n that I shall not attempt to render into English their
ephemeral charm. The French of five hundred years ago is not "Frenshe of
Paris" to most of us: rather is it of the school of "Stratford atte
Bow," or of some other school we have never attended, and therefore I
have chosen to give, with some changes in orthography, one of the
simplest of Christine's _jeux a vendre_. It is a lover's song in praise
of his lady beautiful and good:

"Je vous vens la rose de mai?
Oncques en ma vie n'aimai
Autant dame ne damoiselle
Que je fais vous, gente femelle,
Si me retenez a ami,
Car tout avez le coeur de mi (moi).
..........................................
Je vous vens l'oiselet en gage?
Si vous etes faulx, c'est dommage,
Car vous etes et belle et doulx,
Si n'ayez telle tache en vous,
Et digne serez d'etre aimee,
Belle et bonne et bien renommee."

In other poems written for her courtly admirers Christine does not
hesitate to voice sentiments quite out of keeping with the manners of
her patrons. It is thus that she says: "If true honor is to be
reapportioned, many do I know who will have but a little share in it,
despite their thinking that they have all that wealth, beauty, noble
birth, and fine clothes can give, and that therefore they are very
princes. But however noble he be in outward show, no man is noble who
lends himself to evil deeds or evil words. Thus some there are in whose
boasting there is not one word of truth, who will tell you that the
fairest ladies in the land have honored them with love. Good Lord! what
gentility! How ill it becomes a noble man to lie and tell false tales of
women! Such fellows are but villains, pure and simple; and should there
be a redistribution of honors, theirs should be cut down."

Not infrequently, alas, the pride of learning mars her verse; it is
overloaded with pedantic allusions, stiff with learning, and too
manifestly the product of a learned head rather than of an overflowing
heart. Where these faults appear less, or not at all, is in the poems
inspired by genuine feeling for her loved ones; there the real heart of
the woman, bravely struggling to bear up and smile before the world, is
laid bare to us in sudden glimpses of unpremeditated poetry. It is an
old theme, but one of pathos ever fresh, that we find in the following
lines:

"Je chante par couverture (_i. e._