fixed the literary
+renaissance of France at its highest point. They steeped
+themselves in antiquity, and they put to the greatest value
+it has ever received the name of poet; they demanded that
+the poet should be a kind of king, or seer. Half seriously,
+half as a product of mere scholarship, the pagan conception
+of the muse and of inspiration filled them.</p>
+
+<p>More than that; in their earnest, and, as it seemed at
+first, artificial work, they formed the French language.
+Some of its most famous and most familiar words proceed
+from them--for instance, the word <i>Patrie</i>. Some few of
+their exotic Greek and Latin adaptations were dropped;
+the greater part remained. They have excluded from
+French--as some think to the impoverishment of that
+language--most elements of the Gothic--the inversion of
+the adjective, the frequent suppression of the relative, the
+irregularity of form, which had survived from the Middle
+Ages, and which make the older French poetry so much
+more sympathetic to the Englishman than is the new--all
+these were destroyed by the group of men of whom I speak.
+They were called by their contemporaries the Pleiade, for
+they were seven stars.</p>
+
+<p>Now, of these, Ronsard was easily the master. He had
+that power which our anaemic age can hardly comprehend,
+of writing, writing, writing, without fear of exhaustion,
+without irritability or self-criticism, without danger of
+comparing the better with the worse. Five great volumes
+of small print, all good--men of that facility never write
+the really paltry things--all good, and most of it glorious;
+some of it on the level which only the great poets reach
+here and there. It is in reading this man who rhymed unceasingly
+for forty years, who made of poetry an occupation
+as well as a glory, and who let it fill the whole of his life,
+that one feels how much such creative power has to do with
+the value of verse. There is a kind of good humility about
+it, the humility of a man who does not look too closely at
+himself, and the health of a soul at full stride, going
+forward. You may open Ronsard at any page, and find a
+beauty; you may open any one of the sonnets at random,
+and in translating it discover that you are compelled to a
+fine English, because he is saying, plainly, great things.
+And of these sonnets, note you, he would write thirty at
+a stretch, and then twenty, and then a second book, with
+seventy more. So that as one reads one cannot help understanding
+that Italian who said a man was no poet unless
+he could rap out a century of sonnets from time to time;
+and one is reminded of the general vigour of the age and
+of the way in which art of all sorts was mingled up together,
+when one remembers the tags of verses, just such verses as
+these, which are yet to be seen in our galleries set down
+doubtfully on the margin of their sketches by the great
+artists of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Ronsard, with these qualities of a leader, unconscious,
+as all true leaders are, of the causes of his leadership, and
+caring, as all true leaders do, for nothing in leadership save
+the glory it brings with it, had also, as have all leaders,
+chiefly the power of drawing in a multitude of friends.
+The peculiar head of his own group, he very soon became
+the head of all the movement of his day. He had made
+letters really great in the minds of his contemporaries, and
+having so made them, appeared before them as a master of
+those letters. Certainly, as I shall quote him in a moment
+when I come to his dying speech, he was "satiated with
+glory."</p>
+
+<p>Yet this man did not in his personality convey that
+largeness which was his principal mark. His face was
+narrow, long and aquiline; his health uneven. It was
+evidently his soul which made men quickly forget the ill-matched
+case which bore it; for almost alone of the great
+poets he was consistently happy, and there poured out from
+him not only this unceasing torrent of verse, but also
+advice, sustenance, and a kind of secondary inspiration for
+others.</p>
+
+<p>In yet another matter he was a leader, and a leader of
+the utmost weight, not the cause, perhaps, but certainly
+the principal example of the trend which the mind of the
+nation was taking as the sixteenth century drew to a close.
+I mean in the matter of religion, upon whose colour every
+society depends, which is the note even of a national language,
+and which seems to be the ultimate influence beyond
+which no historical analysis can carry a thinking man.</p>
+
+<p>But even those who will not admit the truth of this
+should watch the theory closely, for with the religious
+trend of France is certainly bound up, and, as I would
+maintain, on such an influence is dependent, that ultimate
+setting of the French classic, that winding up of the
+Renaissance, with which I shall deal in the essay upon
+Malherbe.</p>
+
+<p>The stream of Catholicism was running true. The nation
+was tumbling back after a high and turbulent flood into
+the channel it had scoured for itself by the unbroken
+energies of a thousand years. It is no accident that Ronsard,
+that Du Bellay, were churchmen. It is a type. It is a type
+of the truth that the cloth admitted poets; of the truth that
+in the great battle whose results yet trouble Europe, here,
+on the soil where the great questions are fought out,
+Puritanism was already killed. The epicurean in them both,
+glad and ready in Ronsard, sombre and Lucretian in Du
+Bellay, jarred indeed in youth against their vows; but that
+it should have been tolerated, that it should have led to no
+excess or angry revolt, was typical of their moment. It
+was typical, finally, of their generation that all this mixture
+of the Renaissance with the Church matured at last into its
+natural fruit, for in the case of Ronsard we have a noble
+expression of perfect Christianity at the end.</p>
+
+<p>In the November of 1585 he felt death upon him; he
+had himself borne to his home as soon as the Huguenot
+bands had left it, ravaged and devastated as it was. He
+found it burnt and looted, but it reminded him of childhood
+and of the first springs of his great river of verse. A
+profound sadness took him. He was but in his sixty-second
+year, his mind had not felt any chill of age. He could not
+sleep; poppies and soporifics failed him. He went now in
+his coach, now on a litter from place to place in that
+country side which he had rendered famous, and saw the
+Vendomois for the last time; its cornfields all stubble under
+a cold and dreary sky. And in each place he waited for a
+while.</p>
+
+<p>But death troubled him, and he could not remain. Within
+a fortnight he ordered that they should carry him southward
+to the Loire, to that priory of which--by a custom of
+privilege, nobility and royal favour--he was the nominal
+head, the priory which is "the eye and delight of Touraine",--the
+Isle of St. Cosmo. He sickened as he went. The
+thirty miles or so took him three painful days; twice, all
+his strength failed him, and he lay half fainting in his
+carriage; to so much energy and to so much power of
+creation these episodes were an awful introduction of death.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon the 17th of November that he reached the
+walls wherein he was Superior; six weeks later, on the
+second day after Christmas, he died.</p>
+
+<p>Were I to describe that scene to which he called the
+monks, all men of his own birth and training, were I to
+dwell upon the appearance and the character of the oldest
+and the wisest, who was also the most famous there, I should
+extend this essay beyond its true limit, as I should also do
+were I to write down, even briefly, the account of his just,
+resigned, and holy death. It must suffice that I transcribe
+the chief of his last deeds; I mean, that declaration wherein
+he made his last profession of faith.</p>
+
+<p>The old monk had said to him: "In what resolution do
+you die?"</p>
+
+<p>He answered, somewhat angrily: "In what did you
+think? In the religion which was my father's and his
+father's, and his father's and his father's before him--for
+I am of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>Then he called all the community round him, as though
+the monastic simplicity had returned (so vital is the Faith,
+so simple its primal energies), and as though he had been
+the true prior of some early and fervent house, he told
+them these things which I will faithfully translate on
+account of their beauty. They are printed here, I think, for
+the first time in English, and must stand for the end of
+this essay:</p>
+
+<p>He said: "That he had sinned like other men, and,
+perhaps, more than most; that his senses had led him away
+by their charm, and that he had not repressed or constrained
+them as he should; but none the less, he had always held
+that Faith which the men of his line had left him, he had
+always clasped close the Creed and the unity of the Catholic
+Church; that, in fine, he had laid a sure foundation, but
+he had built thereon with wood, with hay, with straw. As
+for that foundation, he was sure it would stand; as for the
+light and worthless things he had built upon it he had trust
+in the mercy of the Saviour that they would be burnt in
+the fire of His love. And now he begged them all to
+believe hard, as he had believed; but not to live as he had
+lived; they must understand that he had never attempted
+or plotted against the life or goods of another, nor ever
+against any man's honour, but, after all, there was nothing
+therein wherewith to glorify one's self before God." When
+he had wept a little, he continued, saying, "that the world
+was a ceaseless turmoil and torment, and shipwreck after
+shipwreck all the while, and a whirlpool of sins, and tears
+and pain, and that to all these misfortunes there was but
+one port, and this port was Death. But, as for him, he
+carried with him into that port no desire and no regret for
+life. That he had tried every one of its pretended joys, that
+he had left nothing undone which could give him the least
+shadow of pleasure or content, but that at the end he had
+found everywhere the oracle of Wisdom, vanity of vanities."</p>
+
+<p>He ended with this magnificent thing, which is, perhaps,
+the last his human power conceived, and I will put it down
+in his own words:--</p>
+
+<p>"Of all those vanities, the loveliest and most praiseworthy
+is glory--fame. No one of my time has been so
+filled with it as I; I have lived in it, and loved and triumphed
+in it through time past, and now I leave it to my
+country to garner and possess it after I shall die. So do I
+go away from my own place as satiated with the glory of
+this world as I am hungry and all longing for that of God."</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>This is a little Amaboean thing not very well known but
+very Horatian and worth setting down here because it is
+in the manner of so much that he wrote.</p>
+
+<p>Its manner is admirable. Its gentleness, persistency and
+increase--are like those of his own small river the Loir.
+Its last stanza from the middle of the first line "<i>Ceux dont
+la fantaisie</i>" to the end, should, I think be famous; but
+an English reader can hardly forgive such an introduction
+as "<i>Voilà sagement dit</i>" to so noble a finale.</p>
+<a name="ch4a" id="ch4a"></a>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.</b></i>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Ronsard. Pour avoir trop aimé vostre bande inégale,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Muses, qui défiez (ce dites vous) le temps,</p>
+<p class="i6">         J'ay les yeux tout battus, la face toute pasle,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Le Chef grison et chauve, et je n'ay que trente ans.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Muses. Au nocher qui sans cesse erre sur la marine</p>
+<p class="i6">         Le teint noir appartient; le soldat n'est point beau</p>
+<p class="i6">         Sans estre tout poudreux; qui courbe la poitrine</p>
+<p class="i6">         Sur nos livres, est laid s'il n'a pasle la peau.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Ronsard. Mais quelle récompense aurois-je de tant suivre</p>
+<p class="i6">        Vos danses nuict et jour, un laurier sur le front?</p>
+<p class="i6">         Et cependant les ans aux quels je deusse vivre</p>
+<p class="i6">         En plaisirs et en jeux comme poudre s'en vont.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Muses.  Vous aurez, en vivant, une fameuse gloire,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Puis, quand vous serez mort, votre nom fleurira</p>
+<p class="i6">         L'age, de siècle en siècle, aura de vous mémoire;</p>
+<p class="i6">         Vostre corps seulement au tombeau pourrira.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Ronsard. O le gentil loyer! Que sert au viel Homère,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Ores qu'il n'est plus rien, sous la tombe, là-bas,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Et qu'il n'a plus ny chef, ny bras, ny jambe entière</p>
+<p class="i6">         Si son renom fleurist, ou s'il ne fleurist pas!</p>
+<br>
+<p>Muses.  Vous estes abusé. Le corps dessous la lame</p>
+<p class="i6">         Pourry ne sent plus rien, aussy ne luy en chaut.</p>
+<p class="i6">         Mais un tel accident n'arrive point à l'ame,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Qui sans matière vist immortelle là haut.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Ronsard. Bien! Je vous suyvray donc d'une face plaisante,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Dussé-je trespasser de l'estude vaincu,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Et ne fust-ce qu'à fin que la race suyvante</p>
+<p class="i6">         Ne me reproche point qu'oysif j'aye vescu.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Muses.   Vela saigement dit, ceux dont la fantaisie</p>
+<p class="i6">         Sera religieuse et dévote envers Dieu</p>
+<p class="i6">         Tousjours achèveront quelque grand poésie,</p>
+<p class="i6">         Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<br><br>
+<h3>THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS.</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>Seven years after Rabelais died, Ronsard wrote this off-hand.
+I give it, not for its value, but because it connects
+these two great names. The man who wrote it had seen
+that large and honorable mouth worshipping wine: he had
+reverenced that head of laughter which has corrected all
+our philosophy. It would be a shame to pass such a name
+as Ronsard's signed to an epitaph on such a work as that
+of Rabelais, poetry or no poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Ronsard also from a tower at Meudon used to creep out
+at night and drink with that fellow-priest, vicar of the
+Parish, Rabelais: a greater man than he.</p>
+
+<p>By a memory separate from the rest of his verse, Ronsard
+was moved to write this Rabelaisian thing. For he had
+seen him "full length upon the grass and singing so."</p>
+
+<p>There is no need of notes, for these great names of
+Gargantua, Panurge and Friar John are household to every
+honest man.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS.</b></i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">Si d'un mort qui pourri repose</p>
+<p class="i20">Nature engendre quelque chose,</p>
+<p class="i20">Et si la génération</p>
+<p class="i20">Se faict de la corruption,</p>
+<p class="i20">Une vigne prendra naissance</p>
+<p class="i20">Du bon Rabelais qui boivoit</p>
+<p class="i20">Tousjours ce pendant qu'il vivoit;</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">Demi me se troussoit les bras</p>
+<p class="i20">Et se couchoit tout plat à bas</p>
+<p class="i20">Sur la jonchée entre les tasses</p>
+<p class="i20">Et parmy les escuelles grasses</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i20">Il chantait la grande massue</p>
+<p class="i20">Et la jument de Gargantue,</p>
+<p class="i20">Le grand Panurge et le jaïs</p>
+<p class="i20">Des papimanes ébahis,</p>
+<p class="i20">Leurs loix, leurs façons et demeures</p>
+<p class="i20">Et Frère Jean des Antonneures.</p>
+<p class="i20">Et d'Espisteme les combas.</p>
+<p class="i20">Mais la Mort qui ne boivoit pas</p>
+<p class="i20">Tira le beuveur de ce monde</p>
+<p class="i20">Et ores le fait boire de l'onde</p>
+<p class="i20">Du large fleuve d'Achéron.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 17th Ode of the First Book.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>"In these eighteen lines," says very modernly a principal
+critic, "lies Ronsard's fame more surely than in all the remaining
+mass of his works." He condemns by implication
+Ronsard's wide waste of power; but the few other poems
+that I have here had room to print, should make the reader
+careful of such judgements. It is true that in the great
+hoard which Ronsard left his people there are separate and
+particular jewels set in the copper and the gold, but the
+jewels are very numerous: indeed it was almost impossible
+to choose so few as I have printed here.</p>
+
+<p>If it be asked why this should have become the most
+famous, no answer can be given save the "flavour of language."
+It is the perfection of his tongue. Its rhythm
+reaches the exact limit of change which a simple metre will
+tolerate: where it saddens, a lengthy hesitation at the opening
+of the seventh line introduces a new cadence, a lengthy
+lingering upon the last syllables of the tenth, eleventh and
+twelfth closes a grave complaint. So, also by an effect of
+quantities, the last six lines rise out of melancholy into their
+proper character of appeal and vivacity: an exhortation.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly those who are so unfamiliar with French poetry
+as not to know that its whole power depends upon an extreme
+subtlety of rhythm, may find here the principal example
+of the quality they have missed. Something much
+less weighty than the stress of English lines, a just perceptible
+difference between nearly equal syllables, marks the
+excellent from the intolerable in French prosody: and to
+feel this truth in the eighteen lines that follow it is necessary
+to read them virtually in the modern manner--for the "s"
+in "vesprée" or "vostre" were pedantries in the sixteenth
+century--but one must give the mute "e's" throughout
+as full a value as they have in singing. Indeed, reading
+this poem, one sees how it must have been composed to
+some good and simple air in the man's head.</p>
+
+<p>If the limits of a page permitted it, I would also show
+how worthy the thing was of fame from its pure and careful
+choice of verb--"Tandis que vostre age <i>fleuronne</i>"--but
+space prevents me, luckily, for all this is like splitting a
+diamond.</p>
+
+<a name="ch4b" id="ch4b"></a>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid">"<i><b>MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE.</b></i>"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i18">Mignonne, allons voir si la rose</p>
+<p class="i18">Qui ce matin avoit desclose</p>
+<p class="i18">Sa robe de pourpre au soleil</p>
+<p class="i18">A point perdu ceste vesprée</p>
+<p class="i18">Les plis de sa robe pourprée</p>
+<p class="i18">Et son teint au vostre pareil</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i18">  Las! Voyez comme en peu d'espace</p>
+<p class="i18">Mignonne, elle a dessus la place,</p>
+<p class="i18">Las! Las! ses beautez laissé cheoir!</p>
+<p class="i18">O vrayment marastre nature,</p>
+<p class="i18">Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure</p>
+<p class="i18">Que du matin jusques au soir!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i18">Donc si vous me croyez, Mignonne,</p>
+<p class="i18">Tandis que vostre age fleuronne</p>
+<p class="i18">En sa plus verte nouveauté,</p>
+<p class="i18">Cuillez, Cuillez vostre jeunesse:</p>
+<p class="i18">Comme à ceste fleur, la veillesse</p>
+<p class="i18">Fera ternir vostre beauté.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<br><br>
+<h3>THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE"</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 42nd and 43rd Sonnets of the Second Book.</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>Hélène was very real. A young Maid of Honour to Catherine
+de Medicis; Spanish by blood, Italian by breeding,
+called in France "de Sugères," she was the gravest and the
+wisest, and, for those who loved serenity, the most beautiful
+of that high and brilliant school.</p>
+
+<p>The Sonnets began as a task; a task the Queen had set
+Ronsard, with Hélène for theme: they ended in the last
+strong love of Ronsard's life. A sincere lover of many
+women, he had come to the turn of his age when he saw
+her, like a memory of his own youth. He has permitted
+to run through this series, therefore, something of the
+unique illusion which distance in time or space can lend
+to the aspect of beauty. An emotion so tenuous does not
+appear in any other part of his work: here alone you find
+the chastity or weakness which made something in his
+mind come near to the sadder Du Bellay's: his soul is regardant
+all the while as he writes: visions rise from her
+such as never rose from Cassandra; as this great picture at
+the opening of the 58th Sonnet of the Second Book:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Seule sans compagnie en une grande salle</p>
+<p>Tu logeois l'autre jour pleine de majesté.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These "Sonnets for Hélène" should be common knowledge:
+they are (with Du Bellay's) the evident original upon which
+the author of Shakespeare's Sonnets modelled his work:
+they are the late and careful effort of Ronsard's somewhat
+spendthrift genius.</p>
+
+<p>Here are two of them. One, the second, most famous,
+the other, the first, hardly known: both are admirable.</p>
+
+<p>It is the perfection of their sound which gives them their
+peculiar quality. The very first lines lead off with a completed
+harmony: it is as thoroughly a winter night as that
+in Shakespeare's song, but it is more solemn and, as it were,
+more "built of stone...." "La Lune Ocieuse, tourne si
+lentement son char tout à l'entour," is like a sleeping
+statue of marble.</p>
+
+<p>To this character, the second adds a vivid interest of
+emotion which has given it its special fame. Even the
+populace have come to hear of this sonnet, and it is sung to
+a lovely tune. It has also what often leads to permanent
+reputation in verse, a great simplicity of form. The Sextet
+is well divided from the Octave, the climax is clearly underlined.
+Ronsard was often (to his hurt) too scholarly to
+achieve simplicity: when, under the clear influence of some
+sharp passion or gaiety he did achieve it, then he wrote
+the lines that will always remain:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>A fin qu'à tout jamais de siècle en siècle vive,</p>
+<p>La Parfaicte amitié que Ronsard la portait.</p>
+</div></div>
+<a name="ch4c" id="ch4c"></a>
+<br>
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE."</b></i></p>
+
+<h4>XLII</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Ces longues nuicts d'hyver, où la Lune ocieuse</p>
+<p class="i16">Tourne si lentement son char tout à l'entour,</p>
+<p class="i16">Où le Coq si tardif nous annonce le jour,</p>
+<p class="i12">Où la nuict semble un an à l'ame soucieuse:</p>
+<p class="i12">Je fusse mort d'ennuy sans ta forme douteuse</p>
+<p class="i16">Qui vient par une feinte alleger mon amour,</p>
+<p class="i16">Et faisant toute nue entre mes bras séjour</p>
+<p class="i12">Me pipe doucement d'une joye menteuse.</p>
+<p class="i16">Vraye tu es farouche, et fière en cruauté:</p>
+<p class="i16">De toy fausse on jouyst en toute privauté.</p>
+<p class="i18">Pres ton mort je m'endors, pres de luy je repose:</p>
+<p class="i16">Rien ne m'est refusé. Le bon sommeil ainsi</p>
+<p class="i16">Abuse pour le faux mon amoureux souci.</p>
+<p class="i18">S'abuser en Amour n'est pas mauvaise chose.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4>XLIII</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i12">Quand vous serez bien vieille, au Soir à la chandelle,</p>
+<p class="i16">Assise aupres du feu, dévidant et filant,</p>
+<p class="i16">Direz chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant,</p>
+<p class="i12">Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j'estois belle.</p>
+<p class="i12">Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle</p>
+<p class="i16">Desia sous le labeur à demy sommeillant</p>
+<p class="i16">Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s'aille resveillant,</p>
+<p class="i12">Bénissant vostre nom de louange immortelle.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i12">Je seray sous la terre et fantôme sans os</p>
+<p class="i12">Par les ombres myrteux je prendray mon repos.</p>
+<p class="i16">Vous serez au foyer une veille accroupie,</p>
+<p class="i12">Regrettant mon amour et vostre fier desdain.</p>
+<p class="i12">Vivez, si m'en croyez; n'attendez à demain.</p>
+<p class="i16">Cueillez des aujourdhuy les roses de la vie.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<a name="ch5" id="ch5"></a>
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+
+<h2>JOACHIM DU BELLAY.</h2>
+
+<p>
+In Du Bellay the literary Renaissance, French but transfigured
+by Italy, middle-north of the plains but looking
+southward to the Mediterranean, came to one soul and
+concentrated upon it, as the plastic expression of the same
+influence concentrated in Goujon. Very central in time,
+half soldier, half priest, all student; traveller and almost
+adventurer, a pilgrim throughout of the Idea, everything
+about him is symbolic of the generation he adorned.</p>
+
+<p>In its vigour, at least, the Renaissance was a glorious
+youth--he, Du Bellay, died at thirty-five. Its leap and
+soaring were taken from the firm platform of strong
+scholarship--he was a scholar beyond the rest. It fixed
+special forms--he the French sonnet. It felt the lives of all
+things running through it as a young man feels them in the
+spring woods--he gathered in the cup of his verse, and retains
+for us, the nerve of all that life which is still exultant in the
+forest beyond his river. His breeding, his high name, his
+leisured poverty, his passionate friendship, his looking forward
+always to a new thing, a creation--all this, was the
+Renaissance in person.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the Renaissance had in France its seat where,
+between rolling lands whose woods are the walls of gardens,
+the broad and shallow inland Loire runs from Orleans, past
+Blois and Tours and Saumur, and Ancenis, until near
+Nantes at last it feels the tide: salt and adventures and the
+barbaric sea. This varied sheltered land of aged vineyards
+and great wealth has, for the French Renaissance, the one
+special quality of beginnings and Edens, namely, that it
+preserves on to a later time the outward evidences of an
+original perfection. This place, the nest or seed-plot of the
+new civilisation, still shows its castles--Blois, Amboise,
+Chambord. Here Leonardo died, Rabelais, Ronsard himself
+was born. Here the kings of the Change built in their
+fantastic pride, and founded a France that still endures.
+It is as truly the soil of the modern thing as are the
+provinces north of it (the Isle de France, Normandy,
+Picardy and Champagne), the soil of the earlier mediaeval
+flower, and of the Gothic which they preserve unique to
+our own time.</p>
+
+<p>Now, of this district, Du Bellay was more than a native;
+he was part of it; he pined away from it; he regretted, as
+no other man of the time regretted, his father's land:
+Anjou and the fields of home. He may be said, with some
+exaggeration, to have died in the misfortune of his separation
+from the security and sober tradition of his own walls.
+That great early experience of his, which I have already
+written down--his meeting with Ronsard--had come to
+him not far from his own hill, south of the great river.
+His name, unlike Ronsard's, recalled the gentry of that
+countryside up to and beyond the beginning of its history;
+alone of the Pleiade he translated the valley of the Loire,
+its depth, its delicacy, its rich and subtle loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the Renaissance lived in France an inspired and
+an exalted life, so that there necessarily ran through it a
+fore-knowledge of sudden ending. This tragedy repeated
+itself in the career of Du Bellay.</p>
+
+<p>His name was famous. The three Du Bellays, the
+councillor, the soldier, the great Cardinal, were in the first
+rank of the early sixteenth century. Rabelais had loved
+them. Francis I had leaned upon and rewarded their
+service. His father (their first-cousin and Governor of
+Brest) was a poor noble, who, as is the fashion of nobles,
+had married a wife to consolidate a fortune. This wife, the
+mother of Joachim, was heiress to the house of Tourmélière
+in Liré, just by the Loire on the brow that looks northward
+over the river to the bridge and Ancenis. In this
+house he was born. On his parents' early death he inherited
+the place, not to enjoy it, but to wander. An early illness
+had made him forsake the career of arms for that of the
+Church; but Orders were hardly so much as a cloak to him;
+it is difficult to remember, as one reads the few evidences
+of his life, that he wore the cloth at all: in his verse all trace
+of it is entirely absent. He lived still in that lineage which
+the reform had not touched. The passionate defence of the
+Catholic Faith, the Assault converging on the church
+throughout Europe, the raising of the Siege, the Triumph
+which developed, at last, on the political side the League,
+and on the literary the final rigidity of Malherbe, the noise
+of all these had not reached his circle, kind, or family.</p>
+
+<p>Of that family the Cardinal seems to have regarded him
+as the principal survivor. He had determined to make of
+the young poet the heir of its glory. It came to nothing.
+He accompanied his relative to Rome: but the diplomacy
+of the mission ill-suited him. Of the Royal ladies at court
+who befriended him, the marriage of one, the death of
+another, increased his insecurity. He had inherited, to his
+bane, another estate--Gonor--from his elder brother. It
+was encumbered, the cause litigious, and he had inherited
+with it the tutelage of a sickly child. He never shook off
+the burden. A tragic error marked his end. He died,
+certainly broken-hearted, just when his powerful cousin,
+by a conversion perhaps unknown to the poet himself, had
+rejected calumnies, and had determined to resign to him
+the great Archbishopric of Bordeaux.</p>
+
+<p>Eustache Du Bellay, yet another cousin, was Bishop of
+Paris. He had made Joachim, on his return from Rome,
+a Canon of Notre Dame, and in that capacity the poet,
+dying in Paris, was buried in the cathedral. The action of
+the Chapter in the eighteenth century, when they replaced
+the old tombstones by the present pavement, has destroyed
+the record of his grave; I believe it to lie in the southern
+part of the ambulatory.</p>
+
+<p>In this abrupt descent, following upon so fierce an activity
+of thought, he prefigured, I say, the close of the Renaissance
+as his genius typified its living spirit; for all the while, as
+you read him, you see the cloud about his head, and the
+profound, though proud and constant, sadness of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>This, also, was pure Renaissance in him, that the fields
+in which he wandered, and which he loved to sing--a man
+of elegies--were dominated by the awful ruins of Rome.
+These it was that lent him his gravity, and perhaps oppressed
+him. He sang them also with a comprehension of
+the superb.</p>
+
+<p>He was second to Ronsard. Though he was the sharp
+voice of the Pleiade, though it was he who published their
+famous manifesto, though his scholarship was harder,
+though his energy could run more fiercely to one point and
+shine there more brilliantly in one small climax; yet he was
+second. He himself thought it of himself, and called himself
+a disciple. All up and down his works you find an
+astonished admiration directed towards his greater friend--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i14">                   ... Un amy que les Dieux</p>
+<p>Guydent si hault au sentier des plus vieux.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or again--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Divin Ronsard qui de l'arc a sept cordes</p>
+<p>Tiras premier au but de la mémoire</p>
+<p>Les traicts ailez de la Françoise gloire.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Everywhere it is his friend rather than he that has touched
+the mark of the gods and called up from the tomb the ghost
+of Rome which all that company worshipped.</p>
+
+<p>I say he saw himself that he was second. Old Durat
+saw it clearly in that little college of poets where he taught
+the unteachable thing: De Baif, Belleau--all the comrades
+would have taken it for granted. Ronsard led and was
+chief, because he had the firm largeness, the laughter and
+the permanence which are the marks of those who determine
+the fortunes of the French in letters or in arms. Ronsard
+made. His verses, in their great mass and unfailing level,
+were but one example of the power that could produce a
+school, call up a general enthusiasm, and for forty years
+govern the taste of his country. There was in him something
+public, in Du Bellay something domestic and attached,
+as in the relations of a king and of a herald. Or again, the
+one was like an ordered wood with a rich open plain about
+it, the other was like a garden. Ronsard was the Beauce;
+Du Bellay was Anjou. It might be said of the first that
+he stood a symbol for the wheat and corn-land of the
+Vendômois, and of the second, that he recalled that subtle
+wine of the southern Loire to which Chinon gives the most
+famous label.</p>
+
+<p>Du Bellay was second: nevertheless, when he is well
+known in this country it will be difficult to convince Englishmen
+of that truth. There is in his mind a facet which exactly
+corresponds to a facet of our own, and that is a quality
+so rare in the French classics that it will necessarily attract
+English readers to him: for, of all people, we nowadays
+criticise most in letters by the standard of our immediate
+emotions, and least by what was once called "reason." He
+was capable of that which will always be called "poignancy,"
+and what for the moment we call "depth." He was less
+careful than are the majority of his countrymen to make
+letters an art, and so to treat his own personality as a thing
+apart. On the contrary, he allowed that personality to
+pierce through continually, so that simplicity, directness, a
+certain individual note as of a human being complaining--a
+note we know very well in our own literature--is perpetually
+discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in a spirit which all Englishmen will understand,
+a lightness almost sardonic lay above the depths of his
+grief, and the tenderness which attached to his home played
+around the things that go with quietude--his books and
+animals. I shall quote hereafter the epitaphs he wrote for
+his dog and for his cat, this singer of sublime and ruined
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Of the dog who--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">     ... allait tousjours suivant</p>
+<p>Quelquefois allait devant.</p>
+<p>Faisant ne sçay quelle feste</p>
+<p>D'un gai branslement de teste.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and of whom he says, in a pretty imitation of Catullus,
+that he--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">... maintenant pourmeine</p>
+<p>Parmy cette ombreuse plaine</p>
+<p>Dont nul ne revient vers nous.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or of the cat who was--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">  ... par aventure</p>
+<p>Le plus bel oeuvre que nature</p>
+<p>Fit onc en matière de chats.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>All that delicate side of him we understand very well.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it to modern Englishmen alone that he will appeal.
+He powerfully affected, it may be presumed, the English
+Renaissance which succeeded him. Spenser--thirty years
+after his death--was moved to the translation of his famous
+lament for Rome, and no one can read the sonnets to which
+he gave their final form without catching the same note in
+the great English cycle of the generation after him--the
+close of the sixteenth and the opening of the seventeenth
+centuries.</p>
+
+<p>But his verse read will prove all this and suggest much
+more.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>EXTRACTS FROM THE "ANTIQUITEZ
+DE ROME."</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>Of the high series which Rome called forth from Du
+Bellay during that bitter diplomatic exile of his, I have
+chosen these three sonnets, because they seem best to express
+the majesty and gloom which haunted him. It is
+difficult to choose in a chain of cadences so equal and so
+exalted, but perhaps the last, "Telle que dans son char la
+Berecynthienne" is the most marvellous. The vision alone
+of Rome like the mother of the Gods in her car would have
+made the sonnet immortal. He adds to the mere picture a
+noise of words that is like thunder in the hills far off on
+summer afternoons: the words roll and crest themselves
+and follow rumbling to the end: he could not have known
+as he wrote it how great a thing he was writing. It has
+all the character of verse that increases with time and seems
+superior to its own author's intention.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE "ANTIQUITEZ DE ROME."</b></i></p>
+
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et rien de Rome en Rome n'apperçois,</p>
+<p class="i14">Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcz que tu vois</p>
+<p class="i10">Et ces vieux Murs, c'est ce que Rome on nomme.</p>
+<p class="i10">Voy quel orgueil, quelle ruine, et comme</p>
+<p class="i14">Celle que mist le monde sous ses loix</p>
+<p class="i14">Pour donter tout, se donta quelquefois,</p>
+<p class="i10">Et devint proye au temps, qui tout consomme.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i18">Rome de Rome est le seul monument,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et Rome Rome a vaincu seulement.</p>
+<p class="i18">Le Tybre seul, qui vers la mer s'enfuit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Reste de Rome. O mondaine inconstance!</p>
+<p class="i18">Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps destruit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et se qui fuit, au temps fait résistance.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4>IV.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Celle qui de son chef les estoilles passoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et d'un pied sur Thetis, l'autre dessous l'Aurore</p>
+<p class="i14">D'une main sur le Scythe, et l'autre sur le More,</p>
+<p class="i10">De la terre, et du Ciel, la rondeur compassoit,</p>
+<p class="i10">Juppiter ayant peur, si plus elle croissoit</p>
+<p class="i14">Que l'orgueil des Geans se relevast encore,</p>
+<p class="i14">L'accabla sous ces monts, ces sept monts qui font ore</p>
+<p class="i10">Tumbeaux de la grandeur qui le ciel menassoit.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i18">Il luy meist sur le chef la croppe Saturnale</p>
+<p class="i14">Puis dessus l'estomac assist le quirinale</p>
+<p class="i18">Sur le ventre il planta l'antique Palatin,</p>
+<p class="i14">Mist sur la dextre main la hauteur Celienne,</p>
+<p class="i18">Sur la senestre assist l'eschine Exquilienne</p>
+<p class="i14">Viminal sur un pied: sur l'autre L'Aventin.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h4>VI.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Telle que dans son Char la Berecynthienne</p>
+<p class="i14">Couronnée de tours, et joyeuse d'avoir</p>
+<p class="i14">Enfanté tant de Dieux, telle se faisoit voir</p>
+<p class="i10">En ses jours plus heureux ceste ville ancienne:</p>
+<p class="i10">Ceste ville qui fust plus que la Phrygienne</p>
+<p class="i14">Foisonnante en enfants et de qui le pouvoir</p>
+<p class="i14">Fust le pouvoir du Monde, et ne se peult revoir</p>
+<p class="i10">Pareille à sa grandeur, grandeur si non la sienne.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i18">Rome seule pouvoit à Rome ressembler,</p>
+<p class="i14">Rome seule pouvoit Rome faire trembler:</p>
+<p class="i18">Aussi n'avoit permis l'ordonnance fatale,</p>
+<p class="i14">Qu'autre pouvoir humain, tant fust audacieux,</p>
+<p class="i18">Se vantast d'égaler celle qui fust égale</p>
+<p class="i14">Sa puissance à la terre, et son courage au cieux.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<br><br>
+
+
+<h3>THE SONNET OF EXILE.</h3>
+
+<p>This sonnet dates from the same period at Rome, or possibly
+from his return. It has a different note. It is the
+most personal and passionate of all his writings, in which
+so much was inspired by personal regret. On this account
+it has a special literary interest as the most <i>modern</i> thing
+of the Renaissance. It would be far less surprising to find
+this written by one of the young republicans under the
+Second Empire (for instance) than to find a couplet of
+Malherbe's straying into our time.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE SONNET OF EXILE.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">France, Mère des arts, des armes, et des loix,</p>
+<p class="i14">Tu m'as nourry long temps du laict de ta mamelle:</p>
+<p class="i14">Ores, comme un aigneau qui sa nourisse appelle,</p>
+<p class="i10">Je remplis de ton nom les antres et les bois,</p>
+<p class="i10">Si tu m'as pour enfant advoué quelquefois</p>
+<p class="i14">Que ne me respons-tu maintenant, ô cruelle?</p>
+<p class="i14">France, France, respons à ma triste querelle:</p>
+<p class="i10">Mais nul, sinon Echo, ne respond à ma voix.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Entre les loups cruels j'erre parmy la plaine</p>
+<p class="i10">Je sens venir l'hyver, de qui la froide haleine</p>
+<p class="i14">D'une tremblante horreur fait hérisser ma peau.</p>
+<p class="i10">Las! tes autres agneaux n'ont faute de pasture,</p>
+<p class="i10">Ils ne craignent le loup, le vent, ny la froidure;</p>
+<p class="i14">Si ne suis-je pourtant le pire du troppeau.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<h3>THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME
+ULYSSE."</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>The 31st of the "Regrets."</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>It was of a large gray house, moated, a town beside it, yet
+not far from woods and standing in rough fields, pure Angevin,
+Tourmélière, the Manor house of Liré, his home,
+that Du Bellay wrote this, the most dignified and perhaps
+the last of his sonnets. The sadness which is the permanent,
+though sometimes the unrecognized, moderator of his race,
+which had pierced through in his latter misfortunes, and
+which had tortured him to the cry that has been printed
+on the preceding page, here reached a final and a most
+noble form: something much higher than melancholy, and
+more majestic than regret. He turned to his estate, the
+mould of his family, a roof, the inheritance of which had
+formed his original burden and had at last crushed him;
+but he turned to it with affection. If one may use so small
+a word in connection with a great poet, the gentleman in
+him remembered an ancestral repose.</p>
+
+<p>There is very much in the Sonnet to mark that development
+of French verse in which Du Bellay played so great
+a part. The inversion of the sentence, a trick which gives
+a special character to all the later formal drama is prominent:
+the convention of contrast, the purely classical allusion,
+are mixed with a spirit that is still spontaneous and
+even naïf. But every word is chosen, and it is especially
+noteworthy to discover so early that restraint in epithet
+which is the charm but also the danger of what French style
+has since become. Of this there are two examples here:
+the eleventh line and the last, which rhymes with it. To
+contrast slate with marble would be impossible prose save
+for the exact adjective "<i>fine</i>," which puts you at once into
+Anjou. The last line, in spite of its exquisite murmur,
+would be grotesque if the "<i>air marin</i>" were meant for the
+sea-shore. Coming as it does after the suggestions of the
+Octave it gives you suddenly sea-faring: Ulysses, Jason,
+his own voyages, the long way to Rome, which he knew;
+and in the "<i>douceur Angevine</i>" you have for a final foil to
+such wanderings, not only in the meaning of the words, but
+in their very sound, the hearth and the return.</p>
+<a name="ch5a" id="ch5a"></a>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE"</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage
+<p class="i14">Ou comme cestuy là qui conquit la Toison
+<p class="i14">Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
+<p class="i10">Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age!
+<p class="i10">Quand revoirai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
+<p class="i14">Fumer la cheminée: et en quelle saison
+<p class="i14">Revoirai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
+<p class="i10">Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup d'avantage?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i14">Plus me plaist le séjour qu'ont basty mes aieux
+<p class="i14">Que des palais Romains le front audacieux:
+<p class="i10">Plus que le mabre dur me plaist l'ardoise fine,
+<p class="i14">Plus mon Loyre gaulois que le Tybre Latin,
+<p class="i14">Plus mon petit Lyré que le Mont Palatin,
+<p class="i10">Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur Angevine.
+</div></div>
+
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE
+WINDS.</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>This delicate air of summer, this reminiscence and comfort
+for men who no longer see the Eure or the Bievre or any
+of their northern rivers, this very mirror of Du Bellay's
+own exiled mind--was written for an "exercise." It is a
+translation--a translation from the Latin of a forgotten
+Venetian scholar.</p>
+
+<p>When a man finds in reading such a startling truth, it
+convinces him that letters have a power of their own and
+are greater of themselves than the things which inspired
+them: for when, to show his skill in rendering Latin into
+French verse, Du Bellay had written this down, he created
+and fixed for everybody who was to read him from then
+onwards the permanent picture of a field by the side of a
+small, full river, with a band of trees far off, and, above, the
+poplar leaves that are never still. It runs to a kind of
+happy croon, and has for a few moments restored very
+many who have read it to their own place; and Corot
+should have painted it.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE WINDS.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">A vous troppe legere</p>
+<p class="i18">Qui d'aele passagere</p>
+<p class="i18">Par le monde volez,</p>
+<p class="i18">Et d'un sifflant murmure</p>
+<p class="i18">L'ombrageuse verdure</p>
+<p class="i18">Doulcement esbranlez,</p>
+<p class="i20">J'offre ces violettes,</p>
+<p class="i18">Ces lis et ces fleurettes</p>
+<p class="i18">Et ces roses ici,</p>
+<p class="i18">Ces vermeillettes roses</p>
+<p class="i18">Tout freschement escloses,</p>
+<p class="i18">Et ces oeilletz aussi.</p>
+<p class="i20">De vostre doulce haleine</p>
+<p class="i18">Eventez ceste plaine</p>
+<p class="i18">Eventez ce séjour,</p>
+<p class="i20">Ce pendant que j'ahanne</p>
+<p class="i18">A mon blé que je vanne</p>
+<p class="i18">A la chaleur du jour.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<h3>THE FUNERAL ODES OF THE DOG
+AND THE CAT.</h3>
+
+<p>Here are extracts from those two delightful and tender
+things to which allusion has already been made. The epitaphs
+upon his little dog and his little cat.</p>
+
+<p>It was a character in this sad man to make little, humble,
+grotesque, pleasing images of grief; as it were, little idols
+of his goddess; and he fashioned them with an exquisite
+humour and affection. What animal of the sixteenth century
+lives so clearly as these two? None, I think, except
+some few in the pictures of the painters of the low countries.</p>
+
+<p>I wish I had space to print both these threnodies in full,
+but they are somewhat long, and I must beg my reader to
+find them in the printed works of Du Bellay. It is well
+worth the pains of looking.</p>
+<a name="ch5b" id="ch5b"></a>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">THE DOG.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Dessous ceste motte verte</p>
+<p class="i14">De lis et roses couverte</p>
+<p class="i14">Gist le petit Peloton</p>
+<p class="i14">De qui le poil foleton</p>
+<p class="i14">Frisoit d'une toyson blanche</p>
+<p class="i14">Le doz, le ventre, et la hanche.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Son exercice ordinaire</p>
+<p class="i14">Estoit de japper et braire,</p>
+<p class="i14">Courir en hault et en bas,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et faire cent mille esbas,</p>
+<p class="i14">Tous estranges et farouches,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et n'avoit guerre qu'aux mousches,</p>
+<p class="i14">Qui luy faisoient maint torment.</p>
+<p class="i14">Mais Peloton dextrement</p>
+<p class="i14">Leur rendoit bien la pareille:</p>
+<p class="i14">Car se couchant sur l'oreille,</p>
+<p class="i14">Finement il aguignoit</p>
+<p class="i14">Quand quelqu'une le poingnoit:</p>
+<p class="i14">Lors d'une habile soupplesse</p>
+<p class="i14">Happant la mouche traistresse,</p>
+<p class="i14">La serroit bien fort dedans,</p>
+<p class="i14">Faisant accorder ses dens</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Peloton ne caressoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Sinon ceulx qu'il cognoissoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et n'eust pas voulu repaistre</p>
+<p class="i14">D'autre main que de son maistre,</p>
+<p class="i14">Qu'il alloit tousjours suyvant:</p>
+<p class="i14">Quelquefois marchoit devant,</p>
+<p class="i14">Faisant ne scay quelle feste</p>
+<p class="i14">D'un gay branlement de teste.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Mon Dieu, quel plaisir c'estoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Quand Peloton se grattoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Faisant tinter sa sonnette</p>
+<p class="i14">Avec sa teste folette!</p>
+<p class="i14">Quel plaisir, quand Peloton</p>
+<p class="i14">Cheminoit sur un baston,</p>
+<p class="i14">Ou coifé d'un petit linge,</p>
+<p class="i14">Assis comme un petit singe,</p>
+<p class="i14">Se tenoit mignardelet,</p>
+<p class="i14">D'un maintien damoiselet!</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i16">Las, mais ce doulx passetemps</p>
+<p class="i14">Ne nous dura pas long temps:</p>
+<p class="i14">Car la mort ayant anvie</p>
+<p class="i14">Sur l'ayse de nostre vie,</p>
+<p class="i14">Envoya devers Pluton</p>
+<p class="i14">Nostre petit Peloton,</p>
+<p class="i14">Qui maintenant se pourmeine</p>
+<p class="i14">Parmi ceste umbreuse plaine,</p>
+<p class="i14">Dont nul ne revient vers nous.</p>
+</div></div>
+<a name="ch5c" id="ch5c"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">THE CAT</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i14">Pourquoy je suis tant esperdu</p>
+<p class="i14">Ce n'est pas pour avoir perdu</p>
+<p class="i14">Mes anneaux, mon argent, ma bource:</p>
+<p class="i14">Et pourquoy est ce donc? pource</p>
+<p class="i14">Que j'ay perdu depuis trois jours</p>
+<p class="i14">Mon bien, mon plaisir, mes amours:</p>
+<p class="i14">Et quoy? ô Souvenance greve</p>
+<p class="i14">A peu que le cueur ne me creve</p>
+<p class="i14">Quand j'en parle ou quand j'en ecris:</p>
+<p class="i14">C'est Belaud, mon petit chat gris:</p>
+<p class="i14">Belaud qui fust, paraventure</p>
+<p class="i14">Le plus bel oeuvre que nature</p>
+<p class="i14">Feit onc en matiere de chats:</p>
+<p class="i14">C'etoit Belaud, la mort au rats</p>
+<p class="i14">Belaud dont la beauté fut telle</p>
+<p class="i14">Qu'elle est digne d'estre immortelle.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i14">Mon-dieu, quel passetemps c'estoit</p>
+<p class="i14">Quand ce Belaud vire-voltoit</p>
+<p class="i14">Follastre autour d'une pelote!</p>
+<p class="i14">Quel plaisir, quand sa teste sotte</p>
+<p class="i14">Suyvant sa queue en mille tours,</p>
+<p class="i14">D'un rouet imitoit le cours!</p>
+<p class="i14">Ou quand assis sur le derriere</p>
+<p class="i14">Il s'en faisoit une jartiere,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et monstrant l'estomac velu</p>
+<p class="i14">De panne blanche crespelu,</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i14">Sembloit, tant sa trogne estoit bonne,</p>
+<p class="i14">Quelque docteur de la Sorbonne!</p>
+<p class="i14">Ou quand alors qu'on l'animoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">A coups de patte il escrimoit,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et puis appasoit sa cholere</p>
+<p class="i14">Tout soudain qu'on luy faisoit chere.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i14">Belaud estoit mon cher mignon,</p>
+<p class="i14">Belaud estoit mon compagnon</p>
+<p class="i14">A la chambre, au lict, à la table,</p>
+<p class="i14">Belaud estoit plus accointable</p>
+<p class="i14">Que n'est un petit chien friand,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et de nuict n'alloit point criand</p>
+<p class="i14">Comme ces gros marcoux terribles,</p>
+<p class="i14">En longs miaudemens horribles:</p>
+<p class="i14">Aussi le petit mitouard</p>
+<p class="i14">N'entra jamais en matouard:</p>
+<p class="i14">Et en Belaud, quelle disgrâce!</p>
+<p class="i14">De Belaud s'est perdue la race.</p>
+<p class="i14">Que pleust a Dieu, petit Belon,</p>
+<p class="i14">Qui j'eusse l'esprit assez bon,</p>
+<p class="i14">De pouvoir en quelque beau style</p>
+<p class="i14">Blasonner ta grace gentile,</p>
+<p class="i14">D'un vers aussi mignard que toy:</p>
+<p class="i14">Belaud, je te promets ma foy,</p>
+<p class="i14">Que tu vivrois, tant que sur terre</p>
+<p class="i14">Les chats aux rats feront la guerre.</p>
+</div></div>
+<a name="ch6" id="ch6"></a>
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+
+<h2>MALHERBE.</h2>
+
+<p>The French Renaissance ended in the Classic. The fate
+of all that exuberance was to find order, and that chaos of
+generation settled down to the obedience of unchanging
+laws. This transition, which fixed, perhaps for ever, the
+nature of the French tongue, is bound up with the name of
+Malherbe.</p>
+
+<p>When what the French have entitled "the great time,"
+when the generation of Louis XIV looked back to find
+an origin for its majestic security in letters, it was in
+Malherbe that such an origin was discovered; he had
+tamed the wildness of the Renaissance, he had bent its
+vigour to an arrangement and a frame; by him first were
+explicitly declared those rules within which all his successors
+were content to be narrowed. The devotion to his
+memory is nowhere more exalted or more typically presented
+than in the famous cry--<i>enfin Malherbe vint</i>. His
+name carried with it a note of completion and of an end.</p>
+
+<p>When the romantic revival of our own time sought for
+one mind on which to lay the burden of its anger, one
+hard master or pedant who could be made responsible for
+the drying up of the wells, Malherbe again was found.
+He became the butt of Hugo's splendid ridicule. He was
+the god of plaster that could not hear or speak or feel, but
+which fools had worshipped; a god easy to break to pieces.
+His austerity--for them without fullness--his meagre
+output, his solemn reiterated code of "perfect taste,"
+moved them to a facile but intense aggression. He it was
+that had turned to fossil stone the living matter of the
+sixteenth century: He that had stifled and killed the spirit
+they attempted to recall.</p>
+
+<p>This man so praised, so blamed, for such a quality, was
+yet exactly, year for year, the contemporary of Shakespeare,
+born earlier and dying later. No better example could be
+discovered of the contrast between the French and English
+tempers.</p>
+
+<p>The Romantics, I say, believed that they had destroyed
+Malherbe and left the Classic a ruined, antiquated thing.
+They were in error. Victor Hugo himself, the leader, who
+most believed the classic to have become isolated and past,
+was yet, in spite of himself, constrained by it. Lamartine
+lived in it. After all the fantastic vagaries of mystics and
+realists and the rest, it is ruling to-day with increasing
+power, returning as indeed the permanent religion, the
+permanent policy, of the nation are also returning after a
+century of astounding adventures: for the Classic has in
+it something necessary to the character of the French
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Consider what the Classic is and why all mighty civilisations
+have demanded and obtained some such hard, permanent
+and, as it were, sacred vehicle for the expression
+of their maturity.</p>
+
+<p>Nations that have a long continuous memory of their
+own past, nations especially whose gods have suffered
+transformation, but never death, develop the somewhat
+unelastic wisdom of men in old age. They mistrust the
+taste of the moment. They know that things quite fresh
+and violent seem at first greater than they are: that such
+enthusiasm forms no lasting legacy for posterity. Their
+very ancient tradition gives them a thirst for whatever
+shall certainly remain. The rigid Classic satisfies that need.</p>
+
+<p>Again, you will discover that those whose energy is too
+abundant seek for themselves by an instinct the necessary
+confines without which such energy is wasted--and wasted
+the more from its excess. They canalise for their own security
+a torrent which, undisciplined, would serve but to
+destroy. Such an instinct is apparent in every department
+of French life. To their jurisprudence the French have
+ever attempted to attach a code, to their politics the stone
+walls of a Constitution, or, at the least, of a fundamental
+theory. Their theology from Athanasius through St. Germanus
+to the modern strict defence against all "liberals"
+has glorified the unchanging. Every outburst of the interior
+fires in the history of Gaul has been followed by a
+rapid, plastic action which reduced to human use what
+might otherwise have crystallised into an amorphous lava.
+So the wild freedom of the twelfth century was captured
+to form the Monarchy, the University, the full Gothic
+of the thirteenth: so the Revolution permitted Napoleon
+and produced, not the visionary unstable grandeur of the
+Gironde, but the schools and laws and roads and set government
+we see to-day. So the spring storms of the Renaissance
+settled, I say, into that steady summer of stable form
+which has now for three hundred years dominated the
+literature of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Caught on with this aspect of energy producing the
+Classic is the truth that energy alone can dare to be classical.
+Where the great currents of the soul run feebly a perpetual
+acceleration, whether by novelty or by extravagance, will
+be demanded; where they run full and heavy, then, under
+the restraint of form, they will but run more proudly and
+more strong. It is the flickering of life that fears hard rules
+in verse and may not feel the level classics of our Europe.
+Their rigidity is not that of marble; they are not dead.
+A human acquaintance with their sobriety soon fills us as we
+read. If we lie in the way of the giants who conceived them
+(let me say Corneille or the great Dryden), re-reading and
+further knowledge--especially a deeper experience of common
+life about us--reveal to us the steadfast life of these
+images; the eyes open, the lips might almost move; the
+statue descends and lives.</p>
+
+<p>The man who imposed design and authority and unity
+upon the letters of his country, and who so closed the
+epoch with which I have been dealing, was singularly
+suited to his task. Observant, something of a stoic, uninspired;
+courageous, witty, a soldier; lucid, critical of method
+only, he corresponded to the movement which, all around
+him, was ushering in the Bourbons: the hardening of
+Goujon's and de l'Orme's luxuriance into the conventions
+of the great colonnades and the sombre immensity of the
+new palaces; the return of one national faith to a people
+weary of so many random quarrels; the mistrust of an ill-ordered
+squirearchy; the firm founding of a central government.</p>
+
+<p>He was Norman. Right of that north whence the vigour,
+though not the inspiration, of the Renaissance had proceeded,
+and into which it returned. Caen gave him birth,
+and still remembers him. Normans still edit his works--and
+dedicate these books to the town which also bred
+Corneille. Norman, learned with that restrained but
+vigorous learning of the province, he was also of the
+province in his blood, for he came of one of those fixed
+families whose heads held great estates all round Falaise,
+and whose cadets branched off into chances abroad: one of
+the Boughtons, in Kent, is still "Boughton Malherbe."[1]</p>
+
+<p>[Footnote 1: Not from the Conquest. It is near Charing, originally
+de Braose land, but an heiress married a Malherbe in the early
+twelfth century.]</p>
+
+<p>He was poor. His father, who held one of those magistracies
+which the smaller nobility bought or inherited, had
+not known where to turn in the turmoil of the central
+century. In a moment of distress he called himself
+Huguenot when that party seemed to triumph, and Malherbe
+in anger against the apostasy went down south, a boy
+of nineteen, and fought as a soldier--but chiefly duels;
+for he loved that sport. He lay under a kind of protection
+from the great Catholic houses, though still poor, till in
+1601--he was a man of forty-six--Henri IV heard of
+him. In all these years he had worked at the rule of poetry
+like an artisan, thinking of nothing else, not even of fame.
+Those who surrounded him took it for granted that he
+was a master critic--a sort of judge without appeal, but
+it was a very little provincial circle surrounding a very unimportant
+house in Provence. Thus, careless it seems of
+everything except that "form of language" which was
+with him a passion, like the academic or theological passions,
+he was astonished on coming to Paris in 1605 to
+discover how suited such a pre-occupation was to such a
+time, and how rapidly he became the first name in contemporary
+letters. Of men who poured out verse the age was
+satiated; of men who could seize the language at this turn
+in its fortune, fix it and give it rules, the age had no
+knowledge till he came: the age fastened upon him, and
+insisted upon making him a master.</p>
+
+<p>A full twenty years from 1607 he governed the transformation,
+not of thought, for that he little changed, but
+of method and of expression. He decided what should be
+called the typical metres, the alternative of feminine and
+masculine in verse, the order of emphasis, the proportion
+of inversion tolerable, the propriety, the modernity, the
+archaism of words. It is a function to our time meaningless
+and futile: to such a period as that, indispensable and
+even noble. He interpreted and published the national
+sentiment upon this major thing, the architecture of letters.
+The power of his mind, tortured and insufficient in actual
+production, was supreme in putting forth clearly and finally
+that criticism which ran as an unspoken and obscure current
+of opinion in the mind of his age. This was his glory,
+and it was true.</p>
+
+<p>His dryness was extraordinary. In a life of seventy-two
+years, during which he wrote and erased incessantly, he,
+the poet, wrote just so much verse as will fill in large type
+a little pocket volume of 250 pages; to be accurate, forty-three
+lines a year. Of this scraping and pumice stone in the
+mind a better example than his verse is to be found in his
+letters. A number remain. They might seem to be written
+by two different men! Half a dozen are models of that
+language he adored--they cost him, to our knowledge,
+many days--the rest are slipshod notes that any man might
+write, for he thought they would not survive, and, indeed,
+the majority of his editors have had the piety to suppress
+them.</p>
+
+<p>No one will understand Malherbe who only hears of
+how, like a dusty workman, he cut and polished, and so
+fixed the new jewel of letters. In our less happy age the
+academic spirit is necessarily associated with a lethargic
+stupidity. In his it was not so. His force, by which this
+work was carried through, lay in a character of penetration.
+His face expresses it. His very keen and ready eyes, his
+high lifted brow, his sharp nose, and the few active lines of
+his cheek and forehead, the poise of his head, the disdain
+of his firm mouth, all build him back alive for us. His talk,
+which stammered in its volubility, was incessant and varied;
+his temper ready; his bodily command of gesture and definition
+perfect in old age: he was of good metal all those
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Of his intense Toryism, his vivacity, his love of arms,
+his tenacity of perception, Racan gives us in his biography
+an admirable picture. Just before he died his son was killed
+in a duel--he, at seventy-two, desired passionately to kill
+the adversary. "Gambling," he said, "my pence of life
+against the gold of his twenty-five years." He had wit,
+and he hated well--hating men after death:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Here richly with ridiculous display</p>
+<p>Killed by excess was Wormwood laid away,</p>
+<p>While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,</p>
+<p>I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>His zeal for his tongue was real. As he lay upon his
+death-bed making his confession after so vigorous a life, he
+heard his nurse say something to herself which sounded
+ungrammatical and, turning round from the priest, he put
+her right in a manner most violent and sudden. His confessor,
+startled, said: "The time is not relevant." "All
+times are relevant!" he answered, sinking back. "I will
+defend with my last breath the purity and grandeur of the
+French tongue."</p>
+
+<p>To such a man the meaning of the solution at which his
+people had arrived after a century of civil war lay, above
+all, in their ancient religion. On that converged those
+deeper and more permanent things in his soul of which
+even his patriotism and his literary zeal were but the surface.
+In the expression of that final solution his verse,
+which was hardly that of a poet, rises high into poetry;
+under the heat and pressure of his faith, single lines here
+and there have crystallized into diamonds. By far the most
+vigorous of so many frigid odes is the battle cry addressed
+by him in old age to Louis XIII setting out against La
+Rochelle. He visited that siege, but had the misfortune to
+die a bare week before the fall of the city. The most powerful
+of his sonnets, or rather the only powerful one, is that
+in which he calls to Our Lord for vengeance against the
+men who killed his son. Catholicism in its every effect,
+political and personal, as it were literary too, possessed the
+man, so that in ending the types of the French Renaissance
+with him you see how the terms in which ultimately the
+French express themselves are and will remain religious.
+The last two lines of his most famous and most Catholic
+poem have about them just that sound which saves them,
+in spite of their too simple words, from falling into the
+vulgar commonplace of vague and creedless men. In writing
+them down one seems to be writing down the fate of
+the great century now tamed, alas! and ordered, as must
+be the violence of over-human things:--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule Science</p>
+<p class="i10">          Qui nous met en repos.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>EXTRACTS.</h3>
+
+<p class="mid">(<i><b>From the "Ode to Louis XIII setting out against La Rochelle," and the
+"Sonnet on his son's death."</b></i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<p>It has been remarked that Malherbe in his most vigorous
+years deliberately employed the strength of his mind to the
+repression of emotion in his verse, and used it only to
+fashion, guide, control, and at last fix permanently the rules
+of the language. It is certainly true that as his bodily
+vigour declined, a certain unexpected anger and violence
+enters into his verse, to the great relief of us moderns: not
+to that of his contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>Of this feature in him, the two following extracts are
+sufficient proof. They were written, the first at the close
+of his seventy-second, the other at the entry of his seventy-third
+year. In each, something close to his heart was at
+issue, and in each he gives some vent--far more than had
+been his wont--to passion.</p>
+
+<p>The first is a cry to Louis XIII to have done with the
+Huguenot. It was written to the camp before La Rochelle.
+I know of nothing in French literature which more expresses
+the intense current of national feeling against the
+nobility and rich townsmen who had attempted to warp
+the national tradition and who had re-introduced into
+French life the element which France works perpetually to
+throw out as un-European, ill-cultured and evil. Indeed,
+the reading of it is of more value to the comprehension of
+the national attitude than any set history you may read.</p>
+
+<p>The second is in its way a thing equally religious and
+equally catholic. This call for vengeance to God was not
+only an expression of anger called forth by his son's death,
+it was also, and very largely, the effect of a reaction against
+the ethics of Geneva: an attack on the idolatry at once of
+meekness and of fatality which was to him so intolerable a
+corruption of the Christian religion.</p>
+
+<p>There is some doubt as to whether it is his last work.
+I believe it to be so; but Blaise, in his excellent edition,
+prints the dull and unreadable ode to Lagade later, and
+ascribes it to the same year.</p>
+
+<a name="ch6a" id="ch6a"></a>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>ODE TO LOUIS XIII.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la France</p>
+<p class="i8">Les fronts trop élevés de ces ames d'enfer;</p>
+<p class="i8">Et n'épargne contre eux, pour notre délivrance,</p>
+<p class="i14">Ni le feu ni le fer.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Assez de leurs complots l'infidèle malice</p>
+<p class="i8">A nourri le désordre et la sédition:</p>
+<p class="i8">Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justice</p>
+<p class="i14">En leur punition.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies,</p>
+<p class="i8">Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs,</p>
+<p class="i8">Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies</p>
+<p class="i14">Ne causent que des pleurs.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères,</p>
+<p class="i8">Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien</p>
+<p class="i8">Que l'inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipères
+<p class="i14">Ne renouvelle au tien?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes désertes,</p>
+<p class="i8">Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changes,</p>
+<p class="i8">Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,</p>
+<p class="i14">Que par ces enrages?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Marche, va les détruire, éteins-en la semence,</p>
+<p class="i8">Et suis jusqu'à leur fin ton courroux généreux,</p>
+<p class="i8">Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémence</p>
+<p class="i14">Qui te parle pour eux.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Toutes les autres morts n'ont mérite ni marque;</p>
+<p class="i8">Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux,</p>
+<p class="i8">Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barque</p>
+<p class="i14">A la table des dieux.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<a name="ch6b" id="ch6b"></a>
+<br><br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH.</b></i></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">Que mon fils ait perdu sa dépouille mortelle,</p>
+<p class="i8">Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,</p>
+<p class="i8">Je ne l'impute point à l'injure du sort,</p>
+<p class="i8">Puis que finir à l'homme est chose naturelle.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidèle</p>
+<p class="i8">Ait terminé ses jours d'une tragique mort,</p>
+<p class="i8">En cela ma douleur n'a point de réconfort,</p>
+<p class="i8">Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,</p>
+<p class="i8">Le trouble de mon ame étant sans guérison,</p>
+<p class="i8">Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu légitime,</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i8">Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifié;</p>
+<p class="i8">Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crime</p>
+<p class="i8">Sont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifié.</p>
+</div></div>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<h3>EXTRACTS FROM
+THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."</h3>
+
+<p>These stanzas, which are among the best-known as they
+are, in the opinion of many, the dullest, in French literature,
+serve well to close this book.</p>
+
+<p>One verse at least (the fourth) is most legitimately famous,
+though it is hackneyed from the constant repetition of fools.
+For the rest a certain simplicity, a great precision, may or
+may not atone for their deliberate coldness.</p>
+
+<p>What is certain is that, poetry or not, they admirably
+express the spirit of his pen and its prodigious effect. They
+express the classical end of the French Renaissance with
+as much weight and hardness as the great blank walls of
+stone that were beginning to show in the rebuilding of
+Paris. It is for this quality that I have printed them here,
+using them as the definite term of that long, glorious, and
+uncertain phase in European letters.</p>
+<a name="ch6c" id="ch6c"></a>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><i><b>THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER.</b>"</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Ta douleur, du Perrier, sera donc éternelle?</p>
+<p class="i14">Et les tristes discours</p>
+<p class="i10">Que te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelle</p>
+<p class="i14">L'augmenteront toujours?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descendue</p>
+<p class="i14">Par un commun trépas,</p>
+<p class="i10">Est-ce quelque dédale où ta raison perdue</p>
+<p class="i14">Ne se retrouve pas?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Je sais de quels appas son enfance étoit pleine,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et n'ai pas entrepris,</p>
+<p class="i10">Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peine</p>
+<p class="i14">Avecque son mépris.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Mais elle étoit du monde, où les plus belles choses</p>
+<p class="i14">Ont le pire destin;</p>
+<p class="i10">Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses</p>
+<p class="i14">L'espace d'un matin.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Puis quand ainsi seroit que, selon ta prière,</p>
+<p class="i14">Elle auroit obtenu</p>
+<p class="i10">D'avoir en cheveux blancs terminé sa carrière,</p>
+<p class="i14"> Qu'en fût-il avenu?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Penses-tu que, plus vieille, en la maison céleste</p>
+<p class="i14">Elle eût eu plus d'accueil,</p>
+<p class="i10">Ou qu'elle eût moins senti la poussière funeste</p>
+<p class="i14">Et les vers du cercueil?</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">De moi, déja deux fois d'une pareille foudre</p>
+<p class="i14">Je me suis vu perclus;</p>
+<p class="i10">Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait résoudre,</p>
+<p class="i14">Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Non qu'il ne me soit mal que la tombe posséde</p>
+<p class="i14">Ce qui me fut si cher;</p>
+<p class="i10">Mais en un accident qui n'a point de reméde,</p>
+<p class="i14">Il n'en faut point chercher.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles:</p>
+<p class="i14">On a beau la prier;</p>
+<p class="i10">La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,</p>
+<p class="i14">Et nous laisse crier.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,</p>
+<p class="i14">Est sujet à ses lois;</p>
+<p class="i10">Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre</p>
+<p class="i14">N'en défend point nos rois.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience,</p>
+<p class="i14">Il est mal à propos;</p>
+<p class="i10">Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science</p>
+<p class="i14">Qui nous met en repos.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i10">Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science</p>
+<p class="i14">Qui nous met en repos."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+
+<h2>NOTES.</h2>
+
+<h3><a href="#ch1">CHARLES OF ORLEANS.</a></h3>
+
+<p><a href="#ch1a">THE COMPLAINT.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Prins.</i> An inaccurate pedantic past participle of
+<i>prendre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Line 14. <i>Faulse.</i> There is to be noted here and elsewhere throughout
+these extracts, until the modern spelling at the close of the period,
+the redundant "l" in many words. It was an effect of pure pedantry.
+The latin "l" had become <i>u</i> in northern French. <i>Falsa</i> made,
+naturally,
+"Fausse." The partial learning of the later middle ages reintroduced
+an "l" which was not known to be transformed, but was
+thought omitted.</p>
+
+<p>Line 24. <i>Liesse.</i> One of the commonest words of this epoch, lost to
+modern French. It means joy=<i>laetitia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Line 25. Note the gender of "Amour," feminine even in the singular
+throughout the middle ages and renaissance--right up to the
+seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch1b">THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.</a></p>
+
+<p>I</p>
+
+<p>Line 1. <i>Fourriers.</i> The servants who go before to find lodging. The
+term survives in French military terminology. The <i>Fourriers</i> are the
+non-commissioned officers and party who go forward and mark the
+Billeting of a regiment.</p>
+
+<p>Line 9. <i>Pieça=il y a pièce</i>; "lately". <i>Cf.</i> <i>naguère</i>="<i>il
+n'y a
+guère...."</i></p>
+
+<p>Line 11. <i>Prenez pais</i>="take the fields," begone.</p>
+
+<p>Line 19. Note "<i>Chant</i>," the regular form of the subjunctive=<i>Cantet</i>.
+The only latin vowel preserved after the tonic syllable is a=French
+e (mute). Thus <i>contat</i>="chante" which form has in modern
+French usurped the subjunctive.</p>
+
+<p>Line 23. <i>Livrée</i>="Liberata," <i>i.e.</i>, things given out. A term originally
+applied not only to clothing, but to the general allowance of the
+king's household. Hence our word "livery."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p><a href="#ch1c">"THE FAREWELL".</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 2. <i>Chiere lie.</i> "Happy countenance." <i>Chiere</i> here is the
+substantive, <i>lie</i>=<i>laeta</i>, is the adjective. <i>Bonne chère</i> means "a good time"
+where <i>chère</i> is an old word for "head" (Greek: kara).</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Baillie</i>=Bailliwick, "For Age that has me now within her
+bounds."</p>
+
+<p>Line 7. <i>Mye.</i> "Crumb." "I am not a whit (not a crumb) with her
+(<i>Joie</i>) to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Line 15. "Well braced," literally "well girthed" (as a horse is).</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ch2">VILLON.</a></h3>
+
+<p><a href="#ch2a">THE DEAD LADIES.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 1, line 1. Note the redundant negative; it is characteristic
+of mediaeval French, as of all primitive work, that the general suggestion
+of doubt is sufficient to justify a redundant negative.</p>
+
+<p>Line 2. <i>Flora</i>, etc. It is worth while knowing who these women
+were. <i>Flora</i> is Juvenal's Flora (Sat. II. 9), a legend in the university. Of
+<i>Archipiada</i> I know nothing. <i>Thaïs</i> was certainly the Egyptian courtesan
+turned anchoress and canonized, famous in the middle ages and revived
+to-day in the repulsive masterpiece of M. Anatole France. <i>Elois</i> is, of
+course, <i>Heloïse</i>, and <i>Esbaillart</i> is Abelard. The queen, who in the
+legend had Buridan (and many others) drowned, was the Dowager of
+Burgundy that lived in the Tour de Nesle, where the Palais Mazarin
+is now, and had half the university for a lover: in sober history she
+founded that college of Burgundy from which the École de Médecine is
+descended; the legend about her is first heard of (save in this poem) in
+1471, from the pen of a German in Leipzig. <i>Blanche</i> may be Blanche
+of Castille, but more likely she was a vision of Villon's own, for what
+did St. Louis' mother ever sing? <i>Berte</i> is the legendary mother of Charlemagne
+in the Epics; <i>Beatris</i> is any Beatrice you choose, for they have all
+died. <i>Allis</i> may just possibly be one of the Troubadour heroines, more
+likely she is here introduced for rhyme and metre; <i>Haremburgis</i> is strictly
+historical: she was the Heiress of Maine who married Foulque of Anjou
+in 1110 and died in 1126: an ancestress, therefore, of the Plantagenets.
+<i>Jehanne</i> is, of course, Joan of Arc.</p>
+
+<p>Line 8. <i>D'Antan</i> is <i>not</i> "Yester-year." It is "Ante annum," all
+time past before <i>this</i> year. Rossetti's "Yester-year" moreover, is an
+absurd and affected neologism; "Antan" is an excellent and living
+French word.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza II., line 2. Note the pronunciation of "Moyne" to rhyme
+(more or less) with "eine": the oi, ai and ei sounds were very similar
+till the sixteenth century at earliest. They are interchangeable in many
+popular provincialisms and in some words, <i>e.g.</i>, Fouet, pronounced
+"Foit" the same tendency survives. The transition began in the beginning
+of the seventeenth century as we learn from Vaugelas: and the
+influence towards the modern sound came from the Court.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza III., line 2. <i>Seraine</i>="Syren."</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. "<i>Jehanne</i>," "<i>Jehan</i>," in spite of the classical survival in
+their spelling, were monosyllables from the earliest times.</p>
+
+<p>Line 7. The "<i>elles</i>" here would not scan but for the elided "e" in
+"<i>souv'raine</i>" at the end of the line. In some editions "<i>ils</i>" is found
+and <i>souveraine</i> is spelt normally. <i>Ils</i> and <i>els</i> for a feminine plural existed
+in the middle ages.</p>
+
+<p><i>Envoi.</i> The envoi needs careful translation. The "que" of the third
+line="sans que" and the whole means, "Do not ask this week or this
+year where they are, <i>without</i> letting this refrain haunt you." "Que"
+might possibly mean "de peur que," did not the whole sense of the
+poem forbid such an interpretation.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch2b">AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 75, line 4. A charming example of those "flashes" which
+reveal Villon.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 76, line 2. Note the spelling of <i>Grant</i> in the feminine without
+an <i>e</i>. Adjectives of the third declension whose feminine was not
+distinguishable in Latin took no "e" in early French. A survival of
+this is found in grand' rue, grand' messe, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Grant erre</i>, "quickly," and the whole line reads: "Let it
+(my body) be delivered to it (luy=la terre) quickly," the "erre" here
+is from the popular late Latin "<i>iterare</i>"="<i>iter facere</i>." It survives in
+the nautical idiom "reprendre son erre"="to get under weigh again."</p>
+
+<p>Line 7. "<i>Erre</i>" here comes, on the contrary, from <i>errare</i>, to make a
+mistake, to err.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 77, line 4. <i>Maillon.</i> Swaddling clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Boullon</i>, scrape. The two lines are obscure but seem to
+read: "He has got me out of many a scrape which gave him no joy"
+(<i>esioye</i> from <i>esjouir</i>=<i>rejouir</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Line 7 and 8. These are obscure but apparently="And beseech
+him on my knees not to forsake all joy on that account."</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 78, line 2. "<i>Le Romman du Pet au Deable</i>." The Pet au
+Deable was a great stone at the door of a private house in the university.
+The students took it away and all Paris fought over the matter. The
+"Roman" was a set of verses, now lost, which Villon wrote on the quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>Line 3. <i>Guy Tabarie</i> who <i>grossa</i> (wrote out), these verses was a friend
+of Villon's: soon hanged.</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Soubz.</i> The "b" is pedantic, the <i>ou</i> indicates of itself the
+loss of the <i>b</i>. The "z" (and the "s" in the modern <i>sous</i>) are due to
+the derivation not from <i>sub</i> but <i>subtus</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p><a href="#ch2c">THE BALLAD OF OUR LADY.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 2, line 3. <i>Egypcienne.</i> St. Mary of Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>Line 4. <i>Theophilus.</i> This was that clerk who sold his soul to the
+Devil and whom Our Lady redeemed. You may find the whole story
+sculptured on the Tympanum of the exquisite northern door of Notre
+Dame in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Line 8. <i>Vierge Portant</i>="Virgin that bore a son."</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 3, line 4. <i>Luz</i>="luthus." "S" becomes "z."</p>
+
+<p>The Envoi. Note the Acrostic "Villon" in the first letters of the
+first six lines. It is a trick he played more than once.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch2d">THE DEAD LORDS.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 1, line 1. <i>Calixte.</i> These names are of less interest. <i>Calixte</i>
+was Pope Calixtus III., Alphonso Borgia, who died in 1458--in
+Villon's twenty-sixth year. <i>Alphonse</i> is Alphonso V of Arragon, who
+died in that same year. The <i>Duc de Bourbon</i> is Charles the First of
+Bourbon, who died at the end of the year 1456, "gracieux" because his
+son protected Villon. <i>Artus</i> (Arthur) of Brittany is that same Richemont
+who recaptured Paris from Willoughby. Charles VII is Charles
+VII. The <i>Roy Scotiste</i> is James II., who died in 1460: the <i>Amethyst</i>
+half of his face was a birthmark. The <i>King of Cyprus</i> is probably John
+III., who died in that same fatal year, 1458. Pedants will have it that
+the <i>King of Spain</i> is John II of Castille, who died in 1454--but it is a
+better joke if it means nobody at all. <i>Lancelot</i> is Vladislas of Bohemia,
+who died in 1457. <i>Cloquin</i> is Bertrand de Guesclin who led the reconquest.
+<i>The Count Daulphin</i> of Auvergne is doubtful; <i>Alençon</i> is presumably
+the Alençon of Joan of Arc's campaign, who still survived, and
+is called "feu" half in ridicule, because in 1458 he had lost his title and
+lands for treason.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 2, line 3. <i>Amatiste</i>=amethyst.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 3, line 7. <i>Tayon</i>=Ancestor. "<i>Etallum.</i>" Latin "<i>Stallio</i>."</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch2e">THE DIRGE.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 1. <i>Cil</i>=celui-ci. The Latin "<i>ecce illum</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Line 3. <i>Escuelle</i>=bowl. "With neither bowl nor platter."</p>
+
+<p>Line 4. Note again the constant redundant negative of the populace
+in this scholar: "Had never, no--not a sprig of parsley."</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Rez</i>=ras, cropped.</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ch3">MAROT.</a></h3>
+
+<p><a href="#ch3a">OF COURTING LONG AGO.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>On se prenoit</i>, one attacked--"it was but the heart one
+sought."</p>
+
+<p>Line 11. <i>Fainctz</i>=sham; "<i>changes</i>" is simply like the English
+"changes": the form survives in the idiom: "donner le change."</p>
+
+<p>Line 13. <i>Refonde</i>=recast.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch3b">NOËL.</a></p>
+
+<p>Verse 1, line 3. <i>L'Autre hyer</i>=alterum heri, "t'other day."</p>
+
+<p>Line 10. <i>Noé.</i> The tendency to drop final letters, especially the
+<i>l</i>, is very marked in popular patois, and this is, of course, a song based
+on popular language. Most French peasants north of the Loire would
+still say "Noé" for "Noël." <i>Noël</i> is, of course, <i>Natalem</i> (diem).</p>
+
+<p>Verse 2, line 2. <i>Cas de si hault faict</i>=so great a matter.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch3c">TWO EPIGRAMS.</a></p>
+<p>Epigram 1, line 2. <i>Vostre.</i> Marguerite of Navarre. As I have
+remarked, in the text, she had sent him a Dixaine (some say he wrote
+it himself). This one is written in answer.--<i>Ay.</i> Note, till the verb
+grew over simple in the classical French of the seventeenth century
+there was no more need for the pronoun than in Latin. Thus Montaigne
+will omit the pronoun, but Malherbe never.</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Cuydans</i>=thinking (<i>Cogitare</i>=<i>Cogtare</i>=<i>Coyde</i>=<i>cuider</i>, the
+<i>oi</i> became <i>ui</i> by a common transition; <i>cf.</i> noctem, octem, noit, nuit,
+huit.) The word is now archaic.</p>
+
+<p>Line 9. <i>Encor.</i> Without the final e. This is not archaic but poetic
+licence. <i>Encore</i>="hanc horam," and a post tonic "am" in Latin always
+means a final mute e in French.</p>
+
+<p>Epigram 2, line 1. <i>Maint</i> (now archaic) is a word of Teutonic origin,
+our <i>many</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Line 6. <i>Coulpe</i>=Culpam, of course; a fault.</p>
+
+<p>Line 9. <i>Emport</i>. Note the old subjunctive without the final e. <i>Vide
+supra</i>, on "<i>Chant</i>." The modern usage is incorrect. For the first conjugation
+making its subjunctive in <i>em</i>, should lose the final syllable in
+French: a post tonic <i>em</i> always disappears. The modern habit of putting
+a final e to all subjunctives is due to a false analogy with verbs from the
+third conjugation. These made their subjunctive in <i>am</i>, a termination
+which properly becomes the mute e of French.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch3d">TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 4. <i>Sejour</i>=(here) "staying at home."</p>
+
+<p>Line 14, 15. <i>Friande de la bouche</i>, glutton.</p>
+
+<p>Line 17. <i>Danger.</i> The first meaning of "Danger" is simply "to be
+in lordship" (Dominicarium). The modern is the English "Danger."
+This is between the two; "held to your hurt."</p>
+
+<p>Line 26. <i>Doint.</i> This subjunctive should properly be <i>don</i> (<i>donem</i>,
+post tonic <i>em</i> is lost). The "oint" is from a false analogy with the fourth
+conjugation, as though the Latin had been <i>doniam</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch3e">THE VINEYARD SONG.</a></p>
+
+<p>Verse 1, line 2. <i>Clamours.</i> See how southern this is, with its
+Lanquedoc forms, "clamours" for "clam<i>eurs</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. So are these diminutions all made up at random, as southern
+as can be, and note the tang of the verse, fit for a snapping of the
+fingers to mark the rapid time.</p>
+
+<p>Verse 3, line 2. <i>Bénistre.</i> The older form of <i>bénir</i> from <i>Benedicere</i>;
+the <i>c</i> between vowels at the end of the tonic syllable becomes <i>s</i>: the <i>t</i>
+is added for euphony, to help one to pronounce the <i>s</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Line 3. <i>Silenus</i> for <i>Silène</i>. Because the name was new, the Latin form
+is kept. The genius of the French, unlike that of modern English, is to
+absorb a foreign name (as we did once). Thus once we said "Anthony"
+"Tully": but Montaigne wrote "Cicero"--his descendants say
+"Ciceron."</p>
+
+<p>Line 4. <i>Aussi droict qu'une ligne</i>="right out of the flask." The flask
+held above one and the wine poured straight into the mouth. The
+happy south still know the way.</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Bigne</i>: a lump, a knock, a bruise.</p>
+
+<p>Line 6. <i>Guigne</i>=cherry.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p><a href="#ch4">RONSARD.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch4a">DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 1, line 3. <i>Chef grison</i>=gray head. When he says "trente
+ans," that is all rubbish, he was getting on for forty-three: it was written
+in 1567.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 2, line 1. <i>Nocher</i>=pilot; rare but hardly archaic.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 3, line 3. <i>Cependant</i>=meanwhile. The word is now seldom
+used in prose, save in the sense of "notwithstanding," "nevertheless."</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 5, line 1. <i>Loyer</i>=Condition of tenure.</p>
+
+<p>Line 2. <i>Ores</i>=Now that. Should be "<i>ore</i>" (horam). The parasitic
+"s" probably crept in by false analogy with the adverbs in "s."</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 6, line 1. <i>Lame</i>=tombstone. The word is no longer
+used.</p>
+
+<p>Line 4. See how, even in his lighter or prosaic manner, he cannot
+avoid great lines.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 8, line 1. <i>Vela</i>=Voilà. Then follows that fine ending which
+I have put on the title-page of this book.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch4b">"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 1. <i>Mignonne</i> is, of course, his Cassandre: her personality was
+always known through his own verse. She was fifteen when he met her
+and her brown eyes: it was in 1546 at Blois, her birthplace, whither
+he had gone to visit the Court, during his scholar's life in Paris. He met
+her thus young when he himself was but in his twenty-third year, and all
+that early, violent, not over-tilled beginning of his poetry was illumined
+by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained long a
+matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was Cassandre,
+and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantôme called it "a false
+name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or true, time
+conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble." There need
+have been no doubt. D'Aubigné's testimony is sufficient. She was a
+Mlle de Pie, and such was the vagary of Ronsard's life, that it was her
+niece, Diane Salviati de Taley whom in later life he espoused and
+nearly wed.</p>
+
+<p>Line 3. Note <i>Pourpre</i>, and in line 5 <i>Pourprée</i> so in line 9 <i>Beautez</i>,
+and in the last line <i>Beauté</i>: so little did he fear repetition and so heartily
+could his power carry it.</p>
+
+<p>Line 4. <i>A point</i>: the language was still in flux. The phrase would
+require a negative <i>n'</i> in modern French.</p>
+
+<p>Line 10, 11. <i>Marastre... puisqu'une...</i> There is here an elliptical
+construction never found in later French. Harsh stepmother nature
+(whom I call harsh) since..." etc.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch4c">SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE.</a></p>
+
+<p>Sonnet xlii., line 1. <i>Ocieuse</i>="otiosa," langorous.</p>
+
+<p>Line 5. <i>Ennuy</i>, in the sixteenth century meant something fuller than,
+and somewhat different from the word "ennui" to-day. It was a
+weariness which had in it some permanent chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>Line 8. <i>Pipe</i>, "cajoles": a word which (now that it is unusual) mars
+the effect of its meaning by its insignificant sound.</p>
+
+<p>Lines 8 and 9. Note <i>ioye</i>, <i>vraye</i>, a feminine "e" following another
+vowel is, since Malherbe, forbidden in the interior of a verse, unless
+elided.</p>
+
+<p>Line 11. <i>Ton mort</i>, "your ghost."</p>
+
+<p>Sonnet xliii., line 6. <i>Desia</i>=dejà.</p>
+
+<p>Line 7. <i>De mon nom.</i> I have printed the line thus because Ronsard
+himself wished it so, and so corrected it with his own hand. But the
+original form is far finer "<i>Au bruit de Ronsard.</i>"</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch5">DU BELLAY.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch5a">THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE."</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 3. <i>Usage.</i> A most powerful word in this slightly archaic sense:
+the experience of long travel: familiar knowledge of things seen.</p>
+
+<p>Line 12. <i>Loire.</i> This word has puzzled more than one editor. There
+are two rivers: the great river Loire, which is feminine, and the little
+Loir, which is masculine. Here Du Bellay spells the name of the great
+river, but puts it in the masculine gender. It has been imagined that
+he was talking of the smaller river. But he was not. The Loire alone
+has any connection with Liré or with his life, and as for the gender,
+strained as the interpretation may seem, I believe that Du Bellay
+deliberately used it in the parallel with the Tiber and the idea of the
+"Fleuve Paternel," to which he alludes so often elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Line 13. <i>Lyré.</i> The modern Liré, his birthplace, on the left bank
+of the Loire, just opposite Ancenis. As you go along the Poitiers road
+to the bridge it stands up on your right, just before the river.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch5b">THE DOG.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 1. <i>Motte</i>=a turf.</p>
+
+<p>Line 40. <i>Damoiselet.</i> Still used more or less in its old sense of a young
+man <i>armed</i>: not merely a young page or a cadet of the gentry,="like
+a little sentry."</p>
+
+<p>Line 43. <i>Anvie</i>=(of course) "envie."</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch5c">THE CAT.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 22. <i>Rouët</i>=spinning-wheel.</p>
+
+<p>Line 26. <i>Panne</i>=the Italian <i>Panno</i>--cloth.</p>
+
+<p>Line 27. <i>Troigne</i>=the mouth and face of an animal, the muzzle.</p>
+
+<p>Line 32. <i>Chere</i>=(originally) "head" and one of the few old French
+words derived from Greek, but the first signification has long been lost.
+Here the phrase is equivalent to "faire bonne chere" which has for
+centuries been used proverbially for what we call "a good time." <i>V.
+supra</i> in "The Farewell" of Charles of Orleans.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch6">MALHERBE.</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch6a">EXTRACTS FROM THE "ODE TO LOUIS XIII."</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 3, line 1. <i>Centième.</i> He dates the Huguenot trouble from a
+century. It may be said to have originated in the placards threatening
+the defilement of the Sacrament, placards which appeared in the streets
+of Paris in 1525.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 2, line 3. <i>Le nom de Juste.</i> Louis XIII had no particular
+affectation of that title: it is rather a reminiscence of his distant collatoral
+and namesake who closed the fifteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Last stanza, line 1. <i>Toutes les autres morts.</i> He has just been speaking
+of death in battle against the factions.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch6b">SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH.</a></p>
+
+<p>Line 1. <i>Mon fils.</i> The only survivor of his many children, a young
+man, just called to the bar at Aix and passionately loved by his father,
+he bore the curious name of Marc-Anthony. A M. de Piles killed him
+in a duel, having for second his brother-in-law. The whole was an
+honourable bit of business, and the death such as men of honour must
+be prepared to risk: but Malherbe would see no reason and defamed
+the adversary.</p>
+
+<p>Line 9. <i>La Raison.</i> The idea runs all through Malherbe's work. It
+is his distinguishing note, and is the spirit which differentiates him so
+powerfully from the sixteenth century, that this stoical balance or
+regulator which he calls "La Raison," and which governed France for
+two hundred years, is his rule and text for verse and prose as well as for
+practical life. Even the grandeur to which it gave rise seemed to him
+accidental. He demanded "la raison" only, and felt the necessity of it
+in art as acutely as though its absence were something immoral.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#ch6c">EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."</a></p>
+
+<p>Stanza 1, line 1. <i>Duperrier.</i> A critic of sorts and a gentleman, living
+in Provence and perhaps of Provençal ancestry. The verses were
+written while Malherbe's fame was still local, two years before the king's
+visit had lifted him to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 2, line 2. <i>Ta fille.</i> The child Marguerite. Her name does
+not appear in the poem nor in any letter; we have it from Racan.</p>
+
+<p>Stanza 10, line 3. <i>Et la garde, etc.</i> These two lines are quoted,
+sometimes, not often, by admirers who would prove that Malherbe was
+not incapable of colour or of warmth.</p>
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Avril
+       Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
+
+Author: H. Belloc
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #18839]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AVRIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Renald Levesque and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   AVRIL
+
+
+                                   BEING
+
+                        ESSAYS ON THE POETRY OF THE
+                             FRENCH RENAISSANCE
+
+                                     BY
+
+                                 H. BELLOC
+
+
+
+                        "... _Ceux dont la Fantaisie
+                 Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu
+                 Tousjours acheveront quelque grant Poesie,
+                 Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu._"
+
+
+
+                                   LONDON
+                              DUCKWORTH AND CO.
+                 3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVE NT GARDEN, W.C.
+
+                                    1904
+
+
+                CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO
+                    TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+    Part of this book originally appeared
+    in "The Pilot," and is here reprinted
+    by kind permission of the Editor.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    CHARLES OF ORLEANS
+    VILLON
+    MAROT
+    RONSARD
+    Du BELLAY
+    MALHERBE
+
+
+                                DEDICATION
+
+                                    TO
+                               F.Y. ECCLES
+
+
+MY DEAR ECCLES,
+
+You will, I know, permit me to address you these essays which are more
+the product of your erudition than of my enthusiasm.
+
+With the motives of their appearance you are familiar.
+
+We have wondered together that a society so avid of experience and
+enlargement as is ours, should ignore the chief expression of its
+closest neighbour, its highest rival and its coheir in Europe: should
+ignore, I mean, the literature of the French.
+
+We have laughed together, not without despair, to see the mind of
+England, for all its majesty and breadth, informed at the most critical
+moments in the policy of France by such residents of Paris as were at
+the best fanatical, at the worst (and most ordinary) corrupt.
+
+Seeing around us here a philosophy and method drawn from northern
+Germany, a true and subtle sympathy with the Italians, and a perpetual,
+just and accurate comment upon the minor nationalities of Europe, a mass
+of recorded travel superior by far to that of other countries, we
+marvelled that France in particular should have remained unknown.
+
+We were willing, in an earlier youth, to read this riddle in somewhat
+crude solutions. I think we have each of us arrived, and in a final
+manner, at the sounder conclusion that historical accident is
+principally to blame. The chance concurrence of this defeat with that
+dynastic influence, the slip by which the common sense of political
+simplicity missed footing in England and fell a generation behind, the
+marvellous industrial activities of this country, protected by a
+tradition of political discipline which will remain unique in History;
+the contemporaneous settling down of France into the equilibrium of
+power--an equilibrium not established without five hearty civil wars and
+perhaps a hundred campaigns--all these so separated the two worlds of
+thought as to leave France excusable for her blindness towards the
+destinies and nature of England, and England excusable for her continued
+emptiness of knowledge upon the energy and genius of France: though
+these were increasing daily, immensely, at our very side.
+
+We have assisted at some straining of such barriers. A long peace, the
+sterility of Germany, the interesting activities of the Catholic Church,
+have perhaps not yet changed, but have at least disturbed the mind of
+the north, and ours, a northern people's, with it. The unity, the
+passionate patriotism, the close oligarchic polity, the very silence of
+the English has arrested the eyes of France. By a law which is universal
+where bodies are bound in one system, an extreme of separation has
+wrought its own remedy and the return towards a closer union is begun. I
+do not refer to such ephemeral and artificial manifestations as a
+special and somewhat humiliating need may demand; I consider rather that
+large sweep of tendency which was already apparent fifteen years after
+the Franco-Prussian War. An approach in taste, manners and expression
+well defined during our undergraduate years, has now introduced much of
+our inmost life to the French, to us already a hint of their philosophy.
+
+I think you believe, as I do, that the return has begun.
+
+We shall not live to see that fine unity of the west which lent the
+latter seventeenth and eighteenth centuries their classical repose. No
+common rule of verse or prose will satisfy men's permanent desire for
+harmony: no common rule of manners, of honour, of international ethics,
+of war. We shall not live to see, though we are young now, a Paris
+reading some new Locke or Hume, a London moved to attentive delight in
+some latter trinity of Dramatists, some future Voltaire.... The high,
+protected class, which moved at ease between the Capitals of the World,
+has disappeared; that which should take its place is not yet formed. We
+are both of that one Faith which can but regard our Christendom as the
+front of mankind and which, therefore, looks forward, as to a necessary
+goal, to the re-establishment of its common comprehension. But the
+reversion to such stability is slow. We shall not live to see it.
+
+It is none the less our duty (if I may use a word of so unsavoury a
+connotation) to advance the accomplishment of this good fatality.
+
+Not indeed that a vulgar cosmopolitan beatitude can inspire an honest
+man. To abandon one's patriotism, and to despise a frontier or a flag,
+is, we are agreed, the negation of Europe. There are Frenchmen who
+forget their battles, and Englishmen to whom a gold mine, a chance
+federal theory, a colonial accent, or a map, is more of an inheritance
+than the delicate feminine profile of Nelson or the hitherto unbroken
+traditions of our political scheme. To such men arms are either
+abhorrent, or, what is worse, a very cowardly (and thank God!
+unsuccessful) method of acquiring or defending their very base
+enjoyments. Let us forget them. It is only as nationalists, and only in
+an intense sympathy with the highly individual national unities of
+Europe that we may approach the endeavour of which I have spoken.
+
+With us, I fear, that endeavour must take a literary form, but such a
+channel is far from ignoble or valueless. He that knows some part of the
+letters of a foreign nation, be it but the graces or even the vagaries
+of such letters, knows something of that nation's mind. To portray for
+the populace one religion welding the west together, to spread a common
+philosophy, or to interpret and arrange political terms, would certainly
+prove a more lasting labour: but you will agree with me that mere
+sympathy in letters is not to be despised.
+
+We have observed together that the balance in this matter is heavily
+against the English. M. Jusserand is easily the first authority upon
+popular life in England at the close of the middle ages. M. Boutmy has
+produced an analysis of our political development which our Universities
+have justly recognized. Our friend M. Angellier of the Ecole Normale has
+written what is acknowledged by the more learned Scotch to be the
+principal existing monograph upon Robert Burns; Mr. Kipling himself has
+snatched the attention of M. Chevrillon. You know how many names might
+be added to this list to prove the close, applied and penetrating manner
+in which French scholars have latterly presented our English writers to
+their fellow-citizens.
+
+We have both believed that something of the sort might be attempted in
+the converse; that a view could be given--a glimpse at least--of that
+vast organism whose foundations are in Rome, Coeval with the spring of
+Christianity, and whose last growth seems as vigorous and as fecund as
+though it were exempt from any laws of age.
+
+But, I say, we know how heavy is the balance against us.
+
+The Gallic ritual is unrecognized, even by our over-numerous class of
+clerical antiquarians. The Carolingian cycle is neglected, save perhaps
+for a dozen men who have seen the Song of Roland. The Complaints of
+Rusteboeuf, the Fabliaux, all the local legendary poetry, all the
+chroniclers (save Froissart--for he wrote of us), the tender simplicity
+of Joinville, the hard steel of Villehardouin, no one has handled.
+
+The fifteenth century, the storm of the Renaissance, are not taught.
+Why, Rabelais himself might be but an unfamiliar name had not a northern
+squire of genius rendered to the life three quarters of his work.
+
+The list is interminable. Even the great Drama of the great century is
+but a text for our schools leaving no sort of trace upon the mind: and
+as for the French moderns (I have heard it from men of liberal
+education) they are denied to have written any poetry at all: so exact,
+so subtle, so readily to be missed, are the proportions of their speech.
+
+If you ask me why I should myself approach the matter, I can plead some
+inheritance of French blood, comparable, I believe, to your own; and
+though I have no sort of claim to that unique and accomplished
+scholarship which gives you a mastery of the French tongue unmatched in
+England, and a complete familiarity with its history, application and
+genius, yet I can put to my credit a year of active, if eccentric,
+experience in a French barrack room, and a complete segregation during
+those twelve memorable months wherein I could study the very soul of
+this sincere, creative, and tenacious people.
+
+Your learning, my singular adventure, have increased in us, it must be
+confessed, a permanent and reasoned admiration for this people's
+qualities. Such an attitude of mind is rare enough and often dangerous:
+it is but a qualification the more for beginning the work. It permits us
+to follow the main line of the past of the French, to comprehend and not
+to be troubled by the energy of their present, to catch the advancing
+omens of their future.
+
+Indeed, if anything of France is to be explained in English and to
+people reading English, I could not desire a better alliance than yours
+and mine.
+
+But if you ask me why the Renaissance especially--or why in the
+Renaissance these six poets alone--should have formed the subject of my
+first endeavour, I can only tell you that in so vast a province, whereof
+the most ample leisure could not in a lifetime exhaust a tithe, Chance,
+that happy Goddess, led me at random to their groves.
+
+Whether it will be possible to continue such interpretation I do not
+know, but if it be so possible, I know still less what next may be put
+into my hands: Racine, perhaps, may call me, or those forgotten men who
+urged the Revolution with phrases of fire.
+
+    H. BELLOC.
+    CHELSEA, _January, 1904._
+
+
+
+
+                           CHARLES OF ORLEANS.
+
+
+I put down Charles of Orleans here as the first representative of that
+long glory which it is the business of this little book to recall: but
+to give him such a place at the threshold requires some apology.
+
+The origins of a literary epoch differ according as that epoch is primal
+or derivative. There are those edifices of letters which start up, not
+indeed out of nothing, but out of things wholly different. Produced by a
+shock or a revelation, as two gases lit will, in a sharp explosion,
+unite to form a liquid wholly unlike either, so after a great conquest,
+a battle, the sudden preaching of a creed, these primal literatures
+appear in an epic or a dithyrambic code of awful law. Their first effort
+is their mightiest. They come mature. They are allied to that element of
+the catastrophic which the modern world (taking its general philosophy
+from its social condition) denies, but which is yet at the limits of all
+things separate and themselves; accompanies every birth, and strikes
+agony into every transition of death.
+
+Those other much commoner epochs in the history of letters, which may be
+called derivative, have this current and obvious quality, that their
+beginnings merge into the soil that bred them, also (very often) their
+decay will lapse imperceptibly into newer things. They are quite
+definite, but also definitely parented. We know their special stuff and
+harmony, but we can point out clearly enough the elements which formed
+that stuff, the tones which unite in that harmony. We can show with
+dates and citations the parts meeting and blending; our difficulty is
+not to determine the influences which have mixed to make the general
+school, but rather to fix the beginning and the end of its effect upon
+men.
+
+In the first of these the leader, sometimes the unique example of the
+school, stands out great, but particular and clear, on a background
+vague or dark. He is as stupendous, yet as sharp and certain, as a
+mountain facing the morning, with only sky behind. In the second the
+originator, if there be one, is vague, tentative, perhaps unknown. More
+often many minor men together introduce a slow and general transition.
+
+Now the French Renaissance has this peculiar mark, that it holds quite
+plainly by one side of it to the first by the other to the second of
+these spirits.
+
+It was primal and catastrophic in that it made something completely new.
+A new architecture, new cities, a new poetry, almost a new language, a
+new kind of government--ultimately the modern world.
+
+It was derivative in that the shock, the revelation, which produced it,
+was the return of something allied to the French blood, something rooted
+in the French memory. Rome surviving or risen had made that Italy, which
+was now beginning to trouble the Alps, and would surely creep in by
+every channel of influence, and at last pervade all Europe. Rome, also,
+in her full vigour, had once framed and ordered Gaul. The French of the
+Renaissance were woken suddenly, but as they started they recognized the
+face and the hand of the awakener.
+
+On this account you will find one mind indeed at the very beginning of
+the change in letters, but not a dominating mind. There is but one man
+who is certainly an origin, but he is not a master. You see an unique
+and single personality, distinct but without force, founding no
+school--the grave, abiding, kind but covert face of Charles of Orleans.
+He, linked to the French Renaissance, is like the figure of a gentle
+friend playing in some garden with a child whose manners are new and
+pleasing to him, but of whose great destiny he makes no guess. That
+child was to be Du Bellay, Brantome, Montaigne a hundred-sided, huge
+Rabelais, Ronsard. Or perhaps this metaphor will put it better. To say
+that Charles of Orleans's equal and persistent music was like a string
+harped on distinctly in a chorus of flutes and hautboys, till one by one
+harps from here and there caught up the similar tang of chords and at
+last the whole body of sound was harping only.
+
+His life was suited to such difference and such origination. Italy,
+still living, filled him. An Italian secretary wrote from his mouth the
+most sumptuous of his manuscripts. He banded on Italy as a goal and his
+Italian land as a legacy to the French crown--to his own son; till
+(years after his death) the soldiers roared through Briancon and broke
+the crusted snow of Mont Genevre. An Italian mother, the most beautiful
+of the Viscontis, come out of Italy, rich in her land of Asti and her
+half million of pure gold, had borne him in her youth to the King of
+France's brother: a man luxurious, over fine, exact in taste, a lover of
+magnificence in stories and words, decadent in a dying time, very brave.
+Through that father the Valois blood, unjustly hated or still more
+unjustly despised according to the varied ignorance of modern times, ran
+in him nobly.
+
+Take the Valois strain entire and you will find the pomp or rather the
+fantasy of their great palace of St. Paul; turrets and steep blue roofs
+of slate, carved woodwork, heavy curtains, and incense and shining
+bronze. The Valois were, indeed, the end of the middle ages. Some
+cruelty, a fury in battle, intelligence and madness alternately, and
+always a sort of keenness which becomes now revenge, now foresight, now
+intrigue, now strict and terrible government: at last a wild adventure
+out beyond the hills: Fornovo, Pavia.
+
+Their story is like the manuscripts, which beyond all other things they
+loved and collected, and which they were the last to possess or to have
+made; for while it contains in vivid pictures the noblest and the basest
+subjects: (Joan of Arc and also her betrayal, their country dominant and
+almost engulfed, Marigano, and then again Pavia) it always glitters with
+hard enamelled colours against skies of gold, and is drawn and sharp and
+clean as a thing can be.
+
+Such is the whole line, but look at this one Valois and you see all the
+qualities of his race toned by a permanent sadness down to a good and
+even temper, not hopeful but still delighting in beauty and possessed as
+no other Valois had been of charity. Less passionate and therefore much
+less eager and useful than most of his race, yet the taint of madness
+never showed in him, nor the corresponding evil of cruelty, nor the
+uncreative luxury of his immediate ancestry. All the Valois were poets
+in their kind; his life by its every accident caused him to write. At
+fifteen they wedded him to that lovely child whom Richard II had lifted
+in his arms at Windsor as he rode out in fatal pomp for Ireland. Three
+years later, when their marriage was real, she died in childbirth, and
+it is to her I think that he wrote in his prison the ballad which ends:
+
+    Dieu sur tout souverain seigneur
+    Ordonnez par grace et douceur
+    De l'ame d'elle tellement
+    Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement
+    En peine souci et douleur.
+
+Already, in the quarrel that so nearly wrecked the crown, the
+anti-national factions had killed his father. He was planning vengeance,
+engraving little mottoes of hate upon his silver, when the wars came on
+them all. A boy of twenty-four, well-horsed, much more of a soldier than
+he later seemed, he charged, leading the centre of the three tall troops
+at Agincourt. In the evening of that disaster they pulled him out from
+under a great heap of the ten thousand dead and brought him prisoner
+into England, to Windsor then to Pomfret Castle. Chatterton, Cobworth,
+at last John Cornwall, of Fanhope, were his guardians. To some one of
+these--probably the last--he wrote the farewell:
+
+    Mon tres bon hote et ma tres douce hotesse.
+
+For his life as a prisoner, though melancholy, was not undignified; he
+paid no allegiance, he met the men of his own rank, nor was he of a kind
+to whom poverty, the chief thorn of his misfortune, brought dishonour.
+
+Henry V had left it strictly in his will that Orleans the general and
+the head of the French nationals should not return. For twenty-five
+years, therefore--all his manhood--he lived under this sky, rhyming and
+rhyming: in English a little, in French continually, and during that
+isolation there swept past him far off in his own land the defence, the
+renewal, the triumph of his own blood: his town relieved, his cousin
+crowned at Rheims. His river of Loire, and then the Eure, and then the
+Seine, and even the field where he had fallen were reconquered.
+Willoughby had lost Paris to Richemont four years before Charles of
+Orleans was freed on a ransom of half his mother's fortune. It was not
+until the November of 1440 that he saw his country-side again.
+
+The verse formed in that long endurance (a style which he preserved to
+the end in the many poems after his release) may seem at a first reading
+merely mediaeval. There is wholly lacking in it the riot of creation, nor
+can one see at first the Renaissance coming in with Charles of Orleans.
+
+Indeed it was laid aside as mediaeval, and was wholly forgotten for three
+hundred years. No one had even heard of him for all those centuries till
+Sallier, that learned priest, pacing, full of his Hebrew and Syriac, the
+rooms of the royal library which Louis XV had but lately given him to
+govern, found the manuscript of the poems and wrote an essay on them for
+the Academy.
+
+The verse is full of allegory; it is repetitive; it might weary one with
+the savour of that unhappy fifteenth century when the human mind lay
+under oppression, and only the rich could speak their insignificant
+words; a foreigner especially might find it all dry bones, but his
+judgement would be wrong. Charles of Orleans has a note quite new and
+one that after him never failed, but grew in volume and in majesty until
+it filled the great chorus of the Pleiade--the Lyrical note of direct
+personal expression. Perhaps the wars produced it in him; the lilt of
+the marching songs was still spontaneous:
+
+    Gentil Duc de Lorraine, vous avez grand renom,
+    Et votre renommee passe au dela des monts
+    Et vous et vos gens d'arme, et tous vos compagnons
+    Au premier coup qu'ils frappent, abattent les Donjons.
+    Tirez, tirez bombardes, serpentines, Canons!
+
+Whatever the cause, this spontaneity and freshness run through all the
+mass of short and similar work which he wrote down.
+
+The spring and sureness, the poise of these light nothings make them a
+flight of birds.
+
+See how direct is this:
+
+    Dieu! qu'il la fait bon regarder!
+    La gracieuse, bonne et belle.
+
+or this:
+
+    Le lendemain du premier jour de Mai
+    Dedans mon lit ainsi que je dormoye
+    Au point du jour advint que je sonjeay.
+
+Everywhere his words make tunes for themselves and everywhere he himself
+appears in his own verses, simple, charming, slight, but with memories
+of government and of arms.
+
+This style well formed, half his verse written, he returned to his own
+place. He was in middle age--a man of fifty. He married soberly enough
+Mary of Cleves, ugly and young: he married her in order to cement the
+understanding with Burgundy. She did not love him with his shy florid
+face, long neck and features and mild eyes. His age for twenty-five
+years passed easily, he had reached his "castle of No Care." As late as
+1462 his son (Louis XII) was born; his two daughters at long intervals
+before. His famous library moved with him as he went from town to town,
+and perpetually from himself and round him from his retinue ran the
+continual stream of verse which only ended with his death. His very
+doctor he compelled to rhyme.
+
+All the singers of the time visited or remained with him--wild Villon
+for a moment, and after Villon a crowd of minor men. It was in such a
+company that he recited the last ironical but tender song wherein he
+talks of his lost youth and vigour and ends by bidding all present a
+salute in the name of his old age.
+
+So he sat, half regal, holding a court of song in Blois and Tours, a
+forerunner in verse of what the new time was to build in stone along the
+Loire. And it was at Amboise that he died.
+
+
+
+
+                             THE COMPLAINT.
+
+    (_The 57th Ballade of those written during his imprisonment._)
+
+
+There is some dispute in the matter, but I will believe, as I have said,
+that this dead Princess, for whose soul he prays, was certainly the wife
+of his boyhood, a child whom Richard II had wed just before that
+Lancastrian usurpation which is the irreparable disaster of English
+history. She was, I say, a child--a widow in name--when Charles of
+Orleans, himself in that small royal clique which was isolated and
+shrivelling, married her as a mere matter of state. It is probable that
+he grew to love her passionately, and perhaps still more her memory when
+she had died in child-bed during those first years, even before
+Agincourt, "en droicte fleur de jeunesse,"--for even here he is able to
+find an exact and sufficient line.
+
+There is surely to be noted in this delicate ballad, something more
+native and truthful in its pathos than in the very many complaints he
+left by way partly of reminiscence, partly of poetic exercise. For,
+though he is restrained, as was the manner of his rank when they
+attempted letters, yet you will not read it often without getting in you
+a share of its melancholy.
+
+That melancholy you can soon discover to be as permanent a quality in
+the verse as it was in the mind of the man who wrote it.
+
+                            _THE COMPLAINT._
+
+
+      _Las! Mort qui t'a fait si hardie,
+    De prendre la noble Princesse
+    Qui estoit mon confort, ma vie,
+    Mon bien, mon plaisir, ma richesse!
+    Puis que tu as prins ma maistresse,
+    Prens moy aussi son serviteur,
+    Car j'ayme mieulx prouchainement
+    Mourir que languir en tourment
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+      _Las! de tous biens estoit garnie
+    Et en droite fleur de jeunesse!
+    Je pry a Dieu qu'il te maudie,
+    Faulse Mort, plaine de rudesse!
+    Se prise l'eusses en vieillesse,
+    Ce ne fust pas si grant rigueur;
+    Mais prise l'as hastivement
+    Et m'as laissie piteusement
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+      _Las! je suis seul sans compaignie!
+    Adieu ma Dame, ma liesse!
+    Or est nostre amour departie,
+    Non pour tant, je vous fais promesse
+    Que de prieres, a largesse,
+    Morte vous serviray de cueur,
+    Sans oublier aucunement;
+    Et vous regretteray souvent
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+_ENVOI._
+
+    _Dieu, sur tout souverain Seigneur,
+    Ordonnez, par grace et doulceur,
+    De l'ame d'elle, tellement
+    Qu'elle ne soit pas longuement
+    En paine, soussi et doleur._
+
+
+
+                      THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.
+              (_The 41st and 43rd of the "Rondeaux."_)
+
+
+These two Rondeaux, of which we may also presume, though very vaguely,
+that they were written in England (for they are in the manner of his
+earlier work), are by far the most famous of the many things he wrote;
+and justly, for they have all these qualities.
+
+_First_, they are exact specimens of their style. The Roundel should
+interweave, repeat itself, and then recover its original strain, and
+these two exactly give such unified diversity.
+
+_Secondly_: they were evidently written in a moment of that unknown
+power when words suggest something fuller than their own meaning, and in
+which simplicity itself broadens the mind of the reader. So that it is
+impossible to put one's finger upon this or that and say this adjective,
+that order of the words has given the touch of vividness.
+
+_Thirdly_: they have in them still a living spirit of reality; read them
+to-day in Winter, and you feel the Spring. It is this quality perhaps
+which most men have seized in them, and which have deservedly made them
+immortal.
+
+A further character which has added to their fame, is that, being
+perfect lyrics, they are also specimens of an old-fashioned manner and
+metre peculiar to the time. They are the resurrection not only of the
+Spring, but of a Spring of the fifteenth century. Nor is it too
+fantastic to say that one sees in them the last miniatures and the very
+dress of a time that was intensely beautiful, and in which Charles of
+Orleans alone did not feel death coming.
+
+
+                      _THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING._
+
+
+      _Les fourriers d'Este sont venus
+    Pour appareillier son logis,
+    Et ont fait tendre ses tappis,
+    De fleurs et verdure tissus.
+      En estandant tappis velus
+    De verte herbe par le pais,
+    Les fourriers d'Este sont venus
+    Pour appareillier son logis.
+      Cueurs d'ennuy pieca morfondus,
+    Dieu merci, sont sains et jolis;
+    Alez vous en, prenez pais,
+    Yver vous ne demourrez plus;
+    Les fourriers d'Este sont venus._
+
+      _Le temps a laissie son manteau
+    De vent, de froidure et de pluye,
+    Et s'est vestu de brouderie,
+    De soleil luyant, cler et beau.
+      Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau,
+    Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou crie;
+    Le temps a laissie son manteau
+    De vent de froidure et de pluye.
+      Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau
+    Portent, en livree jolie,
+    Gouttes d'argent d'orfavrerie,
+    Chascun s'abille de nouveau.
+    Le temps a laissie son manteau._
+
+
+
+                           HIS LOVE AT MORNING.
+                       (_The 6th of the "Songs"._)
+
+
+In this delightful little song the spontaneity and freshness which saved
+his work, its vigour and its clarity are best preserved.
+
+It does indeed defy death and leaps four centuries: it is young and
+perpetual. It thrills with something the failing middle ages had
+forgotten: it reaches what they never reached, a climax, for one cannot
+put too vividly the flash of the penultimate line, "I am granted a
+vision when I think of her."
+
+Yet it was written in later life, and who she was, or whether she lived
+at all, no one knows.
+
+                         _HIS LOVE AT MORNING._
+
+      _Dieu qu'il la fait bon regarder
+    La gracieuse bonne et belle!
+    Pour les grans biens qui sont en elle,
+    Chascun est prest de la louer
+      Qui se pourroit d'elle lasser!
+    Tousjours sa beaulte renouvelle.
+    Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder,
+    La gracieuse, bonne et belle!
+      Par deca, ne dela la mer,
+    Ne scay Dame ne Damoiselle
+    Qui soit en tous biens parfais telle;
+    C'est un songe que d'y penser.
+    Dieu, qu'il la fait bon regarder!_
+
+
+
+                             THE FAREWELL.
+                        (_The 310th Roundel._)
+
+Here is the last thing--we may presume--that Charles of Orleans ever
+wrote: "Salute me all the company, I pray."
+
+In that "company", not only the Court at Amboise, but the men of the
+early wars, his companions, were round him, and the dead friends of his
+gentle memory.
+
+He was broken with age; he was already feeling the weight of isolation
+from the Royal Family; he was beginning to suffer the insults of the
+king. But, beneath all this, his gaiety still ran like a river under
+ice, and in the ageing of a poet, humour and physical decline combined
+make a good, human thing.
+
+There is an excellent irony in the refrain: "Salute me, all the
+company," whose double interpretation must not be missed, though it may
+seem far-fetched.
+
+Till the last line it means, without any question, "Salute the company
+in my name," but I think there runs through it also, the hint of "Salute
+me for my years, all you present who are young," and that this certainly
+is the note in the last line of all. It must be remembered of the
+French, that they never expand or explain their ironical things, for in
+art it is their nature to detest excess.
+
+This last thing of his, then, I say, is the most characteristic of him
+and of his Valois blood, and of the national spirit in general to which
+he belonged: for he, and it, and they, loved and love contrast, and the
+extra-meaning of words.
+
+                             _THE FAREWELL._
+
+
+      _Saluez moy toute la compaignie
+    Ou a present estes a chiere lie,
+    Et leur dictes que voulentiers seroye
+    Avecques eulx, mais estre n'y porroye,
+    Pour Vieillesse qui m'a en sa baillie.
+      Au temps passe, Jeunesse si jolie
+    Me gouvernoit; las! or n'y suis je mye,
+    Et pour cela pour Dieu, que excuse soye;
+    Saluez moy toute la compaignie
+    Ou a present estes a chiere lie,
+    Et leur dictes que voulentiers seroye.
+      Amoureux fus, or ne le suis je mye,
+    Et en Paris menoye bonne vie;
+    Adieu Bon temps ravoir ne vous saroye,
+    Bien sangle fus d'une estroite courroye.
+      Que, par Aige, convient que la deslie.
+    Saluez moy toute la compaignie._
+
+
+
+
+                                   VILLON.
+
+I have said that in Charles of Orleans the middle ages are at first more
+apparent than the advent of the Renaissance. His forms are inherited
+from an earlier time, his terminology is that of the long allegories
+which had wearied three generations, his themes recall whatever was
+theatrical in the empty pageantry of the great war. It is a spirit
+deeper and more fundamental than the mere framework of his writing which
+attaches him to the coming time. His clarity is new; it proceeds from
+natural things; it marks that return to reality which is the beginning
+of all beneficent revolutions. But this spirit in him needs examination
+and discovery, and the reader is confused between the mediaeval phrases
+and the something new and troubling in the voice that utters them.
+
+With Villon, the next in order, a similar confusion might arise. All
+about him as he wrote were the middle ages: their grotesque, their
+contrast, their disorder. His youth and his activity of blood forbad him
+any contact with other than immediate influences. He was wholly
+Northern; he had not so much as guessed at what Italy might be. The
+decrepit University had given him, as best she could, the dregs of her
+palsied philosophy and something of Latin. He grew learned as do those
+men who grasp quickly the major lines of their study, but who, in
+details, will only be moved by curiosity or by some special affection.
+There was nothing patient in him, and nothing applied, and in all this,
+in the matter of his scholarship as in his acquirement of it, he is of
+the dying middle ages entirely.
+
+His laughter also was theirs: the kind of laughter that saluted the
+first Dance of Death which as a boy he had seen in new frescoes round
+the waste graveyard of the Innocents. His friends and enemies and heroes
+and buffoons were the youth of the narrow tortuous streets, his visions
+of height were the turrets of the palaces and the precipitate roofs of
+the town. Distance had never inspired him, for in that age its effect
+was forgotten. No one straight street displayed the greatness of the
+city, no wide and ordered spaces enhanced it. He crossed his native
+river upon bridges all shut in with houses, and houses hid the banks
+also. The sweep of the Seine no longer existed for his generation, and
+largeness of all kinds was hidden under the dust and rubble of decay.
+The majestic, which in sharp separate lines of his verse he certainly
+possessed, he discovered within his own mind, for no great arch or
+cornice, nor no colonnade had lifted him with its splendour.
+
+That he could so discover it, that a solemnity and order should be
+apparent in the midst of his raillery whenever he desires to produce an
+effect of the grand, leads me to speak of that major quality of his by
+which he stands up out of his own time, and is clearly an originator of
+the great renewal. I mean his vigour.
+
+It is all round about him, and through him, like a storm in a wood. It
+creates, it perceives. It possesses the man himself, and us also as we
+read him. By it he launches his influence forward and outward rather
+than receives it from the past. To it his successors turn, as to an
+ancestry, when they had long despised and thrown aside everything else
+that savoured of the Gothic dead. By it he increased in reputation and
+meaning from his boyhood on for four hundred years, till now he is
+secure among the first lyric poets of Christendom. It led to no excess
+of matter, but to an exuberance of attitude and manner, to an
+inexhaustibility of special words, to a brilliancy of impression unique
+even among his own people.
+
+He was poor; he was amative; he was unsatisfied. This vigour, therefore,
+led in his actions to a mere wildness; clothed in this wildness the rare
+fragments of his life have descended to us. He professed to teach, but
+he haunted taverns, and loved the roaring of songs. He lived at random
+from his twentieth year in one den or another along the waterside.
+Affection brought him now to his mother, now to his old guardian priest,
+but not for long; he returned to adventure--such as it was. He killed a
+man, was arrested, condemned, pardoned, exiled; he wandered and again
+found Paris, and again--it seems--stumbled down his old lane of violence
+and dishonour.
+
+Associated also with this wildness is a curious imperfection in our
+knowledge of him. His very name is not his own--or any other man's. His
+father, if it were his father, took his name from Mont-Corbier--half
+noble. Villon is but a little village over beyond the upper Yonne, near
+the division, within a day of the water-parting where the land falls
+southward to Burgundy and the sun in what they call "The Slope of Gold."
+From this village a priest, William, had come to Paris in 1423. They
+gave him a canonry in that little church called "St. Bennets Askew,"
+which stood in the midst of the University, near Sorbonne, where the Rue
+des Ecoles crosses the Rue St. Jacques to-day. Hither, to his house in
+the cloister, he brought the boy, a waif whom he had found much at the
+time when Willoughby capitulated and the French recaptured the city. He
+had him taught, he designed him for the University, he sheltered him in
+his vagaries, he gave him asylum. The young man took his name and called
+him "more than father." His anxious life led on to 1468, long after the
+poet had disappeared.
+
+For it is in 1461, in his thirtieth year, that Villon last writes down a
+verse. It is in 1463 that his signature is last discovered. Then not by
+death or, if by death, then by some death unrecorded, he leaves history
+abruptly--a most astonishing exit!... You may pursue fantastic legends,
+you will not find the man himself again. Some say a final quarrel got
+him hanged at last--it is improbable: no record or even tradition of it
+remains. Rabelais thought him a wanderer in England. Poitou preserves a
+story of his later passage through her fields, of how still he drank and
+sang with boon companions, and of how, again, he killed a man.... Maybe,
+he only ceased to write; took to teaching soberly in the University, and
+lived in a decent inheritance to see new splendours growing upon Europe.
+It may very well be, for it is in such characters to desire in early
+manhood decency, honour, and repose. But for us the man ends with his
+last line. His body that was so very real, his personal voice, his
+jargon--tangible and audible things--spread outward suddenly a vast
+shadow upon nothingness. It was the end, also, of a world. The first
+Presses were creaking, Constantinople had fallen, Greek was in Italy,
+Leonardo lived, the stepping stones of the Azores were held--in that new
+light he disappears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of his greatness nothing can be said; it is like the greatness of all
+the chief poets, a thing too individual to seize in words. It is
+superior and exterior to the man. Genius of that astounding kind has all
+the qualities of an extraneous thing. A man is not answerable for it. It
+is nothing to his salvation; it is little even to his general character.
+It has been known to come and go, to be put off and on like a garment,
+to be lent by Heaven and taken away, a capricious gift.
+
+But of the manner of that genius it may be noted that, as his vigour
+prepared the flood of new verse, so in another matter his genius made
+him an origin. Through him first, the great town--and especially
+Paris--appeared and became permanent in letters.
+
+Her local spirit and her special quality had shone fitfully here and
+there for a thousand years--you may find it in Julian, in Abbo, in
+Joinville. But now, in the fifteenth century, it had been not only a
+town but a great town for more than a century--a town, that is, in which
+men live entirely, almost ignorant of the fields, observing only other
+men, and forgetting the sky. The keen edge of such a life, its
+bitterness, the mockery and challenge whereby its evils are borne, its
+extended knowledge, the intensity of its spirit--all these are reflected
+in Villon, and first reflected in him. Since his pen first wrote, a
+shining acerbity like the glint of a sword-edge has never deserted the
+literature of the capital.
+
+It was not only the metropolitan, it was the Parisian spirit which
+Villon found and fixed. That spirit which is bright over the whole city,
+but which is not known in the first village outside; the influence that
+makes Paris Athenian.
+
+The ironical Parisian soul has depths in it. It is so lucid that its
+luminous profundity escapes one--so with Villon. Religion hangs there.
+Humility--fatally divorced from simplicity--pervades it. It laughs at
+itself. There are ardent passions of sincerity, repressed and reacting
+upon themselves. The virtues, little practised, are commonly
+comprehended, always appreciated, for the Faith is there permanent. All
+this you will find in Villon, but it is too great a matter for so short
+an essay as this.
+
+
+                             THE DEAD LADIES.
+
+It is difficult or impossible to compare the masterpieces of the world.
+It is easy and natural to take the measure of a particular writer and to
+establish a scale of his work.
+
+Villon is certainly in the small first group of the poets. His little
+work, like that of Catullus, like that of Gray, is up, high, completed
+and permanent. And within that little work this famous Ballade is by far
+the greatest thing.
+
+It contains all his qualities: not in the ordinary proportion of his
+character, but in that better, exact proportion which existed in him
+when his inspiration was most ardent: for the poem has underlying it
+somewhere a trace of his irony, it has all his ease and
+rapidity--excellent in any poet--and it is carried forward by that
+vigour I have named, a force which drives it well upwards and forward to
+its foaming in the seventh line of the third verse.
+
+The sound of names was delightful to him, and he loved to use it; he had
+also that character of right verse, by which the poet loves to put
+little separate pictures like medallions into the body of his writing:
+this Villon loved, as I shall show in other examples, and he has it
+here.
+
+The end of the middle ages also is strongly in this appeal or confession
+of mortality; their legends, their delicacy, their perpetual
+contemplation of death.
+
+But of all the Poem's qualities, its run of words is far the finest.
+
+                           _THE DEAD LADIES._
+
+    _Dictes moy ou, n'en quel pays
+    Est Flora la belle Rommaine;
+    Archipiada, ne Thais,
+    Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
+    Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine
+    Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
+    Qui beaulte ot trop plus qu'humaine?
+    Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?_
+
+    _Ou est la tres sage Hellois,
+    Pour qui fut chastre et puis moyne
+    Pierre Esbaillart a Saint-Denis?
+    Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.
+    Semblablement, ou est la royne
+    Qui commanda que Buridan
+    Fust gecte en ung sac en Saine?
+    Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!_
+
+    _La Royne Blanche comme un lis,
+    Qui chantoit a voix de seraine;
+    Berte au grant pie Bietris, Allis;
+    Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
+    Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
+    Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan;
+    Ou sont elles, Vierge souvraine?
+    Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!_
+
+                 _ENVOI._
+
+    _Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
+    Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,
+    Que ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
+    Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan!_
+
+
+
+                  AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.
+                          (_Stanzas 75-79._)
+
+
+Villon's whole surviving work is in the form of two rhymed wills--one
+short, one long: and in the latter, Ballads and Songs are put in each in
+their place, as the tenour of the verse suggests them.
+
+Thus the last Ballade, that of the "Dead Ladies," comes after a couple
+of strong stanzas upon the necessity of death--and so forth.
+
+One might choose any passage, almost, out of the mass to illustrate the
+character of this "Testament" in which the separate poems are imbedded.
+I have picked those round about the 800th line, the verses in which he
+is perhaps least brilliant and most tender.
+
+
+                 _AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT._
+
+
+    LXXV.
+
+    _Premier je donne ma povre ame
+    A la benoiste Trinite,
+    Et la commande a Nostre Dame
+    Chambre de la divinite;
+    Priant toute la charite
+    Des dignes neuf Ordres des cieulx,
+    Que par eulx soit ce don porte
+    Devant le trosne precieux._
+
+    LXXVI.
+
+    _Item, mon corps je donne et laisse
+    A notre grant mere la terre;
+    Les vers n'y trouveront grant gresse:
+    Trop luy a fait faim dure guerre.
+    Or luy soit delivre grant erre:
+    De terre vint, en terre tourne.
+    Toute chose, se par trop n'erre,
+    Voulentiers en son lieu retourne;_
+
+    LXXVII.
+
+    _Item, et a mon plus que pere
+    Maistre Guillaume de Villon
+    Qui m'este a plus doulx que mere,
+    Enfant esleve de maillon,
+    Degete m'a de maint boullon
+    Et de cestuy pas ne s'esjoye
+    Et luy requiers a genoullon
+    Qu'il n'en laisse toute la joye._
+
+    LXXVIII.
+
+    _Je luy donne ma Librairie
+    Et le Romman du Pet au Deable
+    Lequel Maistre Guy Tabarie
+    Grossa qui est homs veritable.
+    Por cayers est soubz une table,
+    Combien qu'il soit rudement fait
+    La matiere est si tres notable,
+    Q'elle amende tout le mesfait._
+
+    LXXIX.
+
+    _Item donne a ma povre mere
+    Pour saluer nostre Maistresse,
+    Qui pour moy ot doleur amere
+    Dieu le scet, et mainte tristesse;
+    Autre Chastel n'ay ni fortresse
+    Ou me retraye corps et ame
+    Quand sur moy court malle destresse
+    Ne ma mere, la povre femme!_
+
+
+
+                         THE BALLADE OF OUR LADY.
+                  (_Written by Villon for his mother._)
+
+
+The abrupt ending of the last extract, the 79th stanza of the "Grant
+Testament"--"I give..." and then no objective (apparently) added--is an
+excellent example of the manner in which the whole is conceived and of
+the way in which the separate poems are pieced into the general work.
+
+What "he gives..." to his mother is this "Ballade of our Lady," written,
+presumably, long before the "will" and put in here and thus after being
+carefully led up to.
+
+These thirty-seven lines are more famous in their own country than
+abroad. They pour from the well of a religion which has not failed in
+the place where Villon wrote, and they present that religion in a manner
+peculiar and national.
+
+Apart from its piety and its exquisite tenderness, two qualities of
+Villon are to be specially found in this poem: his vivid phrase, such
+as:
+
+    _"Emperiere des infernaux paluz,"_
+
+(a discovery of which he was so proud that he repeated it elsewhere) or:
+
+    _"sa tres chiere jeunesse."_
+
+And secondly the curiously processional effect of the metre and of the
+construction of the stanzas--the extra line and the extra foot lend
+themselves to a chaunt in their balanced slow rhythm, as any one can
+find for himself by reading the lines to some church sing-song as he
+goes.
+
+                     _THE BALLADE OF OUR LADY._
+
+    _Dame des cieulx, regente terrienne,
+    Emperiere des infernaux paluz,
+    Recevez moy, vostre humble chrestienne,
+    Que comprinse soye entre vos esleuz,
+    Ce non obstant qu'oncques rien ne valuz.
+    Les biens de vous, ma dame et ma maistresse,
+    Sont trop plus grans que ne suis pecheresse,
+    Sans lesquelz biens ame ne peut merir
+    N'avoir les cieulx, je n'en suis jungleresse.
+    En ceste foi je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+    _A vostre fils dicte que je suis sienne;
+    De luy soyent mes pechiez aboluz:
+    Pardonne moy, comme a l'Egipcienne,
+    Ou comme il feist au clerc Theophilus,
+    Lequel par vous fut quitte et absoluz,
+    Combien qu'il eust au Deable fait promesse.
+    Preservez moy, que ne face jamais ce
+    Vierge portant, sans rompure encourir
+    Le sacrement qu'on celebre a la messe.
+    En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+    _Femme je suis povrette et ancienne
+    Qui riens ne scay; oncques lettre ne leuz;
+    Au moustier voy dont suis paroissienne
+    Paradis faint, ou sont harpes et luz,
+    Et ung enfer ou dampnez sont boulluz:
+    L'ung me fait paour, l'autre joye et liesse.
+    La joye avoir me fay, haulte Deesse,
+    A qui pecheurs doivent tous recourir,
+    Comblez de Foy, sans fainte ne paresse.
+    En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+                      _ENVOI_
+
+    _Vous portastes, digne vierge, princesse,
+    Jesus regnant, qui n'a ne fin ne cesse.
+    Le Tout Puissant, prenant notre foiblesse,
+    Laissa les cieulx et nous vint secourir,
+    Offrit a mort sa tres chiere jeunesse.
+    Nostre Seigneur tel est, tel le confesse,
+          En ceste foy je veuil vivre et mourir._
+
+
+
+                              THE DEAD LORDS.
+
+As I have not wished to mix up smaller things with greater I have put
+this _ballade_ separate from that of "the Ladies," though it directly
+follows it as an after-thought in Villon's own book. For the former is
+one of the masterpieces of the world, and this, though very Villon, is
+not great.
+
+What it has got is the full latter mediaeval love of odd names and
+reminiscences, and also to the full, the humour of the scholarly tavern,
+which was the "Mermaid" of that generation: as the startling regret of:
+
+    Helas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne
+    Duquel je ne scay pas le nom....
+
+and the addition, after the false exit of "je me desiste".
+
+    _Encore fais une question_
+
+He laughed well over it, and was perhaps not thirsty when it was
+written.
+
+
+
+                            _THE DEAD LORDS._
+
+    _Qui plus? Ou est le Tiers Calixte
+    Dernier decede de ce nom,
+    Qui quatre ans tint le papaliste?
+    Alphonce, le roy d'Arragon,
+    Le Gracieux Duc de Bourbon,
+    Et Artus, le Duc de Bretaigne,
+    Et Charles Septiesme, le Bon?....
+    Mais ou est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+    _Semblablement le roy Scotiste
+    Qui demy face ot, ce dit on,
+    Vermeille comme une amatiste
+    Depuis le front jusqu'au menton?
+    Le roy de Chippre, de renom?
+    Helas! et le bon roy d'Espaigne
+    Duquel je ne scay pas le nom?...
+    Mais ou est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+    _D'en plus parler je me desiste
+    Le monde n'est qu'abusion.
+    Il n'est qui contre mort resiste
+    Le que treuve provision.
+    Encor fais une question:
+    Lancelot, le roy de Behaigne,
+    Ou est il? Ou est son tayon?....
+    Mais ou est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+                  _ENVOI._
+
+    _Ou est Claguin, le bon Breton?
+    Ou le conte daulphin d'Auvergne
+    Et le bon feu Duc d'Alencon?...
+    Mais ou est le preux Charlemaigne!_
+
+
+
+                               THE DIRGE.
+
+
+This is the best ending for any set of verses one may choose out of
+Villon. It follows and completes the epitaph which in his will he orders
+to be written in charcoal--or scratched--above his tomb: the sad,
+sardonic octave of "the little scholar and poor." It is a kind of added
+dirge to be read by those who pass and to be hummed or chaunted over him
+dead. But it is a rondeau.
+
+See how sharp it is with the salt and vinegar of his pressed courageous
+smile--and how he cannot run away from his religion or from his power
+over sudden and vivid beauty.
+
+"Sire--et clarte perpetuelle"--which last are the best two words that
+ever stood in the vulgar for _lux perpetua_.
+
+It is no wonder that as time went on, more and more people learnt these
+things by heart.
+
+
+                _RONDEAU._
+
+    _Repos eternel, donne a cil,
+    Sire, et clarte perpetuelle,
+    Qui vaillant plat ni escuelle
+    N'eut oncques, n'ung brain de percil.
+    Il fut rez, chief, barbe et sourcil,
+    Comme un navet qu'on ret ou pelle.
+        Repos eternel donne a cil.
+        Rigueur le transmit en exil
+    Et luy frappa au cul la pelle,
+    Non obstant qu'il dit "J'en appelle!"
+    Qui n'est pas terme trop subtil.
+        Repos eternel donne a cil._
+
+
+
+                              CLEMENT MAROT.
+
+If in Charles of Orleans the first note of the French Renaissance is
+heard, if in Villon you find first its energy appearing above ground,
+yet both are forerunners only.
+
+With Marot one is in the full tide of the movement. The discovery of
+America had preceded his birth by three or perhaps four years. His early
+manhood was filled with all that ferment, all that enormous branching
+out of human life, which was connected with the expansion of Spain; he
+was in the midst of the scarlet and the gold. A man just of age when
+Luther was first condemned, living his active manhood through the
+experience of the great battlefields in Italy, wounded (a valet rather
+than a soldier) at Pavia, the perpetual chorus of Francis I., privileged
+to witness the first stroke of the pickaxe against the mediaeval Louvre,
+and to see the first Italian dignity of the great stone houses on the
+Loire--being all this, the Renaissance was the stuff on which his life
+was worked.
+
+His blood and descent were typical enough of the work he had to do. His
+own father was one of the last set rhymers of the dying Middle Ages. All
+his boyhood was passed among that multitude of little dry "writers-down
+of verse" with which, in Paris, the Middle Ages died; they were not a
+swarm, for they were not living; they were a heap of dust. All his early
+work is touched with the learned, tedious, unbeautiful industry which
+was all that the elder men round Louis XII could bring to letters. By a
+happy accident there were mixed in him, however, two vigorous springs of
+inspiration, each ready to receive the new forces that were working in
+Europe, each destined to take the fullest advantage of the new time.
+These springs were first, learned Normandy, quiet, legal, well-founded,
+deep in grass, wealthy; and secondly, the arid brilliancy of the South:
+Quency and the country round Cahors. His father was a Norman pure bred,
+who had come down and married into that sharp land where the summer is
+the note of the whole year, and where the traveller chiefly remembers
+vineyards, lizards on the walls, short shadows, sleep at noon, and
+blinding roads of dust. The first years of his childhood were spent in
+the southern town, so that the south entered into him thoroughly. The
+language that he never wrote, the Languedoc, was that, perhaps, in which
+he thought during all his life. It was his mother's.
+
+It has been noticed by all his modern readers, it will be noticed
+probably with peculiar force by English readers, that the fame of Marot
+during his lifetime and his historical position as the leader of the
+Renaissance has in it something exaggerated and false. One cannot help a
+perpetual doubt as to whether the religious quarrel, the influence of
+the Court, the strong personal friendships and enmities which surrounded
+him had not had more to do with his reputation than his faculty, or even
+his genius, for rhyme. Whenever he wanted L100 he asked it of the King
+with the grave promise that he would bestow upon him immortality.
+
+From Ronsard, or from Du Bellay, we, here in the north, could understand
+that phrase; from Marot it carries a flavour of the grotesque. Ready
+song, indeed, and a great power over the material one uses in singing
+last indefinitely; they last as long as the sublime or the terrible in
+literature, but we forbear to associate with them--perhaps unjustly--the
+conception of greatness. If indeed anyone were to maintain that Marot
+was not an excellent and admirable poet he would prove himself ignorant
+of the language in which Marot wrote, but let the most sympathetic turn
+to what is best in his verse, let them turn for instance to that
+charming lyric: "A sa Dame Malade" or to "The Ballad of Old Time," or
+even to that really large and riotous chorus of the vine, and they will
+see that it is the kind of thing which is amplified by music, and which
+sometimes demands the aid of music to appear at all. They will see quite
+plainly that Marot took pleasure in playing with words and arranged them
+well, felt keenly and happily, played a full lyre, but they will doubt
+whether poetry was necessarily for him the most serious business of
+life.
+
+Why, then, has he taken the place claimed for him, and why is he firmly
+secure in the place of master of the ceremonies, as it were, to that
+glorious century whose dawn he enjoyed and helped to beautify?
+
+I will explain it.
+
+It is because he is national. He represents not what is most this, or
+most that--"highest", "noblest", "truest", "best", and all the rest of
+it--in his countrymen, but rather what they have most in common.
+
+Did you meet him to-day in the Strand you would know at once that you
+had to do with a Frenchman, and, probably, with a kind of poet.
+
+He was short, square in the shoulders, tending in middle age to fatness.
+A dark hair and beard; large brown eyes of the south; a great, rounded,
+wrinkled forehead like Verlaine's; a happy mouth, a nose very
+insignificant, completed him. When we meet somewhere, under cypress
+trees at last, these great poets of a better age, and find Ronsard a
+very happy man, Du Bellay, a gentleman; then Malherbe, for all that he
+was a northerner, we may mistake, if we find him, for a Catalonian.
+Villon, however Parisian, will appear the Bohemian that many cities have
+produced; Charles of Orleans may seem at first but one of that very high
+nobility remnants of which are still to be discovered in Europe. But
+when we see Marot, our first thought will certainly be, as I have said,
+that we have come across a Frenchman; and the more French for a touch of
+the commonplace.
+
+See how French was the whole career!
+
+Whatever is new attracts him. The reformation attracts him. It was
+_chic_ to have to do with these new things. He had the French ignorance
+of what was foreign and alien; the French curiosity to meddle with it
+because it had come from abroad; the French passion for opposing, for
+struggling;--and beneath it all the large French indifference to the
+problem of evil (or whatever you like to call it), the changeless French
+content in certitude, upon which ease, indeed, as upon a rock, the
+Church of Gaul has permanently stood and will continuously repose.
+
+He has been a sore puzzle to the men who have never heard of these
+things. Calvin (that appalling exception who had nothing in him of
+France except lucidity) could make neither head nor tail of him. Geneva
+was glad enough to chaunt through the nose his translations of the
+Psalms, but it was woefully puzzled at his salacity, and the town was
+very soon too hot to hold him in his exile. And as for the common,
+partial, and ignorant histories of France, written in our tongue, they
+generally make him a kind of backslider, who might have been a Huguenot
+(and--who knows?--have thrown the Sacrament to beasts with the best of
+them) save that, unhappily, he did not persevere. Whatever they say of
+him (and some have hardly heard of him) one thing is quite certain: that
+they do not understand him, and that if they did they would like him
+still less than they do.
+
+He was national in the rapidity of the gesture of his mind as in that of
+his body: in his being attracted here and there, watching this and that
+suddenly, like a bird.
+
+He was national in his power of sharp recovery from any emotion back
+into his normal balance.
+
+He was national in that he depended upon companions, and stood for a
+crowd, and deplored all isolation. He was national in that he had
+nothing strenuous about him, and that he was amiable, and if he had
+heard of "earnest" men, he would have laughed at them a little, as
+people who did not see the whole of life.
+
+He was especially national (and it is here that the poet returns) in
+that most national of all things--a complete sympathy with the
+atmosphere of the native tongue. Thus men debate a good deal upon the
+poetic value of Wordsworth, but it is certain, when one sees how bathed
+he is in the sense of English words, their harmony and balance, that the
+man is entirely English, that no other nation could have produced him,
+and that he will be most difficult for foreigners to understand. You
+will not translate into French or any other language the simplicity of:
+
+    "Glimpses that should make me less forlorn."
+
+Nor can you translate, so as to give its own kind of grandeur
+
+    "Et arrivoit pour benistre la vigne."
+
+Apart from his place in letters, see how national he is in what he does!
+
+He buys two bits of land, he talks of them continually, sees to them,
+visits them. They are quite little bits of land. He calls one Clement,
+and the other Marot! Here is a whimsicality you would not find, I think,
+among another people.
+
+He has the hatred of "sprawling" in his particular art which is the
+chief aesthetic character of the French; but he has the tendency to
+excess in opinion or in general expression which is their chief
+political fault.
+
+It is thus, then, that I think he should be regarded and that I would
+desire to present him. It is thus, I am sure, that he should be read if
+one is to know why he has taken so great a place in the reverence and
+the history of the French people.
+
+And it is in this aspect that he may worthily introduce much greater
+things, the Pleiade and Ronsard.
+
+
+
+                         OF COURTING LONG AGO.
+                   (_The Eighth of the Roundels._)
+
+This is a fair enough specimen of Marot at his daily gait: an easy
+versifier "on a theme" and no more. I have said that it is unjust to
+judge him on that level, and I have said why; but I give this to give
+the man as he moved domestically to the admiration of the court and of
+his friends in a time which missed, for example, the epic character of
+the last six lines of "Le Beau Tettin," and which hardly comprehended of
+what value his pure lyric enthusiasms would be to a sadder and drier
+posterity.
+
+
+                      _OF COURTING LONG AGO._
+
+      _Au bon vieulx temps un train d'amour regnoit,
+    Qui sans grand art et dons se demenoit,
+    Si qu'un boucquet donne d'amour profonde
+    S'estoit donne toute la terre ronde:
+    Car seulement au cueur on se prenoit._
+
+      _Et si, par cas, a jouyr on venoit,
+    Scavez-vous bien comme on s'entretenoit?
+    Vingt ans, trente ans; cela duroit ung monde
+            Au bon vieulx temps._
+
+      _Or est perdu ce qu'amour ordonnoit,
+    Rien que pleurs fainctz, rien que changes on n'oyt.
+    Qui vouldra donc qu'a aymer je me fonde,
+    Il fault, premier, que l'amour on refonde
+    Et qu'on la meine ainsi qu'on la menoit
+            Au bon vieulx temps._
+
+
+
+                                 NOEL.
+                    (_The Second of the Chansons._)
+
+
+But here, upon the contrary, is the spontaneity of his happy mind; it
+suggests a song; one can hardly read it without a tune in one's head, so
+simple is it and so purely lyrical: there is a touch of the dance in it,
+too.
+
+In these little things of Marot, which are neither learned (and he
+boasted of learning) nor set and dry (and his friends especially praised
+his precision), a great poet certainly appears--in short revelations,
+but still appears. Unfortunately there are not enough of them.
+
+That he thought "like a Southerner," as I have maintained and as I shall
+show by a further example, is made the more probable from the value he
+lends to the feminine e. The excellent rhythm of this poem you will only
+get by giving the feminine e the value of a drawn out syllable:
+
+                                "L'effect
+                                Est faict:
+                                La bel-le
+                                Pucel-le," etc.
+
+So Spaniards, Gascons, Provencaux, Italians, rhyme, and all those of the
+south who have retained their glorious "a's" and "o's".
+
+As for the spirit of it--God bless him!--it is a subject for perpetual
+merriment to think of such a man's being taken for a true Huguenot and
+enmeshed, even for a while, in the nasty cobweb of Geneva. But in the
+last thing I shall quote, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see
+it still more.
+
+                 _NOEL._
+
+      _Une pastourelle gentille
+    Et ung bergier en ung verger
+    L'autrhyer en jouant a la bille
+    S'entredisoient, pour abreger:
+            Roger
+            Bergier
+            Legiere
+            Bergiere,
+      C'est trop a la bille joue;
+      Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._
+
+      _Te souvient-il plus du prophete
+    Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict,
+    Que d'une pucelle parfaicte
+    Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict?
+            L'effect
+            Est faict:
+            La belle
+            Pucelle
+      A eu ung filz du ciel voue:
+      Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._
+
+
+
+                            TWO EPIGRAMS.
+       (_The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second._)
+
+These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness, the wit, the
+hard surface of Marot, and they needed no more poetry than was in
+Voltaire or Swift, but they needed style. It was this absolute and
+standard style which his contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the
+marvel was, that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and
+praised and supported only in that guise, he should have carried in him
+any, or rather so much, fire.
+
+The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king's sister had sent him. The
+second explains itself.
+
+
+                           _TWO EPIGRAMS._
+
+      _Mes creanciers, qui de dixains n'ont cure,
+    Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict:
+    "Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure,
+    La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit."
+    Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand credict,
+    M'ont appele monsieur a cry et cor,
+    Et m'a valu vostre escript aultant qu'or;
+    Car promis m'ont non seulement d'attendre,
+    Mais d'en prester, foy de marchant, encor,
+    Et j'ay promis, foy de Clement, d'en prendre._
+
+
+
+      _Paris, tu m'as faict maints alarmes,
+    Jusque a me poursuivre a la mort:
+    Je n'ay que blasonne tes armes:
+    Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord!
+    Encor la coulpe m'en remord.
+    Ne scay de toy comment sera;
+    Mais de nous deux le diable emport
+    Celuy qui recommencera._
+
+
+
+                         TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
+                          (_The 16th Epistle._)
+
+It is the way this is printed that makes some miss its value. It is,
+like all the best he wrote, a song; it needs the varying time of human
+expression, the effect of tone, the repose and the re-lifting of musical
+notes; illuminated thus it greatly charmed, and if any one would know
+the order of such a tune, why, it should follow the punctuation: a
+cessation at the third line; a rise of rapid accents to the thirteenth,
+and then a change; the last three lines of the whole very much fuller
+and strong.
+
+So I would hear it sung on a winter evening in an old house in Auvergne,
+and re-enter the sixteenth century as I heard.
+
+                        _TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS._
+
+
+                              _Ma mignonne,
+                              Je vous donne
+                              Le bon jour.
+                              Le sejour,
+                              C'est prison.
+                              Guerison
+                              Recouvrez,
+                              Puis ouvrez
+                              Vostre porte
+                              Et qu'on sorte
+                              Vistement;
+                              Car Clement
+                              Le vous mande.
+                              Va, friande
+                              De ta bouche,
+                              Qui se couche
+                              En danger
+                              Pour manger
+                              Confitures;
+                              Si tu dures
+                              Trop malade,
+                              Couleur fade
+                              Tu prendras
+                              Et perdras
+                              L'embonpoint.
+                              Dieu te doint,
+                              Sante bonne,
+                               Ma mignonne._
+
+
+
+
+                           THE VINEYARD SONG.
+                      (_The 4th of the Chansons._)
+
+
+Here is Marot's best--even though many of his native critics will not
+admit it so; but to feel it in full one must be exiled from the vines.
+
+It is a tapestry of the Renaissance; the jolly gods of the Renaissance,
+the old gods grown Catholic moving across a happier stage. Bacchus in
+long robes and with solemnity blessing the vine, Silenus and the
+hobbling smith who smithied the Serpe, the Holy Vineyard Knife in
+heaven, all these by their diction and their flavour recall the Autumn
+in Herault and the grapes under a pure sky, pale at the horizon, and
+labourers and their carts in the vineyard, and these set in the frame of
+that great time when Saturn did return.
+
+All the poem is wine. It catches its rhymes and weaves them in and in,
+and moves rapid and careless in a fugue, like the march from Asia when
+the Panthers went before and drew the car. The internal rhythm and pulse
+is the clapping of hands in barns at evening and the peasants' feet
+dancing freely on the beaten earth. It is a very good song; it remembers
+the treading of the grapes and is refreshed by the mists that rise at
+evening when the labour is done.
+
+                         _THE VINEYARD SONG._
+
+      _Changeons propos, c'est trop chante d'amours,
+    Ce sont clamours, chantons de la Serpette,
+    Tous vignerons ont a elle recours,
+    C'est leur secours pour tailler la vignette.
+    O serpilette, o la serpilonnette,
+    La vignolette est par toy mise sus,
+    Dont les bons vins, tous les ans, sont yssus!_
+
+      _Le dieu Vulcain, forgeron des haults dieux,
+    Forgea aux cieulx la serpe bien taillante,
+    De fin acier, trempe en bon vin vieulx,
+    Pour tailler mieulx et estre plus vaillante.
+    Bacchus le vante et dit qu'elle est seante
+    Et convenante a Noe le bonshom
+    Pour en tailler la vigne en la saison._
+
+      _Bacchus alors chappeau de treille avoit,
+    Et arrivoit pour benistre la vigne;
+    Avec flascons Silenus le suivoit,
+    Lequel beuvoit aussi droict qu'une ligne;
+    Puis il trepigne, et se faict une bigne;
+    Comme une guigne estoit rouge son nez.
+    Beaucoup de gens de sa race sont nez._
+
+
+
+
+                                  RONSARD.
+
+If it be true that words create for themselves a special atmosphere, and
+that their mere sound calls up vague outer things beyond their strict
+meaning, so it is true that the names of the great poets by their mere
+sound, by something more than the recollection of their work, produce an
+atmosphere corresponding to the quality of each; and the name of Ronsard
+throws about itself like an aureole the characters of fecundity, of
+leadership, and of fame.
+
+A group of men to which allusion will be made in connection with Du
+Bellay set out with a programme, developed a determined school, and
+fixed the literary renaissance of France at its highest point. They
+steeped themselves in antiquity, and they put to the greatest value it
+has ever received the name of poet; they demanded that the poet should
+be a kind of king, or seer. Half seriously, half as a product of mere
+scholarship, the pagan conception of the muse and of inspiration filled
+them.
+
+More than that; in their earnest, and, as it seemed at first, artificial
+work, they formed the French language. Some of its most famous and most
+familiar words proceed from them--for instance, the word _Patrie_. Some
+few of their exotic Greek and Latin adaptations were dropped; the
+greater part remained. They have excluded from French--as some think to
+the impoverishment of that language--most elements of the Gothic--the
+inversion of the adjective, the frequent suppression of the relative,
+the irregularity of form, which had survived from the Middle Ages, and
+which make the older French poetry so much more sympathetic to the
+Englishman than is the new--all these were destroyed by the group of men
+of whom I speak. They were called by their contemporaries the Pleiade,
+for they were seven stars.
+
+Now, of these, Ronsard was easily the master. He had that power which
+our anaemic age can hardly comprehend, of writing, writing, writing,
+without fear of exhaustion, without irritability or self-criticism,
+without danger of comparing the better with the worse. Five great
+volumes of small print, all good--men of that facility never write the
+really paltry things--all good, and most of it glorious; some of it on
+the level which only the great poets reach here and there. It is in
+reading this man who rhymed unceasingly for forty years, who made of
+poetry an occupation as well as a glory, and who let it fill the whole
+of his life, that one feels how much such creative power has to do with
+the value of verse. There is a kind of good humility about it, the
+humility of a man who does not look too closely at himself, and the
+health of a soul at full stride, going forward. You may open Ronsard at
+any page, and find a beauty; you may open any one of the sonnets at
+random, and in translating it discover that you are compelled to a fine
+English, because he is saying, plainly, great things. And of these
+sonnets, note you, he would write thirty at a stretch, and then twenty,
+and then a second book, with seventy more. So that as one reads one
+cannot help understanding that Italian who said a man was no poet unless
+he could rap out a century of sonnets from time to time; and one is
+reminded of the general vigour of the age and of the way in which art of
+all sorts was mingled up together, when one remembers the tags of
+verses, just such verses as these, which are yet to be seen in our
+galleries set down doubtfully on the margin of their sketches by the
+great artists of Italy.
+
+Ronsard, with these qualities of a leader, unconscious, as all true
+leaders are, of the causes of his leadership, and caring, as all true
+leaders do, for nothing in leadership save the glory it brings with it,
+had also, as have all leaders, chiefly the power of drawing in a
+multitude of friends. The peculiar head of his own group, he very soon
+became the head of all the movement of his day. He had made letters
+really great in the minds of his contemporaries, and having so made
+them, appeared before them as a master of those letters. Certainly, as I
+shall quote him in a moment when I come to his dying speech, he was
+"satiated with glory."
+
+Yet this man did not in his personality convey that largeness which was
+his principal mark. His face was narrow, long and aquiline; his health
+uneven. It was evidently his soul which made men quickly forget the
+ill-matched case which bore it; for almost alone of the great poets he
+was consistently happy, and there poured out from him not only this
+unceasing torrent of verse, but also advice, sustenance, and a kind of
+secondary inspiration for others.
+
+In yet another matter he was a leader, and a leader of the utmost
+weight, not the cause, perhaps, but certainly the principal example of
+the trend which the mind of the nation was taking as the sixteenth
+century drew to a close. I mean in the matter of religion, upon whose
+colour every society depends, which is the note even of a national
+language, and which seems to be the ultimate influence beyond which no
+historical analysis can carry a thinking man.
+
+But even those who will not admit the truth of this should watch the
+theory closely, for with the religious trend of France is certainly
+bound up, and, as I would maintain, on such an influence is dependent,
+that ultimate setting of the French classic, that winding up of the
+Renaissance, with which I shall deal in the essay upon Malherbe.
+
+The stream of Catholicism was running true. The nation was tumbling back
+after a high and turbulent flood into the channel it had scoured for
+itself by the unbroken energies of a thousand years. It is no accident
+that Ronsard, that Du Bellay, were churchmen. It is a type. It is a type
+of the truth that the cloth admitted poets; of the truth that in the
+great battle whose results yet trouble Europe, here, on the soil where
+the great questions are fought out, Puritanism was already killed. The
+epicurean in them both, glad and ready in Ronsard, sombre and Lucretian
+in Du Bellay, jarred indeed in youth against their vows; but that it
+should have been tolerated, that it should have led to no excess or
+angry revolt, was typical of their moment. It was typical, finally, of
+their generation that all this mixture of the Renaissance with the
+Church matured at last into its natural fruit, for in the case of
+Ronsard we have a noble expression of perfect Christianity at the end.
+
+In the November of 1585 he felt death upon him; he had himself borne to
+his home as soon as the Huguenot bands had left it, ravaged and
+devastated as it was. He found it burnt and looted, but it reminded him
+of childhood and of the first springs of his great river of verse. A
+profound sadness took him. He was but in his sixty-second year, his mind
+had not felt any chill of age. He could not sleep; poppies and
+soporifics failed him. He went now in his coach, now on a litter from
+place to place in that country side which he had rendered famous, and
+saw the Vendomois for the last time; its cornfields all stubble under a
+cold and dreary sky. And in each place he waited for a while.
+
+But death troubled him, and he could not remain. Within a fortnight he
+ordered that they should carry him southward to the Loire, to that
+priory of which--by a custom of privilege, nobility and royal favour--he
+was the nominal head, the priory which is "the eye and delight of
+Touraine",--the Isle of St. Cosmo. He sickened as he went. The thirty
+miles or so took him three painful days; twice, all his strength failed
+him, and he lay half fainting in his carriage; to so much energy and to
+so much power of creation these episodes were an awful introduction of
+death.
+
+It was upon the 17th of November that he reached the walls wherein he
+was Superior; six weeks later, on the second day after Christmas, he
+died.
+
+Were I to describe that scene to which he called the monks, all men of
+his own birth and training, were I to dwell upon the appearance and the
+character of the oldest and the wisest, who was also the most famous
+there, I should extend this essay beyond its true limit, as I should
+also do were I to write down, even briefly, the account of his just,
+resigned, and holy death. It must suffice that I transcribe the chief of
+his last deeds; I mean, that declaration wherein he made his last
+profession of faith.
+
+The old monk had said to him: "In what resolution do you die?"
+
+He answered, somewhat angrily: "In what did you think? In the religion
+which was my father's and his father's, and his father's and his
+father's before him--for I am of that kind."
+
+Then he called all the community round him, as though the monastic
+simplicity had returned (so vital is the Faith, so simple its primal
+energies), and as though he had been the true prior of some early and
+fervent house, he told them these things which I will faithfully
+translate on account of their beauty. They are printed here, I think,
+for the first time in English, and must stand for the end of this essay:
+
+He said: "That he had sinned like other men, and, perhaps, more than
+most; that his senses had led him away by their charm, and that he had
+not repressed or constrained them as he should; but none the less, he
+had always held that Faith which the men of his line had left him, he
+had always clasped close the Creed and the unity of the Catholic Church;
+that, in fine, he had laid a sure foundation, but he had built thereon
+with wood, with hay, with straw. As for that foundation, he was sure it
+would stand; as for the light and worthless things he had built upon it
+he had trust in the mercy of the Saviour that they would be burnt in the
+fire of His love. And now he begged them all to believe hard, as he had
+believed; but not to live as he had lived; they must understand that he
+had never attempted or plotted against the life or goods of another, nor
+ever against any man's honour, but, after all, there was nothing therein
+wherewith to glorify one's self before God." When he had wept a little,
+he continued, saying, "that the world was a ceaseless turmoil and
+torment, and shipwreck after shipwreck all the while, and a whirlpool of
+sins, and tears and pain, and that to all these misfortunes there was
+but one port, and this port was Death. But, as for him, he carried with
+him into that port no desire and no regret for life. That he had tried
+every one of its pretended joys, that he had left nothing undone which
+could give him the least shadow of pleasure or content, but that at the
+end he had found everywhere the oracle of Wisdom, vanity of vanities."
+
+He ended with this magnificent thing, which is, perhaps, the last his
+human power conceived, and I will put it down in his own words:--
+
+"Of all those vanities, the loveliest and most praiseworthy is
+glory--fame. No one of my time has been so filled with it as I; I have
+lived in it, and loved and triumphed in it through time past, and now I
+leave it to my country to garner and possess it after I shall die. So do
+I go away from my own place as satiated with the glory of this world as
+I am hungry and all longing for that of God."
+
+
+
+                   DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.
+
+This is a little Amaboean thing not very well known but very Horatian
+and worth setting down here because it is in the manner of so much that
+he wrote.
+
+Its manner is admirable. Its gentleness, persistency and increase--are
+like those of his own small river the Loir. Its last stanza from the
+middle of the first line "_Ceux dont la fantaisie_" to the end, should,
+I think be famous; but an English reader can hardly forgive such an
+introduction as "_Voila sagement dit_" to so noble a finale.
+
+
+
+                   _DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS._
+
+Ronsard. _Pour avoir trop aime vostre bande inegale,
+         Muses, qui defiez (ce dites vous) le temps,
+         J'ay les yeux tout battus, la face toute pasle,
+         Le Chef grison et chauve, et je n'ay que trente ans._
+
+Muses.   _Au nocher qui sans cesse erre sur la marine
+         Le teint noir appartient; le soldat n'est point beau
+         Sans estre tout poudreux; qui courbe la poitrine
+         Sur nos livres, est laid s'il n'a pasle la peau._
+
+Ronsard. _Mais quelle recompense aurois-je de tant suivre
+         Vos danses nuict et jour, un laurier sur le front?
+         Et cependant les ans aux quels je deusse vivre
+         En plaisirs et en jeux comme poudre s'en vont._
+
+Muses.   _Vous aurez, en vivant, une fameuse gloire,
+         Puis, quand vous serez mort, votre nom fleurira
+         L'age, de siecle en siecle, aura de vous memoire;
+         Vostre corps seulement au tombeau pourrira._
+
+Ronsard. _O le gentil loyer! Que sert au viel Homere,
+         Ores qu'il n'est plus rien, sous la tombe, la-bas,
+         Et qu'il n'a plus ny chef, ny bras, ny jambe entiere
+         Si son renom fleurist, ou s'il ne fleurist pas!_
+
+Muses.   _Vous estes abuse. Le corps dessous la lame
+         Pourry ne sent plus rien, aussy ne luy en chaut.
+         Mais un tel accident n'arrive point a l'ame,
+         Qui sans matiere vist immortelle la haut._
+
+Ronsard. _Bien! Je vous suyvray donc d'une face plaisante,
+         Dusse-je trespasser de l'estude vaincu,
+         Et ne fust-ce qu'a fin que la race suyvante
+         Ne me reproche point qu'oysif j'aye vescu._
+
+Muses.   _Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie
+         Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu
+         Tousjours acheveront quelque grand poesie,
+         Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu._
+
+
+
+                          THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS.
+
+Seven years after Rabelais died, Ronsard wrote this off-hand. I give it,
+not for its value, but because it connects these two great names. The
+man who wrote it had seen that large and honorable mouth worshipping
+wine: he had reverenced that head of laughter which has corrected all
+our philosophy. It would be a shame to pass such a name as Ronsard's
+signed to an epitaph on such a work as that of Rabelais, poetry or no
+poetry.
+
+Ronsard also from a tower at Meudon used to creep out at night and drink
+with that fellow-priest, vicar of the Parish, Rabelais: a greater man
+than he.
+
+By a memory separate from the rest of his verse, Ronsard was moved to
+write this Rabelaisian thing. For he had seen him "full length upon the
+grass and singing so."
+
+There is no need of notes, for these great names of Gargantua, Panurge
+and Friar John are household to every honest man.
+
+
+
+                         _THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS._
+
+
+    _Si d'un mort qui pourri repose
+    Nature engendre quelque chose,
+    Et si la generation
+    Se faict de la corruption,
+    Une vigne prendra naissance
+    Du bon Rabelais qui boivoit
+    Tousjours ce pendant qu'il vivoit;_
+
+    _Demi me se troussoit les bras
+    Et se couchoit tout plat a bas
+    Sur la jonchee entre les tasses
+    Et parmy les escuelles grasses_
+
+    _Il chantait la grande massue
+    Et la jument de Gargantue,
+    Le grand Panurge et le jais
+    Des papimanes ebahis,
+    Leurs loix, leurs facons et demeures
+    Et Frere Jean des Antonneures.
+    Et d'Espisteme les combas.
+    Mais la Mort qui ne boivoit pas
+    Tira le beuveur de ce monde
+    Et ores le fait boire de l'onde
+    Du large fleuve d'Acheron._
+
+
+
+                  "MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
+                  (_The 17th Ode of the First Book._)
+
+
+"In these eighteen lines," says very modernly a principal critic, "lies
+Ronsard's fame more surely than in all the remaining mass of his works."
+He condemns by implication Ronsard's wide waste of power; but the few
+other poems that I have here had room to print, should make the reader
+careful of such judgements. It is true that in the great hoard which
+Ronsard left his people there are separate and particular jewels set in
+the copper and the gold, but the jewels are very numerous: indeed it was
+almost impossible to choose so few as I have printed here.
+
+If it be asked why this should have become the most famous, no answer
+can be given save the "flavour of language." It is the perfection of his
+tongue. Its rhythm reaches the exact limit of change which a simple
+metre will tolerate: where it saddens, a lengthy hesitation at the
+opening of the seventh line introduces a new cadence, a lengthy
+lingering upon the last syllables of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth
+closes a grave complaint. So, also by an effect of quantities, the last
+six lines rise out of melancholy into their proper character of appeal
+and vivacity: an exhortation.
+
+Certainly those who are so unfamiliar with French poetry as not to know
+that its whole power depends upon an extreme subtlety of rhythm, may
+find here the principal example of the quality they have missed.
+Something much less weighty than the stress of English lines, a just
+perceptible difference between nearly equal syllables, marks the
+excellent from the intolerable in French prosody: and to feel this truth
+in the eighteen lines that follow it is necessary to read them virtually
+in the modern manner--for the "s" in "vespree" or "vostre" were
+pedantries in the sixteenth century--but one must give the mute "e's"
+throughout as full a value as they have in singing. Indeed, reading this
+poem, one sees how it must have been composed to some good and simple
+air in the man's head.
+
+If the limits of a page permitted it, I would also show how worthy the
+thing was of fame from its pure and careful choice of verb--"Tandis que
+vostre age _fleuronne_"--but space prevents me, luckily, for all this is
+like splitting a diamond.
+
+                    "_MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE._"
+
+    _Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
+    Qui ce matin avoit desclose
+    Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
+    A point perdu ceste vespree
+    Les plis de sa robe pourpree
+    Et son teint au vostre pareil_
+
+      _Las! Voyez comme en peu d'espace
+    Mignonne, elle a dessus la place,
+    Las! Las! ses beautez laisse cheoir!
+    O vrayment marastre nature,
+    Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure
+    Que du matin jusques au soir!_
+
+    _Donc si vous me croyez, Mignonne,
+    Tandis que vostre age fleuronne
+    En sa plus verte nouveaute,
+    Cuillez, Cuillez vostre jeunesse:
+    Comme a ceste fleur, la veillesse
+    Fera ternir vostre beaute._
+
+
+
+                        THE "SONNETS FOR HELENE"
+            (_The 42nd and 43rd Sonnets of the Second Book._)
+
+Helene was very real. A young Maid of Honour to Catherine de Medicis;
+Spanish by blood, Italian by breeding, called in France "de Sugeres,"
+she was the gravest and the wisest, and, for those who loved serenity,
+the most beautiful of that high and brilliant school.
+
+The Sonnets began as a task; a task the Queen had set Ronsard, with
+Helene for theme: they ended in the last strong love of Ronsard's life.
+A sincere lover of many women, he had come to the turn of his age when
+he saw her, like a memory of his own youth. He has permitted to run
+through this series, therefore, something of the unique illusion which
+distance in time or space can lend to the aspect of beauty. An emotion
+so tenuous does not appear in any other part of his work: here alone you
+find the chastity or weakness which made something in his mind come near
+to the sadder Du Bellay's: his soul is regardant all the while as he
+writes: visions rise from her such as never rose from Cassandra; as this
+great picture at the opening of the 58th Sonnet of the Second Book:
+
+    Seule sans compagnie en une grande salle
+    Tu logeois l'autre jour pleine de majeste.
+
+These "Sonnets for Helene" should be common knowledge: they are (with Du
+Bellay's) the evident original upon which the author of Shakespeare's
+Sonnets modelled his work: they are the late and careful effort of
+Ronsard's somewhat spendthrift genius.
+
+Here are two of them. One, the second, most famous, the other, the
+first, hardly known: both are admirable.
+
+It is the perfection of their sound which gives them their peculiar
+quality. The very first lines lead off with a completed harmony: it is
+as thoroughly a winter night as that in Shakespeare's song, but it is
+more solemn and, as it were, more "built of stone...."
+
+"La Lune Ocieuse, tourne si lentement son char tout a l'entour", is like
+a sleeping statue of marble.
+
+To this character, the second adds a vivid interest of emotion which has
+given it its special fame. Even the populace have come to hear of this
+sonnet, and it is sung to a lovely tune. It has also what often leads to
+permanent reputation in verse, a great simplicity of form. The Sextet is
+well divided from the Octave, the climax is clearly underlined. Ronsard
+was often (to his hurt) too scholarly to achieve simplicity: when, under
+the clear influence of some sharp passion or gaiety he did achieve it,
+then he wrote the lines that will always remain:
+
+    A fin qu'a tout jamais de siecle en siecle vive,
+    La Parfaicte amitie que Ronsard la portait.
+
+
+
+                       _THE "SONNETS FOR HELENE."_
+
+XLII
+
+    _Ces longues nuicts d'hyver, ou la Lune ocieuse
+        Tourne si lentement son char tout a l'entour,
+        Ou le Coq si tardif nous annonce le jour,
+    Ou la nuict semble un an a l'ame soucieuse:
+    Je fusse mort d'ennuy sans ta forme douteuse
+        Qui vient par une feinte alleger mon amour,
+        Et faisant toute nue entre mes bras sejour
+    Me pipe doucement d'une joye menteuse.
+        Vraye tu es farouche, et fiere en cruaute:
+        De toy fausse on jouyst en toute privaute.
+            Pres ton mort je m'endors, pres de luy je repose:
+        Rien ne m'est refuse. Le bon sommeil ainsi
+        Abuse pour le faux mon amoureux souci.
+            S'abuser en Amour n'est pas mauvaise chose._
+
+XLIII
+
+    _Quand vous serez bien vieille, au Soir a la chandelle,
+        Assise aupres du feu, devidant et filant,
+        Direz chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant,
+    Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j'estois belle.
+    Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle
+        Desia sous le labeur a demy sommeillant
+        Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s'aille resveillant,
+    Benissant vostre nom de louange immortelle._
+
+    _Je seray sous la terre et fantome sans os
+    Par les ombres myrteux je prendray mon repos.
+        Vous serez au foyer une veille accroupie,
+    Regrettant mon amour et vostre fier desdain.
+    Vivez, si m'en croyez; n'attendez a demain.
+        Cueillez des aujourdhuy les roses de la vie._
+
+
+
+
+                             JOACHIM DU BELLAY.
+
+
+In Du Bellay the literary Renaissance, French but transfigured by Italy,
+middle-north of the plains but looking southward to the Mediterranean,
+came to one soul and concentrated upon it, as the plastic expression of
+the same influence concentrated in Goujon. Very central in time, half
+soldier, half priest, all student; traveller and almost adventurer, a
+pilgrim throughout of the Idea, everything about him is symbolic of the
+generation he adorned.
+
+In its vigour, at least, the Renaissance was a glorious youth--he, Du
+Bellay, died at thirty-five. Its leap and soaring were taken from the
+firm platform of strong scholarship--he was a scholar beyond the rest.
+It fixed special forms--he the French sonnet. It felt the lives of all
+things running through it as a young man feels them in the spring
+woods--he gathered in the cup of his verse, and retains for us, the
+nerve of all that life which is still exultant in the forest beyond his
+river. His breeding, his high name, his leisured poverty, his passionate
+friendship, his looking forward always to a new thing, a creation--all
+this, was the Renaissance in person.
+
+Moreover, the Renaissance had in France its seat where, between rolling
+lands whose woods are the walls of gardens, the broad and shallow inland
+Loire runs from Orleans, past Blois and Tours and Saumur, and Ancenis,
+until near Nantes at last it feels the tide: salt and adventures and the
+barbaric sea. This varied sheltered land of aged vineyards and great
+wealth has, for the French Renaissance, the one special quality of
+beginnings and Edens, namely, that it preserves on to a later time the
+outward evidences of an original perfection. This place, the nest or
+seed-plot of the new civilisation, still shows its castles--Blois,
+Amboise, Chambord. Here Leonardo died, Rabelais, Ronsard himself was
+born. Here the kings of the Change built in their fantastic pride, and
+founded a France that still endures. It is as truly the soil of the
+modern thing as are the provinces north of it (the Isle de France,
+Normandy, Picardy and Champagne), the soil of the earlier mediaeval
+flower, and of the Gothic which they preserve unique to our own time.
+
+Now, of this district, Du Bellay was more than a native; he was part of
+it; he pined away from it; he regretted, as no other man of the time
+regretted, his father's land: Anjou and the fields of home. He may be
+said, with some exaggeration, to have died in the misfortune of his
+separation from the security and sober tradition of his own walls. That
+great early experience of his, which I have already written down--his
+meeting with Ronsard--had come to him not far from his own hill, south
+of the great river. His name, unlike Ronsard's, recalled the gentry of
+that countryside up to and beyond the beginning of its history; alone of
+the Pleiade he translated the valley of the Loire, its depth, its
+delicacy, its rich and subtle loneliness.
+
+Again, the Renaissance lived in France an inspired and an exalted life,
+so that there necessarily ran through it a fore-knowledge of sudden
+ending. This tragedy repeated itself in the career of Du Bellay.
+
+His name was famous. The three Du Bellays, the councillor, the soldier,
+the great Cardinal, were in the first rank of the early sixteenth
+century. Rabelais had loved them. Francis I had leaned upon and rewarded
+their service. His father (their first-cousin and Governor of Brest) was
+a poor noble, who, as is the fashion of nobles, had married a wife to
+consolidate a fortune. This wife, the mother of Joachim, was heiress to
+the house of Tourmeliere in Lire, just by the Loire on the brow that
+looks northward over the river to the bridge and Ancenis. In this house
+he was born. On his parents' early death he inherited the place, not to
+enjoy it, but to wander. An early illness had made him forsake the
+career of arms for that of the Church; but Orders were hardly so much as
+a cloak to him; it is difficult to remember, as one reads the few
+evidences of his life, that he wore the cloth at all: in his verse all
+trace of it is entirely absent. He lived still in that lineage which the
+reform had not touched. The passionate defence of the Catholic Faith,
+the Assault converging on the church throughout Europe, the raising of
+the Siege, the Triumph which developed, at last, on the political side
+the League, and on the literary the final rigidity of Malherbe, the
+noise of all these had not reached his circle, kind, or family.
+
+Of that family the Cardinal seems to have regarded him as the principal
+survivor. He had determined to make of the young poet the heir of its
+glory. It came to nothing. He accompanied his relative to Rome: but the
+diplomacy of the mission ill-suited him. Of the Royal ladies at court
+who befriended him, the marriage of one, the death of another,
+increased his insecurity. He had inherited, to his bane, another
+estate--Gonor--from his elder brother. It was encumbered, the cause
+litigious, and he had inherited with it the tutelage of a sickly child.
+He never shook off the burden. A tragic error marked his end. He died,
+certainly broken-hearted, just when his powerful cousin, by a conversion
+perhaps unknown to the poet himself, had rejected calumnies, and had
+determined to resign to him the great Archbishopric of Bordeaux.
+
+Eustache Du Bellay, yet another cousin, was Bishop of Paris. He had made
+Joachim, on his return from Rome, a Canon of Notre Dame, and in that
+capacity the poet, dying in Paris, was buried in the cathedral. The
+action of the Chapter in the eighteenth century, when they replaced the
+old tombstones by the present pavement, has destroyed the record of his
+grave; I believe it to lie in the southern part of the ambulatory.
+
+In this abrupt descent, following upon so fierce an activity of thought,
+he prefigured, I say, the close of the Renaissance as his genius
+typified its living spirit; for all the while, as you read him, you see
+the cloud about his head, and the profound, though proud and constant,
+sadness of his eyes.
+
+This, also, was pure Renaissance in him, that the fields in which he
+wandered, and which he loved to sing--a man of elegies--were dominated
+by the awful ruins of Rome. These it was that lent him his gravity, and
+perhaps oppressed him. He sang them also with a comprehension of the
+superb.
+
+He was second to Ronsard. Though he was the sharp voice of the Pleiade,
+though it was he who published their famous manifesto, though his
+scholarship was harder, though his energy could run more fiercely to one
+point and shine there more brilliantly in one small climax; yet he was
+second. He himself thought it of himself, and called himself a disciple.
+All up and down his works you find an astonished admiration directed
+towards his greater friend--
+
+                       ... Un amy que les Dieux
+    Guydent si hault au sentier des plus vieux.
+
+Or again--
+
+    Divin Ronsard qui de l'arc a sept cordes
+    Tiras premier au but de la memoire
+    Les traicts ailez de la Francoise gloire.
+
+Everywhere it is his friend rather than he that has touched the mark of
+the gods and called up from the tomb the ghost of Rome which all that
+company worshipped.
+
+I say he saw himself that he was second. Old Durat saw it clearly in
+that little college of poets where he taught the unteachable thing: De
+Baif, Belleau--all the comrades would have taken it for granted. Ronsard
+led and was chief, because he had the firm largeness, the laughter and
+the permanence which are the marks of those who determine the fortunes
+of the French in letters or in arms. Ronsard made. His verses, in their
+great mass and unfailing level, were but one example of the power that
+could produce a school, call up a general enthusiasm, and for forty
+years govern the taste of his country. There was in him something
+public, in Du Bellay something domestic and attached, as in the
+relations of a king and of a herald. Or again, the one was like an
+ordered wood with a rich open plain about it, the other was like a
+garden. Ronsard was the Beauce; Du Bellay was Anjou. It might be said of
+the first that he stood a symbol for the wheat and corn-land of the
+Vendomois, and of the second, that he recalled that subtle wine of the
+southern Loire to which Chinon gives the most famous label.
+
+Du Bellay was second: nevertheless, when he is well known in this
+country it will be difficult to convince Englishmen of that truth. There
+is in his mind a facet which exactly corresponds to a facet of our own,
+and that is a quality so rare in the French classics that it will
+necessarily attract English readers to him: for, of all people, we
+nowadays criticise most in letters by the standard of our immediate
+emotions, and least by what was once called "reason." He was capable of
+that which will always be called "poignancy," and what for the moment we
+call "depth." He was less careful than are the majority of his
+countrymen to make letters an art, and so to treat his own personality
+as a thing apart. On the contrary, he allowed that personality to pierce
+through continually, so that simplicity, directness, a certain
+individual note as of a human being complaining--a note we know very
+well in our own literature--is perpetually discovered.
+
+Thus, in a spirit which all Englishmen will understand, a lightness
+almost sardonic lay above the depths of his grief, and the tenderness
+which attached to his home played around the things that go with
+quietude--his books and animals. I shall quote hereafter the epitaphs he
+wrote for his dog and for his cat, this singer of sublime and ruined
+things.
+
+Of the dog who--
+
+                  ... allait tousjours suivant
+    Quelquefois allait devant.
+    Faisant ne scay quelle feste
+    D'un gai branslement de teste.
+
+and of whom he says, in a pretty imitation of Catullus, that he--
+
+                ... maintenant pourmeine
+    Parmy cette ombreuse plaine
+    Dont nul ne revient vers nous.
+
+Or of the cat who was--
+
+                            ... par aventure
+    Le plus bel oeuvre que nature
+    Fit onc en matiere de chats.
+
+All that delicate side of him we understand very well.
+
+Nor is it to modern Englishmen alone that he will appeal. He powerfully
+affected, it may be presumed, the English Renaissance which succeeded
+him. Spenser--thirty years after his death--was moved to the translation
+of his famous lament for Rome, and no one can read the sonnets to which
+he gave their final form without catching the same note in the great
+English cycle of the generation after him--the close of the sixteenth
+and the opening of the seventeenth centuries.
+
+But his verse read will prove all this and suggest much more.
+
+
+
+               EXTRACTS FROM THE "ANTIQUITEZ DE ROME."
+
+Of the high series which Rome called forth from Du Bellay during that
+bitter diplomatic exile of his, I have chosen these three sonnets,
+because they seem best to express the majesty and gloom which haunted
+him. It is difficult to choose in a chain of cadences so equal and so
+exalted, but perhaps the last, "Telle que dans son char la
+Berecynthienne" is the most marvellous. The vision alone of Rome like
+the mother of the Gods in her car would have made the sonnet immortal.
+He adds to the mere picture a noise of words that is like thunder in the
+hills far off on summer afternoons: the words roll and crest themselves
+and follow rumbling to the end: he could not have known as he wrote it
+how great a thing he was writing. It has all the character of verse that
+increases with time and seems superior to its own author's intention.
+
+
+                      _THE "ANTIQUITEZ DE ROME."_
+
+III.
+
+    _Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome,
+        Et rien de Rome en Rome n'appercois,
+        Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcz que tu vois
+    Et ces vieux Murs, c'est ce que Rome on nomme.
+    Voy quel orgueil, quelle ruine, et comme
+        Celle que mist le monde sous ses loix
+        Pour donter tout, se donta quelquefois,
+    Et devint proye au temps, qui tout consomme._
+
+        _Rome de Rome est le seul monument,
+        Et Rome Rome a vaincu seulement.
+            Le Tybre seul, qui vers la mer s'enfuit,
+        Reste de Rome. O mondaine inconstance!
+            Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps destruit,
+        Et se qui fuit, au temps fait resistance._
+
+IV.
+
+    _Celle qui de son chef les estoilles passoit,
+        Et d'un pied sur Thetis, l'autre dessous l'Aurore
+        D'une main sur le Scythe, et l'autre sur le More,
+    De la terre, et du Ciel, la rondeur compassoit,
+    Juppiter ayant peur, si plus elle croissoit
+        Que l'orgueil des Geans se relevast encore,
+        L'accabla sous ces monts, ces sept monts qui font ore
+    Tumbeaux de la grandeur qui le ciel menassoit._
+
+            _Il luy meist sur le chef la croppe Saturnale
+            Puis dessus l'estomac assist le quirinale
+        Sur le ventre il planta l'antique Palatin,
+            Mist sur la dextre main la hauteur Celienne,
+            Sur la senestre assist l'eschine Exquilienne
+        Viminal sur un pied: sur l'autre L'Aventin._
+
+VI.
+
+    _Telle que dans son Char la Berecynthienne
+        Couronnee de tours, et joyeuse d'avoir
+        Enfante tant de Dieux, telle se faisoit voir
+    En ses jours plus heureux ceste ville ancienne:
+    Ceste ville qui fust plus que la Phrygienne
+        Foisonnante en enfants et de qui le pouvoir
+        Fust le pouvoir du Monde, et ne se peult revoir
+    Pareille a sa grandeur, grandeur si non la sienne._
+
+            _Rome seule pouvoit a Rome ressembler,
+            Rome seule pouvoit Rome faire trembler:
+        Aussi n'avoit permis l'ordonnance fatale,
+            Qu'autre pouvoir humain, tant fust audacieux,
+        Se vantast d'egaler celle qui fust egale
+            Sa puissance a la terre, et son courage au cieux._
+
+
+
+                         THE SONNET OF EXILE.
+
+This sonnet dates from the same period at Rome, or possibly from his
+return. It has a different note. It is the most personal and passionate
+of all his writings, in which so much was inspired by personal regret.
+On this account it has a special literary interest as the most _modern_
+thing of the Renaissance. It would be far less surprising to find this
+written by one of the young republicans under the Second Empire (for
+instance) than to find a couplet of Malherbe's straying into our time.
+
+
+                        _THE SONNET OF EXILE._
+
+    _France, Mere des arts, des armes, et des loix,
+        Tu m'as nourry long temps du laict de ta mamelle:
+        Ores, comme un aigneau qui sa nourisse appelle,
+    Je remplis de ton nom les antres et les bois,
+    Si tu m'as pour enfant advoue quelquefois
+        Que ne me respons-tu maintenant, o cruelle?
+        France, France, respons a ma triste querelle:
+    Mais nul, sinon Echo, ne respond a ma voix._
+
+    _Entre les loups cruels j'erre parmy la plaine
+    Je sens venir l'hyver, de qui la froide haleine
+        D'une tremblante horreur fait herisser ma peau.
+    Las! tes autres agneaux n'ont faute de pasture,
+    Ils ne craignent le loup, le vent, ny la froidure;
+        Si ne suis-je pourtant le pire du troppeau._
+
+
+
+               THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE."
+                  (_The 31st of the "Regrets"_).
+
+It was of a large gray house, moated, a town beside it, yet not far from
+woods and standing in rough fields, pure Angevin, Tourmeliere, the Manor
+house of Lire, his home, that Du Bellay wrote this, the most dignified
+and perhaps the last of his sonnets. The sadness which is the permanent,
+though sometimes the unrecognized, moderator of his race, which had
+pierced through in his latter misfortunes, and which had tortured him to
+the cry that has been printed on the preceding page, here reached a
+final and a most noble form: something much higher than melancholy, and
+more majestic than regret. He turned to his estate, the mould of his
+family, a roof, the inheritance of which had formed his original burden
+and had at last crushed him; but he turned to it with affection. If one
+may use so small a word in connection with a great poet, the gentleman
+in him remembered an ancestral repose.
+
+There is very much in the Sonnet to mark that development of French
+verse in which Du Bellay played so great a part. The inversion of the
+sentence, a trick which gives a special character to all the later
+formal drama is prominent: the convention of contrast, the purely
+classical allusion, are mixed with a spirit that is still spontaneous
+and even naif. But every word is chosen, and it is especially noteworthy
+to discover so early that restraint in epithet which is the charm but
+also the danger of what French style has since become. Of this there are
+two examples here: the eleventh line and the last, which rhymes with it.
+To contrast slate with marble would be impossible prose save for the
+exact adjective "_fine_," which puts you at once into Anjou. The last
+line, in spite of its exquisite murmur, would be grotesque if the "_air
+marin_" were meant for the sea-shore. Coming as it does after the
+suggestions of the Octave it gives you suddenly sea-faring: Ulysses,
+Jason, his own voyages, the long way to Rome, which he knew; and in the
+"_douceur Angevine_" you have for a final foil to such wanderings, not
+only in the meaning of the words, but in their very sound, the hearth
+and the return.
+
+               _THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE"_
+
+
+        _Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage
+    Ou comme cestuy la qui conquit la Toison
+    Et puis est retourne, plein d'usage et raison,
+        Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age!
+        Quand revoirai-je, helas, de mon petit village
+    Fumer la cheminee: et en quelle saison
+    Revoirai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
+        Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup d'avantage?_
+
+        _Plus me plaist le sejour qu'ont basty mes aieux
+        Que des palais Romains le front audacieux:
+    Plus que le mabre dur me plaist l'ardoise fine,
+        Plus mon Loyre gaulois que le Tybre Latin,
+        Plus mon petit Lyre que le Mont Palatin,
+    Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur Angevine._
+
+
+
+                   THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE WINDS.
+
+This delicate air of summer, this reminiscence and comfort for men who
+no longer see the Eure or the Bievre or any of their northern rivers,
+this very mirror of Du Bellay's own exiled mind--was written for an
+"exercise." It is a translation--a translation from the Latin of a
+forgotten Venetian scholar.
+
+When a man finds in reading such a startling truth, it convinces him
+that letters have a power of their own and are greater of themselves
+than the things which inspired them: for when, to show his skill in
+rendering Latin into French verse, Du Bellay had written this down, he
+created and fixed for everybody who was to read him from then onwards
+the permanent picture of a field by the side of a small, full river,
+with a band of trees far off, and, above, the poplar leaves that are
+never still. It runs to a kind of happy croon, and has for a few moments
+restored very many who have read it to their own place; and Corot should
+have painted it.
+
+                  _THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE WINDS._
+
+
+                       _A vous troppe legere
+                       Qui d'aele passagere
+                       Par le monde volez,
+                       Et d'un sifflant murmure
+                       L'ombrageuse verdure
+                       Doulcement esbranlez,
+                         J'offre ces violettes,
+                       Ces lis et ces fleurettes
+                       Et ces roses ici,
+                       Ces vermeillettes roses
+                       Tout freschement escloses,
+                       Et ces oeilletz aussi.
+                         De vostre doulce haleine
+                       Eventez ceste plaine
+                       Eventez ce sejour,
+                         Ce pendant que j'ahanne
+                       A mon ble que je vanne
+                       A la chaleur du jour._
+
+
+
+                THE FUNERAL ODES OF THE DOG AND THE CAT.
+
+Here are extracts from those two delightful and tender things to which
+allusion has already been made. The epitaphs upon his little dog and his
+little cat.
+
+It was a character in this sad man to make little, humble, grotesque,
+pleasing images of grief; as it were, little idols of his goddess; and
+he fashioned them with an exquisite humour and affection. What animal of
+the sixteenth century lives so clearly as these two? None, I think,
+except some few in the pictures of the painters of the low countries.
+
+I wish I had space to print both these threnodies in full, but they are
+somewhat long, and I must beg my reader to find them in the printed
+works of Du Bellay. It is well worth the pains of looking.
+
+
+               _THE DOG._
+
+      _Dessous ceste motte verte
+    De lis et roses couverte
+    Gist le petit Peloton
+    De qui le poil foleton
+    Frisoit d'une toyson blanche
+    Le doz, le ventre, et la hanche._
+
+      _Son exercice ordinaire
+    Estoit de japper et braire,
+    Courir en hault et en bas,
+    Et faire cent mille esbas,
+    Tous estranges et farouches,
+    Et n'avoit guerre qu'aux mousches,
+    Qui luy faisoient maint torment.
+    Mais Peloton dextrement
+
+    Leur rendoit bien la pareille:
+    Car se couchant sur l'oreille,
+    Finement il aguignoit
+    Quand quelqu'une le poingnoit:
+    Lors d'une habile soupplesse
+    Happant la mouche traistresse,
+    La serroit bien fort dedans,
+    Faisant accorder ses dens_
+
+      _Peloton ne caressoit,
+    Sinon ceulx qu'il cognoissoit,
+    Et n'eust pas voulu repaistre
+    D'autre main que de son maistre,
+    Qu'il alloit tousjours suyvant:
+    Quelquefois marchoit devant,
+    Faisant ne scay quelle feste
+    D'un gay branlement de teste._
+
+      _Mon Dieu, quel plaisir c'estoit,
+    Quand Peloton se grattoit,
+    Faisant tinter sa sonnette
+    Avec sa teste folette!
+    Quel plaisir, quand Peloton
+    Cheminoit sur un baston,
+    Ou coife d'un petit linge,
+    Assis comme un petit singe,
+    Se tenoit mignardelet,
+    D'un maintien damoiselet!_
+
+      _Las, mais ce doulx passetemps
+    Ne nous dura pas long temps:
+    Car la mort ayant anvie
+    Sur l'ayse de nostre vie,
+    Envoya devers Pluton
+    Nostre petit Peloton,
+    Qui maintenant se pourmeine
+    Parmi ceste umbreuse plaine,
+    Dont nul ne revient vers nous._
+
+
+
+                _THE CAT_
+
+    _Pourquoy je suis tant esperdu
+    Ce n'est pas pour avoir perdu
+    Mes anneaux, mon argent, ma bource:
+    Et pourquoy est ce donc? pource
+    Que j'ay perdu depuis trois jours
+    Mon bien, mon plaisir, mes amours:
+    Et quoy? o Souvenance greve
+    A peu que le cueur ne me creve
+    Quand j'en parle ou quand j'en ecris:
+    C'est Belaud, mon petit chat gris:
+    Belaud qui fust, paraventure
+    Le plus bel oeuvre que nature
+    Feit onc en matiere de chats:
+    C'etoit Belaud, la mort au rats
+    Belaud dont la beaute fut telle
+    Qu'elle est digne d'estre immortelle._
+
+    _Mon-dieu, quel passetemps c'estoit
+    Quand ce Belaud vire-voltoit
+    Follastre autour d'une pelote!
+    Quel plaisir, quand sa teste sotte
+    Suyvant sa queue en mille tours,
+    D'un rouet imitoit le cours!
+    Ou quand assis sur le derriere
+    Il s'en faisoit une jartiere,
+    Et monstrant l'estomac velu
+    De panne blanche crespelu,_
+
+    _Sembloit, tant sa trogne estoit bonne,
+    Quelque docteur de la Sorbonne!
+    Ou quand alors qu'on l'animoit,
+    A coups de patte il escrimoit,
+    Et puis appasoit sa cholere
+    Tout soudain qu'on luy faisoit chere._
+
+      _Belaud estoit mon cher mignon,
+    Belaud estoit mon compagnon
+    A la chambre, au lict, a la table,
+    Belaud estoit plus accointable
+    Que n'est un petit chien friand,
+    Et de nuict n'alloit point criand
+    Comme ces gros marcoux terribles,
+    En longs miaudemens horribles:
+    Aussi le petit mitouard
+    N'entra jamais en matouard:
+    Et en Belaud, quelle disgrace!
+    De Belaud s'est perdue la race.
+      Que pleust a Dieu, petit Belon,
+    Qui j'eusse l'esprit assez bon,
+    De pouvoir en quelque beau style
+    Blasonner ta grace gentile,
+    D'un vers aussi mignard que toy:
+    Belaud, je te promets ma foy,
+    Que tu vivrois, tant que sur terre
+    Les chats aux rats feront la guerre._
+
+
+
+
+                                 MALHERBE.
+
+
+The French Renaissance ended in the Classic. The fate of all that
+exuberance was to find order, and that chaos of generation settled down
+to the obedience of unchanging laws. This transition, which fixed,
+perhaps for ever, the nature of the French tongue, is bound up with the
+name of Malherbe.
+
+When what the French have entitled "the great time," when the generation
+of Louis XIV looked back to find an origin for its majestic security in
+letters, it was in Malherbe that such an origin was discovered; he had
+tamed the wildness of the Renaissance, he had bent its vigour to an
+arrangement and a frame; by him first were explicitly declared those
+rules within which all his successors were content to be narrowed. The
+devotion to his memory is nowhere more exalted or more typically
+presented than in the famous cry--_enfin Malherbe vint_. His name
+carried with it a note of completion and of an end.
+
+When the romantic revival of our own time sought for one mind on which
+to lay the burden of its anger, one hard master or pedant who could be
+made responsible for the drying up of the wells, Malherbe again was
+found. He became the butt of Hugo's splendid ridicule. He was the god of
+plaster that could not hear or speak or feel, but which fools had
+worshipped; a god easy to break to pieces. His austerity--for them
+without fullness--his meagre output, his solemn reiterated code of
+"perfect taste," moved them to a facile but intense aggression. He it
+was that had turned to fossil stone the living matter of the sixteenth
+century: He that had stifled and killed the spirit they attempted to
+recall.
+
+This man so praised, so blamed, for such a quality, was yet exactly,
+year for year, the contemporary of Shakespeare, born earlier and dying
+later. No better example could be discovered of the contrast between the
+French and English tempers.
+
+The Romantics, I say, believed that they had destroyed Malherbe and left
+the Classic a ruined, antiquated thing. They were in error. Victor Hugo
+himself, the leader, who most believed the classic to have become
+isolated and past, was yet, in spite of himself, constrained by it.
+Lamartine lived in it. After all the fantastic vagaries of mystics and
+realists and the rest, it is ruling to-day with increasing power,
+returning as indeed the permanent religion, the permanent policy, of the
+nation are also returning after a century of astounding adventures: for
+the Classic has in it something necessary to the character of the French
+people.
+
+Consider what the Classic is and why all mighty civilisations have
+demanded and obtained some such hard, permanent and, as it were, sacred
+vehicle for the expression of their maturity.
+
+Nations that have a long continuous memory of their own past, nations
+especially whose gods have suffered transformation, but never death,
+develop the somewhat unelastic wisdom of men in old age. They mistrust
+the taste of the moment. They know that things quite fresh and violent
+seem at first greater than they are: that such enthusiasm forms no
+lasting legacy for posterity. Their very ancient tradition gives them a
+thirst for whatever shall certainly remain. The rigid Classic satisfies
+that need.
+
+Again, you will discover that those whose energy is too abundant seek
+for themselves by an instinct the necessary confines without which such
+energy is wasted--and wasted the more from its excess. They canalise for
+their own security a torrent which, undisciplined, would serve but to
+destroy. Such an instinct is apparent in every department of French
+life. To their jurisprudence the French have ever attempted to attach a
+code, to their politics the stone walls of a Constitution, or, at the
+least, of a fundamental theory. Their theology from Athanasius through
+St. Germanus to the modern strict defence against all "liberals" has
+glorified the unchanging. Every outburst of the interior fires in the
+history of Gaul has been followed by a rapid, plastic action which
+reduced to human use what might otherwise have crystallised into an
+amorphous lava. So the wild freedom of the twelfth century was captured
+to form the Monarchy, the University, the full Gothic of the thirteenth:
+so the Revolution permitted Napoleon and produced, not the visionary
+unstable grandeur of the Gironde, but the schools and laws and roads and
+set government we see to-day. So the spring storms of the Renaissance
+settled, I say, into that steady summer of stable form which has now for
+three hundred years dominated the literature of the country.
+
+Caught on with this aspect of energy producing the Classic is the truth
+that energy alone can dare to be classical. Where the great currents of
+the soul run feebly a perpetual acceleration, whether by novelty or by
+extravagance, will be demanded; where they run full and heavy, then,
+under the restraint of form, they will but run more proudly and more
+strong. It is the flickering of life that fears hard rules in verse and
+may not feel the level classics of our Europe. Their rigidity is not
+that of marble; they are not dead. A human acquaintance with their
+sobriety soon fills us as we read. If we lie in the way of the giants
+who conceived them (let me say Corneille or the great Dryden),
+re-reading and further knowledge--especially a deeper experience of
+common life about us--reveal to us the steadfast life of these images;
+the eyes open, the lips might almost move; the statue descends and
+lives.
+
+The man who imposed design and authority and unity upon the letters of
+his country, and who so closed the epoch with which I have been dealing,
+was singularly suited to his task. Observant, something of a stoic,
+uninspired; courageous, witty, a soldier; lucid, critical of method
+only, he corresponded to the movement which, all around him, was
+ushering in the Bourbons: the hardening of Goujon's and de l'Orme's
+luxuriance into the conventions of the great colonnades and the sombre
+immensity of the new palaces; the return of one national faith to a
+people weary of so many random quarrels; the mistrust of an ill-ordered
+squirearchy; the firm founding of a central government.
+
+He was Norman. Right of that north whence the vigour, though not the
+inspiration, of the Renaissance had proceeded, and into which it
+returned. Caen gave him birth, and still remembers him. Normans still
+edit his works--and dedicate these books to the town which also bred
+Corneille. Norman, learned with that restrained but vigorous learning of
+the province, he was also of the province in his blood, for he came of
+one of those fixed families whose heads held great estates all round
+Falaise, and whose cadets branched off into chances abroad: one of the
+Boughtons, in Kent, is still "Boughton Malherbe[1]."
+
+[Footnote 1: Not from the Conquest. It is near Charing, originally de
+Braose land, but an heiress married a Malherbe in the early twelfth
+century.]
+
+He was poor. His father, who held one of those magistracies which the
+smaller nobility bought or inherited, had not known where to turn in the
+turmoil of the central century. In a moment of distress he called
+himself Huguenot when that party seemed to triumph, and Malherbe in
+anger against the apostasy went down south, a boy of nineteen, and
+fought as a soldier--but chiefly duels; for he loved that sport. He lay
+under a kind of protection from the great Catholic houses, though still
+poor, till in 1601--he was a man of forty-six--Henri IV heard of him. In
+all these years he had worked at the rule of poetry like an artisan,
+thinking of nothing else, not even of fame. Those who surrounded him
+took it for granted that he was a master critic--a sort of judge without
+appeal, but it was a very little provincial circle surrounding a very
+unimportant house in Provence. Thus, careless it seems of everything
+except that "form of language" which was with him a passion, like the
+academic or theological passions, he was astonished on coming to Paris
+in 1605 to discover how suited such a pre-occupation was to such a time,
+and how rapidly he became the first name in contemporary letters. Of men
+who poured out verse the age was satiated; of men who could seize the
+language at this turn in its fortune, fix it and give it rules, the age
+had no knowledge till he came: the age fastened upon him, and insisted
+upon making him a master.
+
+A full twenty years from 1607 he governed the transformation, not of
+thought, for that he little changed, but of method and of expression. He
+decided what should be called the typical metres, the alternative of
+feminine and masculine in verse, the order of emphasis, the proportion
+of inversion tolerable, the propriety, the modernity, the archaism of
+words. It is a function to our time meaningless and futile: to such a
+period as that, indispensable and even noble. He interpreted and
+published the national sentiment upon this major thing, the architecture
+of letters. The power of his mind, tortured and insufficient in actual
+production, was supreme in putting forth clearly and finally that
+criticism which ran as an unspoken and obscure current of opinion in the
+mind of his age. This was his glory, and it was true.
+
+His dryness was extraordinary. In a life of seventy-two years, during
+which he wrote and erased incessantly, he, the poet, wrote just so much
+verse as will fill in large type a little pocket volume of 250 pages; to
+be accurate, forty-three lines a year. Of this scraping and pumice stone
+in the mind a better example than his verse is to be found in his
+letters. A number remain. They might seem to be written by two different
+men! Half a dozen are models of that language he adored--they cost him,
+to our knowledge, many days--the rest are slipshod notes that any man
+might write, for he thought they would not survive, and, indeed, the
+majority of his editors have had the piety to suppress them.
+
+No one will understand Malherbe who only hears of how, like a dusty
+workman, he cut and polished, and so fixed the new jewel of letters. In
+our less happy age the academic spirit is necessarily associated with a
+lethargic stupidity. In his it was not so. His force, by which this work
+was carried through, lay in a character of penetration. His face
+expresses it. His very keen and ready eyes, his high lifted brow, his
+sharp nose, and the few active lines of his cheek and forehead, the
+poise of his head, the disdain of his firm mouth, all build him back
+alive for us. His talk, which stammered in its volubility, was incessant
+and varied; his temper ready; his bodily command of gesture and
+definition perfect in old age: he was of good metal all those years.
+
+Of his intense Toryism, his vivacity, his love of arms, his tenacity of
+perception, Racan gives us in his biography an admirable picture. Just
+before he died his son was killed in a duel--he, at seventy-two, desired
+passionately to kill the adversary. "Gambling," he said, "my pence of
+life against the gold of his twenty-five years." He had wit, and he
+hated well--hating men after death:
+
+    Here richly with ridiculous display
+    Killed by excess was Wormwood laid away,
+    While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
+    I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
+
+His zeal for his tongue was real. As he lay upon his death-bed making
+his confession after so vigorous a life, he heard his nurse say
+something to herself which sounded ungrammatical and, turning round from
+the priest, he put her right in a manner most violent and sudden. His
+confessor, startled, said: "The time is not relevant". "All times are
+relevant!" he answered, sinking back. "I will defend with my last breath
+the purity and grandeur of the French tongue."
+
+To such a man the meaning of the solution at which his people had
+arrived after a century of civil war lay, above all, in their ancient
+religion. On that converged those deeper and more permanent things in
+his soul of which even his patriotism and his literary zeal were but the
+surface. In the expression of that final solution his verse, which was
+hardly that of a poet, rises high into poetry; under the heat and
+pressure of his faith, single lines here and there have crystallized
+into diamonds. By far the most vigorous of so many frigid odes is the
+battle cry addressed by him in old age to Louis XIII setting out against
+La Rochelle. He visited that siege, but had the misfortune to die a bare
+week before the fall of the city. The most powerful of his sonnets, or
+rather the only powerful one, is that in which he calls to Our Lord for
+vengeance against the men who killed his son. Catholicism in its every
+effect, political and personal, as it were literary too, possessed the
+man, so that in ending the types of the French Renaissance with him you
+see how the terms in which ultimately the French express themselves are
+and will remain religious. The last two lines of his most famous and
+most Catholic poem have about them just that sound which saves them, in
+spite of their too simple words, from falling into the vulgar
+commonplace of vague and creedless men. In writing them down one seems
+to be writing down the fate of the great century now tamed, alas! and
+ordered, as must be the violence of over-human things:--
+
+    Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule Science
+              Qui nous met en repos.
+
+
+
+                                 EXTRACTS.
+
+     (_From the "Ode to Louis XIII setting out against La Rochelle,"
+                and the "Sonnet on his son's death."_)
+
+It has been remarked that Malherbe in his most vigorous years
+deliberately employed the strength of his mind to the repression of
+emotion in his verse, and used it only to fashion, guide, control, and
+at last fix permanently the rules of the language. It is certainly true
+that as his bodily vigour declined, a certain unexpected anger and
+violence enters into his verse, to the great relief of us moderns: not
+to that of his contemporaries.
+
+Of this feature in him, the two following extracts are sufficient proof.
+They were written, the first at the close of his seventy-second, the
+other at the entry of his seventy-third year. In each, something close
+to his heart was at issue, and in each he gives some vent--far more than
+had been his wont--to passion.
+
+The first is a cry to Louis XIII to have done with the Huguenot. It was
+written to the camp before La Rochelle. I know of nothing in French
+literature which more expresses the intense current of national feeling
+against the nobility and rich townsmen who had attempted to warp the
+national tradition and who had re-introduced into French life the
+element which France works perpetually to throw out as un-European,
+ill-cultured and evil. Indeed, the reading of it is of more value to the
+comprehension of the national attitude than any set history you may
+read.
+
+The second is in its way a thing equally religious and equally catholic.
+This call for vengeance to God was not only an expression of anger
+called forth by his son's death, it was also, and very largely, the
+effect of a reaction against the ethics of Geneva: an attack on the
+idolatry at once of meekness and of fatality which was to him so
+intolerable a corruption of the Christian religion.
+
+There is some doubt as to whether it is his last work. I believe it to
+be so; but Blaise, in his excellent edition, prints the dull and
+unreadable ode to Lagade later, and ascribes it to the same year.
+
+                         _ODE TO LOUIS XIII._
+
+    _Fais choir en sacrifice au demon de la France
+    Les fronts trop eleves de ces ames d'enfer;
+    Et n'epargne contre eux, pour notre delivrance,
+              Ni le feu ni le fer.
+
+    Assez de leurs complots l'infidele malice
+    A nourri le desordre et la sedition:
+    Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justice
+              En leur punition.
+
+    Le centieme decembre a les plaines ternies,
+    Et le centieme avril les a peintes de fleurs,
+    Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies
+              Ne causent que des pleurs.
+
+    Dans toutes les fureurs des siecles de tes peres,
+    Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien
+    Que l'inhumanite de ces coeurs de viperes
+              Ne renouvelle au tien?
+
+    Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes desertes,
+    Tant de grands batiments en masures changes,
+    Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,
+              Que par ces enrages?
+
+    Marche, va les detruire, eteins-en la semence,
+    Et suis jusqu'a leur fin ton courroux genereux,
+    Sans jamais ecouter ni pitie ni clemence
+              Qui te parle pour eux.
+
+    Toutes les autres morts n'ont merite ni marque;
+    Celle-ci porte seule un eclat radieux,
+    Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barque
+              A la table des dieux._
+
+
+
+                     _SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH._
+
+    _Que mon fils ait perdu sa depouille mortelle,
+    Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,
+    Je ne l'impute point a l'injure du sort,
+    Puis que finir a l'homme est chose naturelle.
+
+    Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidele
+    Ait termine ses jours d'une tragique mort,
+    En cela ma douleur n'a point de reconfort,
+    Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.
+
+    O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,
+    Le trouble de mon ame etant sans guerison,
+    Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu legitime,
+
+    Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifie;
+    Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crime
+    Sont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifie._
+
+
+
+              EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."
+
+These stanzas, which are among the best-known as they are, in the
+opinion of many, the dullest, in French literature, serve well to close
+this book.
+
+One verse at least (the fourth) is most legitimately famous, though it
+is hackneyed from the constant repetition of fools. For the rest a
+certain simplicity, a great precision, may or may not atone for their
+deliberate coldness.
+
+What is certain is that, poetry or not, they admirably express the
+spirit of his pen and its prodigious effect. They express the classical
+end of the French Renaissance with as much weight and hardness as the
+great blank walls of stone that were beginning to show in the rebuilding
+of Paris. It is for this quality that I have printed them here, using
+them as the definite term of that long, glorious, and uncertain phase in
+European letters.
+
+
+                  _THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."_
+
+    _Ta douleur, du Perrier, sera donc eternelle?
+      Et les tristes discours
+    Que te met en l'esprit l'amitie paternelle
+      L'augmenteront toujours?_
+
+    _Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descendue
+      Par un commun trepas,
+    Est-ce quelque dedale ou ta raison perdue
+      Ne se retrouve pas?_
+
+    _Je sais de quels appas son enfance etoit pleine,
+      Et n'ai pas entrepris,
+    Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peine
+      Avecque son mepris._
+
+    _Mais elle etoit du monde, ou les plus belles choses
+      Ont le pire destin;
+    Et rose elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses
+      L'espace d'un matin._
+
+    _Puis quand ainsi seroit que, selon ta priere,
+      Elle auroit obtenu
+    D'avoir en cheveux blancs termine sa carriere,
+      Qu'en fut-il avenu?_
+
+    _Penses-tu que, plus vieille, en la maison celeste
+      Elle eut eu plus d'accueil,
+    Ou qu'elle eut moins senti la poussiere funeste
+      Et les vers du cercueil?_
+
+    _De moi, deja deux fois d'une pareille foudre
+      Je me suis vu perclus;
+    Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait resoudre,
+      Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus._
+
+    _Non qu'il ne me soit mal que la tombe possede
+      Ce qui me fut si cher;
+    Mais en un accident qui n'a point de remede,
+      Il n'en faut point chercher._
+
+    _La Mort a des rigueurs a nulle autre pareilles:
+      On a beau la prier;
+    La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,
+      Et nous laisse crier._
+
+    _Le pauvre en sa cabane, ou le chaume le couvre,
+      Est sujet a ses lois;
+    Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre
+      N'en defend point nos rois._
+
+    _De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience,
+      Il est mal a propos;
+    Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
+      Qui nous met en repos._
+
+    "_Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
+              Qui nous met en repos._"
+
+
+
+
+                                NOTES.
+
+
+                         CHARLES OF ORLEANS.
+
+THE COMPLAINT.
+
+Line 5. _Prins._ An inaccurate pedantic past participle of _prendre_.
+
+Line 14. _Faulse._ There is to be noted here and elsewhere throughout
+these extracts, until the modern spelling at the close of the period,
+the redundant "l" in many words. It was an effect of pure pedantry. The
+latin "l" had become _u_ in northern French. _Falsa_ made, naturally,
+"Fausse." The partial learning of the later middle ages reintroduced an
+"l" which was not known to be transformed, but was thought omitted.
+
+Line 24. _Liesse._ One of the commonest words of this epoch, lost to
+modern French. It means joy=_laetitia_.
+
+Line 25. Note the gender of "Amour," feminine even in the singular
+throughout the middle ages and renaissance--right up to the seventeenth
+century.
+
+THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.
+
+I
+
+Line 1. _Fourriers._ The servants who go before to find lodging. The
+term survives in French military terminology. The _Fourriers_ are the
+non-commissioned officers and party who go forward and mark the
+Billeting of a regiment.
+
+Line 9. _Pieca=il y a piece_; "lately". _Cf._ _naguere_="_il n'y a
+guere...."_
+
+Line 11. _Prenez pais_="take the fields," begone.
+
+Line 19. Note "_Chant_," the regular form of the subjunctive=_Cantet_.
+The only latin vowel preserved after the tonic syllable is a=French e
+(mute). Thus _contat_="chante" which form has in modern French usurped
+the subjunctive.
+
+Line 23. _Livree_="Liberata," _i.e._, things given out. A term
+originally applied not only to clothing, but to the general allowance of
+the king's household. Hence our word "livery."
+
+
+THE FAREWELL.
+
+Line 2. _Chiere lie._ "Happy countenance." _Chiere_ here is the
+substantive, _lie_=_laeta_, is the adjective. _Bonne chere_ means "a
+good time" where _chere_ is an old word for "head" (Greek: kara).
+
+Line 5. _Baillie_=Bailliwick, "For Age that has me now within her
+bounds."
+
+Line 7. _Mye._ "Crumb". "I am not a whit (not a crumb) with her (_Joie_)
+to-day."
+
+Line 15. "Well braced," literally "well girthed" (as a horse is).
+
+
+
+                               VILLON.
+
+THE DEAD LADIES.
+
+Stanza 1, line 1. Note the redundant negative; it is characteristic of
+mediaeval French, as of all primitive work, that the general suggestion
+of doubt is sufficient to justify a redundant negative.
+
+Line 2. _Flora_, etc. It is worth while knowing who these women were.
+_Flora_ is Juvenal's Flora (Sat. II. 9), a legend in the university. Of
+_Archipiada_ I know nothing. _Thais_ was certainly the Egyptian
+courtesan turned anchoress and canonized, famous in the middle ages and
+revived to-day in the repulsive masterpiece of M. Anatole France.
+_Elois_ is, of course, _Heloise_, and _Esbaillart_ is Abelard. The
+queen, who in the legend had Buridan (and many others) drowned, was the
+Dowager of Burgundy that lived in the Tour de Nesle, where the Palais
+Mazarin is now, and had half the university for a lover: in sober
+history she founded that college of Burgundy from which the Ecole de
+Medecine is descended; the legend about her is first heard of (save in
+this poem) in 1471, from the pen of a German in Leipzig. _Blanche_ may
+be Blanche of Castille, but more likely she was a vision of Villon's
+own, for what did St. Louis' mother ever sing? _Berte_ is the legendary
+mother of Charlemagne in the Epics; _Beatris_ is any Beatrice you
+choose, for they have all died. _Allis_ may just possibly be one of the
+Troubadour heroines, more likely she is here introduced for rhyme and
+metre; _Haremburgis_ is strictly historical: she was the Heiress of
+Maine who married Foulque of Anjou in 1110 and died in 1126: an
+ancestress, therefore, of the Plantagenets. _Jehanne_ is, of course,
+Joan of Arc.
+
+Line 8. _D'Antan_ is _not_ "Yester-year." It is "Ante annum," all time
+past before _this_ year. Rossetti's "Yester-year" moreover, is an absurd
+and affected neologism; "Antan" is an excellent and living French word.
+
+Stanza II, line 2. Note the pronunciation of "Moyne" to rhyme (more or
+less) with "eine": the oi, ai and ei sounds were very similar till the
+sixteenth century at earliest. They are interchangeable in many popular
+provincialisms and in some words, _e.g._, Fouet, pronounced "Foit" the
+same tendency survives. The transition began in the beginning of the
+seventeenth century as we learn from Vaugelas: and the influence towards
+the modern sound came from the Court.
+
+Stanza III, line 2. _Seraine_="Syren."
+
+Line 5. "_Jehanne_", "_Jehan_", in spite of the classical survival in
+their spelling, were monosyllables from the earliest times.
+
+Line 7. The "_elles_" here would not scan but for the elided "e" in
+"_souv'raine_" at the end of the line. In some editions "_ils_" is found
+and _souveraine_ is spelt normally. _Ils_ and _els_ for a feminine
+plural existed in the middle ages.
+
+_Envoi._ The envoi needs careful translation. The "que" of the third
+line="sans que" and the whole means, "Do not ask this week or this year
+where they are, _without_ letting this refrain haunt you". "Que" might
+possibly mean "de peur que", did not the whole sense of the poem forbid
+such an interpretation.
+
+AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.
+
+Stanza 75, line 4. A charming example of those "flashes" which reveal
+Villon.
+
+Stanza 76, line 2. Note the spelling of _Grant_ in the feminine without
+an _e_. Adjectives of the third declension whose feminine was not
+distinguishable in Latin took no "e" in early French. A survival of this
+is found in grand' rue, grand' messe, etc.
+
+Line 5. _Grant erre_, "quickly", and the whole line reads: "Let it (my
+body) be delivered to it (luy=la terre) quickly," the "erre" here is
+from the popular late Latin "_iterare_"="_iter facere_". It survives in
+the nautical idiom "reprendre son erre"="to get under weigh again."
+
+Line 7. "_Erre_" here comes, on the contrary, from _errare_, to make a
+mistake, to err.
+
+Stanza 77, line 4. _Maillon._ Swaddling clothes.
+
+Line 5. _Boullon_, scrape. The two lines are obscure but seem to read:
+"He has got me out of many a scrape which gave him no joy" (_esioye_
+from _esjouir_=_rejouir_).
+
+Line 7 and 8. These are obscure but apparently="And beseech him on my
+knees not to forsake all joy on that account."
+
+Stanza 78, line 2. "_Le Romman du Pet au Deable_." The Pet au Deable was
+a great stone at the door of a private house in the university. The
+students took it away and all Paris fought over the matter. The "Roman"
+was a set of verses, now lost, which Villon wrote on the quarrel.
+
+Line 3. _Guy Tabarie_ who _grossa_ (wrote out), these verses was a
+friend of Villon's: soon hanged.
+
+Line 5. _Soubz._ The "b" is pedantic, the _ou_ indicates of itself the
+loss of the _b_. The "z" (and the "s" in the modern _sous_) are due to
+the derivation not from _sub_ but _subtus_.
+
+THE BALLAD OF OUR LADY.
+
+Stanza 2, line 3. _Egypcienne._ St. Mary of Egypt.
+
+Line 4. _Theophilus._ This was that clerk who sold his soul to the Devil
+and whom Our Lady redeemed. You may find the whole story sculptured on
+the Tympanum of the exquisite northern door of Notre Dame in Paris.
+
+Line 8. _Vierge Portant_="Virgin that bore a son".
+
+Stanza 3, line 4. _Luz_="luthus". "S" becomes "z."
+
+The Envoi. Note the Acrostic "Villon" in the first letters of the first
+six lines. It is a trick he played more than once.
+
+THE DEAD LORDS.
+
+Stanza 1, line 1. _Calixte._ These names are of less interest. _Calixte_
+was Pope Calixtus III, Alphonso Borgia, who died in 1458--in Villon's
+twenty-sixth year. _Alphonse_ is Alphonso V of Arragon, who died in that
+same year. The _Duc de Bourbon_ is Charles the First of Bourbon, who
+died at the end of the year 1456, "gracieux" because his son protected
+Villon. _Artus_ (Arthur) of Brittany is that same Richemont who
+recaptured Paris from Willoughby. Charles VII is Charles VII. The _Roy
+Scotiste_ is James II, who died in 1460: the _Amethyst_ half of his
+face was a birthmark. The _King of Cyprus_ is probably John III, who
+died in that same fatal year, 1458. Pedants will have it that the _King
+of Spain_ is John II of Castille, who died in 1454--but it is a better
+joke if it means nobody at all. _Lancelot_ is Vladislas of Bohemia, who
+died in 1457. _Cloquin_ is Bertrand de Guesclin who led the reconquest.
+_The Count Daulphin_ of Auvergne is doubtful; _Alencon_ is presumably
+the Alencon of Joan of Arc's campaign, who still survived, and is called
+"feu" half in ridicule, because in 1458 he had lost his title and lands
+for treason.
+
+Stanza 2, line 3. _Amatiste_=amethyst.
+
+Stanza 3, line 7. _Tayon_=Ancestor. "_Etallum._" Latin "_Stallio_."
+
+THE DIRGE.
+
+Line 1. _Cil_=celui-ci. The Latin "_ecce illum_."
+
+Line 3. _Escuelle_=bowl. "With neither bowl nor platter."
+
+Line 4. Note again the constant redundant negative of the populace in
+this scholar: "Had never, no--not a sprig of parsley."
+
+Line 5. _Rez_=ras, cropped.
+
+
+
+                                 MAROT.
+
+OF COURTING LONG AGO.
+
+Line 5. _On se prenoit_, one attacked--"it was but the heart one
+sought."
+
+Line 11. _Fainctz_=sham; "_changes_" is simply like the English
+"changes": the form survives in the idiom: "donner le change."
+
+Line 13. _Refonde_=recast.
+
+NOEL.
+
+Verse 1, line 3. _L'Autre hyer_=alterum heri, "t'other day."
+
+Line 10. _Noe._ The tendency to drop final letters, especially the _l_,
+is very marked in popular patois, and this is, of course, a song based
+on popular language. Most French peasants north of the Loire would still
+say "Noe" for "Noel." _Noel_ is, of course, _Natalem_ (diem).
+
+Verse 2, line 2. _Cas de si hault faict_=so great a matter.
+
+
+TWO EPIGRAMS. Epigram 1, line 2. _Vostre._ Marguerite of Navarre. As I
+have remarked, in the text, she had sent him a Dixaine (some say he
+wrote it himself). This one is written in answer.--_Ay._ Note, till the
+verb grew over simple in the classical French of the seventeenth century
+there was no more need for the pronoun than in Latin. Thus Montaigne
+will omit the pronoun, but Malherbe never.
+
+Line 5. _Cuydans_=thinking (_Cogitare_=_Cogtare_=_Coyde_=_cuider_, the
+_oi_ became _ui_ by a common transition; _cf._ noctem, octem, noit,
+nuit, huit.) The word is now archaic.
+
+Line 9. _Encor._ Without the final e. This is not archaic but poetic
+licence. _Encore_="hanc horam," and a post tonic "am" in Latin always
+means a final mute e in French.
+
+Epigram 2, line 1. _Maint_ (now archaic) is a word of Teutonic origin,
+our _many_.
+
+Line 6. _Coulpe_=Culpam, of course; a fault.
+
+Line 9. _Emport_. Note the old subjunctive without the final e. _Vide
+supra_, on "_Chant_." The modern usage is incorrect. For the first
+conjugation making its subjunctive in _em_, should lose the final
+syllable in French: a post tonic _em_ always disappears. The modern
+habit of putting a final e to all subjunctives is due to a false analogy
+with verbs from the third conjugation. These made their subjunctive in
+_am_, a termination which properly becomes the mute e of French.
+
+TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
+
+Line 4. _Sejour_=(here) "staying at home."
+
+Line 14, 15. _Friande de la bouche_, glutton.
+
+Line 17. _Danger._ The first meaning of "Danger" is simply "to be in
+lordship" (Dominicarium). The modern is the English "Danger." This is
+between the two; "held to your hurt."
+
+Line 26. _Doint._ This subjunctive should properly be _don_ (_donem_,
+post tonic _em_ is lost). The "oint" is from a false analogy with the
+fourth conjugation, as though the Latin had been _doniam_.
+
+THE VINEYARD SONG.
+
+Verse 1, line 2. _Clamours._ See how southern this is, with its
+Lanquedoc forms, "clamours" for "_clameurs_."
+
+Line 5. So are these diminutions all made up at random, as southern as
+can be, and note the tang of the verse, fit for a snapping of the
+fingers to mark the rapid time.
+
+Verse 3, line 2. _Benistre._ The older form of _benir_ from
+_Benedicere_; the _c_ between vowels at the end of the tonic syllable
+becomes _s_: the _t_ is added for euphony, to help one to pronounce the
+_s_.
+
+Line 3. _Silenus_ for _Silene_. Because the name was new, the Latin form
+is kept. The genius of the French, unlike that of modern English, is to
+absorb a foreign name (as we did once). Thus once we said "Anthony"
+"Tully": but Montaigne wrote "Cicero"--his descendants say "Ciceron."
+
+Line 4. _Aussi droict qu'une ligne_="right out of the flask." The flask
+held above one and the wine poured straight into the mouth. The happy
+south still know the way.
+
+Line 5. _Bigne_: a lump, a knock, a bruise.
+
+Line 6. _Guigne_=cherry.
+
+
+
+                                RONSARD.
+
+DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.
+
+Stanza 1, line 3. _Chef grison_=gray head. When he says "trente ans,"
+that is all rubbish, he was getting on for forty-three: it was written
+in 1567.
+
+Stanza 2, line 1. _Nocher_=pilot; rare but hardly archaic.
+
+Stanza 3, line 3. _Cependant_=meanwhile. The word is now seldom used in
+prose, save in the sense of "notwithstanding", "nevertheless".
+
+Stanza 5, line 1. _Loyer_=Condition of tenure.
+
+Line 2. _Ores_=Now that. Should be "_ore_" (horam). The parasitic "s"
+probably crept in by false analogy with the adverbs in "s."
+
+Stanza 6, line 1. _Lame_=tombstone. The word is no longer used.
+
+Line 4. See how, even in his lighter or prosaic manner, he cannot avoid
+great lines.
+
+Stanza 8, line 1. _Vela_=Voila. Then follows that fine ending which I
+have put on the title-page of this book.
+
+"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
+
+Line 1. _Mignonne_ is, of course, his Cassandre: her personality was
+always known through his own verse. She was fifteen when he met her and
+her brown eyes: it was in 1546 at Blois, her birthplace, whither he had
+gone to visit the Court, during his scholar's life in Paris. He met her
+thus young when he himself was but in his twenty-third year, and all
+that early, violent, not over-tilled beginning of his poetry was
+illumined by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained
+long a matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was
+Cassandre, and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantome called it
+"a false name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or
+true, time conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble."
+There need have been no doubt. D'Aubigne's testimony is sufficient. She
+was a Mlle de Pie, and such was the vagary of Ronsard's life, that it
+was her niece, Diane Salviati de Taley whom in later life he espoused
+and nearly wed.
+
+Line 3. Note _Pourpre_, and in line 5 _Pourpree_ so in line 9 _Beautez_,
+and in the last line _Beaute_: so little did he fear repetition and so
+heartily could his power carry it.
+
+Line 4. _A point_: the language was still in flux. The phrase would
+require a negative _n'_ in modern French.
+
+Line 10, 11. _Marastre... puisqu'une..._ There is here an elliptical
+construction never found in later French. Harsh stepmother nature (whom
+I call harsh) since... etc.
+
+SONNETS FOR HELENE.
+
+Sonnet XLII, line 1. _Ocieuse_="otiosa," langorous.
+
+Line 5. _Ennuy_, in the sixteenth century meant something fuller than,
+and somewhat different from the word "ennui" to-day. It was a weariness
+which had in it some permanent chagrin.
+
+Line 8. _Pipe_, "cajoles": a word which (now that it is unusual) mars
+the effect of its meaning by its insignificant sound.
+
+Lines 8 and 9. Note _ioye_, _vraye_, a feminine "e" following another
+vowel is, since Malherbe, forbidden in the interior of a verse, unless
+elided.
+
+Line 11. _Ton mort_, "your ghost."
+
+Sonnet XLIII, line 6. _Desia_=deja.
+
+Line 7. _De mon nom._ I have printed the line thus because Ronsard
+himself wished it so, and so corrected it with his own hand. But the
+original form is far finer "_Au bruit de Ronsard._"
+
+
+
+                              DU BELLAY.
+
+THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE."
+
+Line 3. _Usage._ A most powerful word in this slightly archaic sense:
+the experience of long travel: familiar knowledge of things seen.
+
+Line 12. _Loire._ This word has puzzled more than one editor. There are
+two rivers: the great river Loire, which is feminine, and the little
+Loir, which is masculine. Here Du Bellay spells the name of the great
+river, but puts it in the masculine gender. It has been imagined that he
+was talking of the smaller river. But he was not. The Loire alone has
+any connection with Lire or with his life, and as for the gender,
+strained as the interpretation may seem, I believe that Du Bellay
+deliberately used it in the parallel with the Tiber and the idea of the
+"Fleuve Paternel," to which he alludes so often elsewhere.
+
+Line 13. _Lyre._ The modern Lire, his birthplace, on the left bank of
+the Loire, just opposite Ancenis. As you go along the Poitiers road to
+the bridge it stands up on your right, just before the river.
+
+THE DOG.
+
+Line 1. _Motte_=a turf.
+
+Line 40. _Damoiselet._ Still used more or less in its old sense of a
+young man _armed_: not merely a young page or a cadet of the
+gentry,="like a little sentry."
+
+Line 43. _Anvie_=(of course) "envie."
+
+THE CAT.
+
+Line 22. _Rouet_=spinning-wheel.
+
+Line 26. _Panne_=the Italian _Panno_--cloth.
+
+Line 27. _Troigne_=the mouth and face of an animal, the muzzle.
+
+Line 32. _Chere_=(originally) "head" and one of the few old French words
+derived from Greek, but the first signification has long been lost. Here
+the phrase is equivalent to "faire bonne chere" which has for centuries
+been used proverbially for what we call "a good time." _V. supra_ in
+"The Farewell" of Charles of Orleans.
+
+
+
+                                MALHERBE.
+
+EXTRACTS FROM THE "ODE TO LOUIS XIII."
+
+Stanza 3, line 1. _Centieme._ He dates the Huguenot trouble from a
+century. It may be said to have originated in the placards threatening
+the defilement of the Sacrament, placards which appeared in the streets
+of Paris in 1525.
+
+Stanza 2, line 3. _Le nom de Juste._ Louis XIII had no particular
+affectation of that title: it is rather a reminiscence of his distant
+collatoral and namesake who closed the fifteenth century.
+
+Last stanza, line 1. _Toutes les autres morts._ He has just been
+speaking of death in battle against the factions.
+
+SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH.
+
+Line 1. _Mon fils._ The only survivor of his many children, a young man,
+just called to the bar at Aix and passionately loved by his father, he
+bore the curious name of Marc-Anthony. A M. de Piles killed him in a
+duel, having for second his brother-in-law. The whole was an honourable
+bit of business, and the death such as men of honour must be prepared to
+risk: but Malherbe would see no reason and defamed the adversary.
+
+Line 9. _La Raison._ The idea runs all through Malherbe's work. It is
+his distinguishing note, and is the spirit which differentiates him so
+powerfully from the sixteenth century, that this stoical balance or
+regulator which he calls "La Raison," and which governed France for two
+hundred years, is his rule and text for verse and prose as well as for
+practical life. Even the grandeur to which it gave rise seemed to him
+accidental. He demanded "la raison" only, and felt the necessity of it
+in art as acutely as though its absence were something immoral.
+
+EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."
+
+Stanza 1, line 1. _Duperrier._ A critic of sorts and a gentleman, living
+in Provence and perhaps of Provencal ancestry. The verses were written
+while Malherbe's fame was still local, two years before the king's visit
+had lifted him to Paris.
+
+Stanza 2, line 2. _Ta fille._ The child Marguerite. Her name does not
+appear in the poem nor in any letter; we have it from Racan.
+
+Stanza 10, line 3. _Et la garde, etc._ These two lines are quoted,
+sometimes, not often, by admirers who would prove that Malherbe was not
+incapable of colour or of warmth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc
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