tion, which his death interrupted.

[171] The _blason_ (description) was a child of the mediaeval _dit_.
Marot's examples, _Le beau Tetin_ and _Le laid Tetin_, were copied _ad
infinitum_. The first is panegyric, the second abuse.

[172] Ed. Frank. 4 vols. Paris, 1873-4.

[173] i. 651.

[174] Ed. Tross. Paris, 1871.

[175] Ed. Blanchemain, 3 vols. Paris, 1873.

[176] This great collection, which awaits its completion of glossary,
etc., was published between 1855 and 1878, and is invaluable to any one
desiring to appreciate the general characteristics of the poetical
literature of the time.

[177] Much help has been received in the writing of this chapter, and
indeed of this book, from the excellent work of MM. Hatzfeld and
Darmesteter, _Le Seizieme Siecle en France_ (Paris, 1878), one of the
best histories extant in a small compass of a brief but important period
of literature. We may hope for a still more elaborate study of the same
subject in English from Mr. Arthur Tilley, of King's College, Cambridge.
An introductory volume to this study appeared in 1885.

CHAPTER III.

RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

[Sidenote: Fiction at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.]

At the beginning of the sixteenth century prose fiction in France was
represented by a considerable mass of literature divided sharply into
two separate classes of very different nature and value. On the one hand
the prose versions of the Chansons de Gestes and the romances, Arthurian
and adventurous, which had succeeded the last and most extensive verse
rehandlings of these works in the fourteenth century, made up a
considerable body of work, rarely possessing much literary merit, and
characterised by all the faults of monotony, repetition, and absence of
truthful character-drawing which distinguish late mediaeval work. On the
other hand, there was a smaller body of short prose tales[178] sometimes
serious in character and of not inconsiderable antiquity, more
frequently comic and satirical, and corresponding in prose to the
Fabliaux in verse. It has been pointed out that in the hands, real or
supposed, of Antoine de la Salle this latter kind of work had attained a
high standard of perfection. But it was as yet extremely limited in
style, scope, and subject. Valour, courtesy, and love made up the list
of subjects of the serious work, and the stock materials for satire,
women, marriage, priests, etc., that of the comic. Although we have so