e the end of the poem freed from the enchantment to which he is
subjected. This Romance was early translated into English. Of the same
class is the _Roman de l'Escouffle_, where a hawk carries away the
heroine's ring, as in a well-known story of the Arabian Nights. _Amadas
et Idoine_[101] is one of the numerous histories of the success of a
squire of low degree, but is distinguished from most of them by the
originality of its conception and the vigour of its style. The scenes
where the hero is recovered of his madness by his beloved, and where,
keeping guard over her tomb, he fights with ghostly enemies, after a
time of trial of his fidelity, and rescues her from death, are unusually
brilliant. _Le Bel Inconnu_[102], which (from a curious misunderstanding
of its older form _Li Biaus Desconnus_) occurs in English form as
_Lybius Diasconus_, tells the story of a son of Gawain and the fairy
with the white hands, and thus is one of the numerous secondary Romances
of the Round Table. So also is the long and interesting _Roman du
Chevalier as Deux Espees_[103]; this extends to more than 12,000 lines,
and, though the adventures recorded are of the ordinary Round Table
pattern, there is noticeable in it a better faculty of maintaining the
interest and a completer mastery over episodes than usual. A still
longer poem (also belonging to what may be called the outer Arthurian
cycle) is _Durmart le Gallois_[104], which contains almost 16,000
verses. The loves of the hero and Fenise, the Queen of Ireland, are
somewhat lengthily handled; but there are passages of merit, especially
one most striking episode in which the hero, riding through a forest by
night, comes to a tree covered from top to bottom with burning torches,
while a shining naked child is enthroned on the summit. These touches of
mystical religion are rarer in the later Romans d'Aventures than in the
Arthurian Romances proper, but with them one of the most remarkable
elements of romance disappears. Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beaumanoir
(who has other claims to literary distinction) is held to be author of
two Romans d'Aventures[105], _La Manekine_ (the story of the King of
Hungary's daughter, who cut off her hand to save herself from her
father's incestuous passion) and _Blonde d'Oxford_, where a young French
squire carries off an English heiress. _Joufrois de Poitiers_[106],
which has not come down to us complete, is chiefly remarkable for the
liveliness of style with