o description of the body; there is no
gallantry. The beautiful Aude apprehends the death of Roland; she
falls dead. In the second half of the twelfth century our poets would
have been incapable of so simple and noble a conception. We find, even
in '_Amis et Amelis_,' women who are still very German in physiognomy,
and alluring, but they are Germans, so to say, of the second manner.
They have a habit of throwing themselves into the arms of the first
man who takes their fancy.

"Each one of the races which composed France or Gaul in the sixth or
seventh century, contributed its share toward the future epics. The
Celts furnished their character, the Romans their language, the Church
its faith; but the Germans did more. For long centuries they had the
habit of chanting in popular verse their origin, their victories and
their heroes. Above all they penetrated the new poetry with their new
spirit. All the German ideas upon war, royalty, family and government,
upon woman and right, passed into the epic of the French.

"Our fathers had no epics, it is true, but they had popular chants,
rapid, ardent and short, which are precisely what we have called
cantilenas. A cantilena is at the same time a recitation and an ode.
It is at times a complaint and more often a round. It is a hymn, above
all religious and musical, which runs over the lips and which, thanks
to its brevity, mainly, is easily graven upon the memory. The
cantilenas were a power in society; they caused the most powerful to
tremble. When a captain wished to nerve himself up against a bad
action he said, 'They will make a bad song about me.'

"The heroes and the deeds which gave birth to French epics are those
of the commencement of the eighth century to the end of the tenth.
France is then more than a mere land; it is a country; a single
religious faith fills all hearts and all intelligence. Toward the end
of the tenth century we see the popular singers arresting crowds in
all public places. They sing poems of 3,000 or 4,000 verses. These are
the first of the _Chansons de Geste_. Out of the great number of
cantilenas dedicated to a single hero it happened that some poet had
the happy thought of combining them into a single poem. Thus came a
suite of pieces about Roland or William, and from these, in time, an
epic. The latest of the epic cycles was that concerning the crusades.
The style is popular, rapid, easy to sing. It recalls the Homeric
poetry. The constant e