s been that of the late M.
Paulin Paris, who edited reprints of all sorts with untiring energy, and
in a thoroughly literary spirit. The Chansons de Gestes have been the
especial care of M. Paulin Paris, his son M. Gaston Paris (_Histoire
Poetique de Charlemagne_), and M. Leon Gautier, who has written, and is
now republishing in an altered and improved form, a great work on the
early French epics. The Arthurian romances have been more studied in
Germany and Belgium than in France, though valuable work has been done
in them by M. Paulin Paris, M. Hucher, and others. The Fabliaux have
recently appeared in a nearly complete edition, by M. de Montaiglon. M.
P. Meyer has thrown new light on the _Roman d'Alixandre_. The _Roman du
Renart_, also published by Meon, has been undertaken again by M. Ernest
Martin. The separate authors of the later ages have, in almost every
case, been the subject of much careful work, and for some years past a
'Societe des Anciens Textes Francais' has existed for the express
purpose of publishing unprinted MSS. This society has undertaken the
great collection of _Miracles de Notre Dame_, the works of Eustache
Deschamps, and other important tasks. A great deal of excellent work in
the same direction has been done in Belgium by members of the various
Academies. The great classics of France, from the sixteenth century
onward, have been the object of constant and careful editing, such as
the classics of no other country have enjoyed. Nor has the linguistic
part of the study been omitted. The two chief monuments of this are the
great dictionary of Littre, and the complement of it, now in course of
publication, by M. Godefroy, which contains a complete lexicon of the
older tongue. Among the collections of old French literature, the
Bibliotheque Elzevirienne may be especially noticed. This, besides many
reprints of isolated authors, contains invaluable examples of the early
theatre, a still more precious collection of scattered poems of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and one of miscellanies of the
sixteenth and seventeenth. Under the Empire the government began the
publication of all the Chansons de Gestes, but the enterprise was
unfortunately interrupted at the tenth volume.

[Sidenote: Philosophical Writers.]

[Sidenote: Comte.]

The branches of literature, other than the Belles Lettres, which
naturally retain, longer than those which busy themselves with science
as it is now understood, the