. The massive
castles of the baronage, with their ranges of marble steps leading up to
the hall, where feasting is held by day and where the knights sleep at
night, are often described. Dress is mentioned with peculiar lavishness.
Pelisses of ermine, ornaments of gold and silver, silken underclothing,
seem to give the poets special pleasure in recording them. In no
language are what have been called 'perpetual' epithets more usual,
though the abundance of the recurring phrases prevents monotony. The
'clear countenances' of the ladies, the 'steely brands' of the knights,
their 'marble palaces,' the 'flowing beard' of Charlemagne, the
'guileful tongue' of the traitors, are constant features of the verbal
landscape. From so great a mass of poetry it would be vain in any space
here available to attempt to arrange specimen 'jewels five words long.'
But those who actually read the Chansons will be surprised at the
abundance of fresh striking and poetic phrase.

[Sidenote: Later History.]

Before quitting the subject of the Chansons de Gestes, it may be well to
give briefly their subsequent literary history. They were at first
frequently re-edited, the tendency always being to increase their
length, so that in some cases the latest versions extant run to thirty
or forty thousand lines. As soon as this limit was reached, they began
to be turned into prose, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries being
the special period of this change. The art of printing came in time to
assist the spread of these prose versions, and for some centuries they
were almost the only form in which the Chansons de Gestes, under the
general title of romances of chivalry, were known. The verse originals
remained for the most part in manuscript, but the prose romances gained
an enduring circulation among the peasantry in France. From the
seventeenth century their vogue was mainly restricted to this class. But
in the middle of the eighteenth the Comte de Tressan was induced to
attempt their revival for the _Bibliotheque des Romans_. His versions
were executed entirely in the spirit of the day, and did not render any
of the characteristic features of the old Epics. But they drew attention
to them, and by the end of the century, University Professors began to
lecture on old French poetry. The exertions of M. Paulin Paris, of M.
Francisque Michel, and of some German scholars first brought about the
re-editing of the Chansons in their original form about half