well as by composing many
small poems of the occasional kind. Charles Fontaine exhibited the fancy
of the time for conceits in the entitling of books by denominating his
poems _Ruisseaux de la Fontaine_, and was one of the chief champions on
Marot's side in the quarrel with Sagon, while he afterwards defended the
_style Marotique_ against Du Bellay's announcement of the programme of
the Pleiade. But perhaps he would hardly deserve much remembrance, save
for a charming little poem to his new-born son, which M. Asselineau has
made accessible to everybody in Crepet's _Poetes Francais_[173]. He also
figures in a literary tournament very characteristic of the age. La
Borderie, another disciple of Marot, had written a poem entitled _L'Amye
de Cour_, which defended libertinism, or at least worldly-mindedness in
love, in reply to the _Parfaite Amye_ of Antoine Heroet, which exhibits
very well a certain aspect of the half-amorous, half-mystical sentiment
of the day. Fontaine rejoined in a _Contr'Amye de Cour_. Maurice Sceve
is also a typical personage. He was, it may be said, the head of the
Lyonnese school, and was esteemed all over France. He was excepted by
the irreverent champions of the Pleiade from the general ridicule which
they poured on their predecessors, and was surrounded by a special body
of feminine devotees and followers, including his kinswomen Claudine and
Sibylle Sceve, Jeanne Gaillarde, and above all Louise Labe. Sceve's
poetical work is strongly tinged with classical affectation and Platonic
mysticism; and his chief poem, _De l'Objet de la plus haute Vertu_,
consists of some four hundred and fifty dizains written in what in
England and later has been, not very happily, called a metaphysical
style. Last of all comes the just-mentioned Louise Labe, 'La belle
Cordiere,' one of the chief ornaments of Lyons, and the most important
French poetess of the sixteenth century. Louise was younger, and wrote
later than most of the authors just mentioned, and in some respects she
belongs to the school of Ronsard, like her supposed lover, Olivier de
Magny. But the Lyons school was essentially _Marotique_, and much of the
style of the elder master is observable in the writings of Louise[174].
She has left a prose _Dialogue d'Amour et de Folie_, three elegies, and
a certain number of sonnets. Her poems are perhaps the most genuinely
passionate of the time and country, and many of the sonnets are
extremely beautiful. The langua