omposed of short
pieces, with one notable exception, the _Miroir de Mariage_, a poem of
13,000 lines[115]. Deschamps has left no less than 1175 ballades, and as
the ballade usually contains twenty-four lines at least, and frequently
thirty-four, this of itself gives a formidable total. Rondeaus,
virelais, etc., also proceeded in great numbers from his pen; and he
wrote an important 'Art of Poetry,' a treatise rendered at once
necessary and popular by the fashion of artificial rhyming. The life of
Deschamps was less varied than that of Machault, whose inferior he was
in point of birth, but he held some important offices in his native
province, Champagne. Both Deschamps and Machault exhibit strongly the
characteristics of the time. Their ballades are for the most part either
moral or occasional in subject, and rarely display signs of much
attention to elegance of phraseology or to weight and value of thought.
In the enormous volume of their works, amounting in all to nearly
200,000 lines, and as yet mostly unpublished, there is to be found much
that is of interest indirectly, but less of intrinsic poetical worth.
The artificial forms in which they for the most part write specially
invite elegance of expression, point, and definiteness of thought,
qualities in which both, but especially Deschamps, are too often
deficient. When, for instance, we find the poet in his anxiety to
discourage swearing, filling, in imitation of two bad poets of his time,
one, if not two ballades[116] with a list of the chief oaths in use, it
is difficult not to lament the lack of critical spirit displayed.

[Sidenote: Froissart.]

Froissart, though inferior to Lescurel, and though far less remarkable
as a poet than as a prose writer, can fairly hold his own with
Deschamps and Machault, while he has the advantage of being easily
accessible[117]. The later part of his life having been given up to
history, he is not quite so voluminous in verse as his two predecessors.
Yet, if the attribution to him of the _Cour d' Amour_ and the _Tresor
Amoureux_ be correct, he has left some 40,000 or 50,000 lines. The bulk
of his work consists of long poems in the allegorical courtship of the
time, interspersed with shorter lyrical pieces in the prevailing forms.
One of these poems, the _Buisson de Jonece_, is interesting because of
its autobiographical details; and some shorter pieces approaching more
nearly to the _Fabliau_ style, _Le Dit du Florin_, _Le Debat