tirical in substance, though the
_Menippee_ is almost wholly political, and Regnier busies himself with
social and moral subjects only. Both possess in a high degree the
characteristics of the period which they close. Both exhibit a
remarkable power of treating ephemeral subjects in a manner calculated
to make their interest something more than ephemeral. Both have met with
the just reward of continuing to be popular even at times when the most
unjust unpopularity rested on work scarcely less excellent but less
calculated to please the taste of those who, however much they may
sympathise with the fashions of their own day, are unable to sympathise
with those of a day which is not theirs.

The _Satyre Menippee_[222] was a remarkable, and, for those who take an
interest both in literature and in politics, a most encouraging instance
of the power of literary treatment at certain crises of political
matters. It appeared in 1594, at the crucial period of the League. For
years there had existed the party known for the most part
uncomplimentarily as _Les Politiques_. These persons professed
themselves unable to find, in the simple difference of Catholic _v._
Protestant, a _casus belli_ for Frenchmen against Frenchmen. Their
influence, however, though it occasionally rose to the surface in the
days of Charles IX. and Henri III., had never been lasting, and they
laboured under the charge of being Laodiceans, trimmers, men who cared
for nothing but hollow peace and material prosperity. The assassination
of Henri III., and the open confederation between the Leaguers and the
Spanish party, at last gave them their opportunity, and it was seized
with an adroitness which would have been remarkable in a single man, but
which is still more remarkable in a group of men of very different
antecedents, professions, ages, and beliefs. The _Satyre Menippee_ is,
in fact, the first and most admirable example of the theory of the
modern newspaper--the theory that the combined ability of many men is
likely, on the whole, to treat complicated and ephemeral affairs better
than the limited, though perhaps individually greater, ability of any
one man. The _Menippee_, prose and verse, was due to the working of a
new Pleiade--Leroy, Gillot, Passerat, Rapin, Chrestien, Pithou, and
Durant. Most of them were lawyers, a few were more or less connected
with the Church. Pierre Leroy, a canon of Rouen, of whom nothing is
known, but whose character De Thou pra