her
departments of literature. Such are Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel, Guyot
de Provins. There are, however, two, Gace Brule and Colin Muset, who
survive solely but worthily as song writers. Gace Brule was a knight of
Champagne, Colin Muset a professed minstrel. The former chiefly composed
sentimental work; the latter, with the proverbial or professional gaiety
of his class, drew nearer to the satirical tone of the Fabliau writers.
His best-known and most usually quoted work describes the different
welcome which he receives from his family on his return from
professional tours, according to the success or ill-success with which
he has met. Two other poets, Adam de la Halle and Ruteboeuf, are far
more prominent in literary history. Adam de la Halle[73] bore the
surname 'Le Bossu d'Arras,' from his native town, though the term
hunchback seems to have had no literal application to him. His exact
date is not known, but it must probably have been from the fourth to the
ninth decade of the thirteenth century. His dramatic works, which are of
signal importance, will be noticed elsewhere. But besides these he has
left some seventy or eighty lyrical pieces of one kind or another.
Adam's life was not uneventful; he was at first a monk, but left his
convent and married. Then he proved as faithless to his temporal as he
had been to his spiritual vows. He lampooned his wife, his family, his
townsmen, and, shaking the dust of Arras from his feet, retired first to
Douai and then to the court of Robert of Artois, whom he accompanied to
Italy. He died in that country about 1288. The style of Adam de la Halle
varies from the coarsest satire to the most graceful tenderness. Of the
latter the following song is a good specimen:--

Diex!
Comment porroie
Trouver voie
D'aler a chelui
Cui amiete je sui?
Chainturelle, va-i
En lieu de mi;
Car tu fus sieue aussi,
Si m'en conquerra miex.

Mais comment serai sans ti?
Dieus!
Chainturelle, mar vous vi;
Au deschaindre m'ochies;
De mes grietes a vous me confortoie,
Quant je vous sentoie,
Ai mi!
A le saveur de mon ami.
Ne pour quant d'autres en ai,
A cleus d'argent et de soie,
Pour men user.
Mais lasse! comment porroie
Sans cheli durer
Qui me tient en joie?

Canchonnete, chelui proie