rs. It is conjectured that in a base Latin fragment of the 10th
century we possess a translation of a poem on the siege of Girona.
Gaston Paris dates from this lost epic the open expression of what he
calls "the epic fermentation" of France. But the earliest existing
chanson de geste is also by far the noblest and most famous, the
_Chanson de Roland_; the conjectural date of the composition of this
poem has been placed between the years 1066 and 1095. That the author,
as has been supposed, was one of the conquerors of England, it is
perhaps rash to assert, but undoubtedly the poem was composed before the
First Crusade, and the writer lived at or near the sanctuary of Mont
Saint-Michel. The _Chanson de Roland_ stands at the head of modern
French literature, and its solidity and grandeur give a dignity to the
whole class of poetry of which it is the earliest and by far the noblest
example. But it is in the crowd of looser and later poems, less fully
characterized, less steeped in the individuality of their authors, that
we can best study the form of the typical chanson de geste. These epics
sprang from the soil of France; they were national and historical; their
anonymous writers composed them spontaneously, to a common model, with
little regard to the artificial niceties of style. The earlier examples,
which succeed the _Roland_, are unlike that great work in having no
plan, no system of composition. They are improvisations which wander on
at their own pace, whither accident may carry them. This mass of
medieval literature is monotonous, primitive and superficial. As Leon
Gautier has said, in the rudimentary psychology of the chansons de
geste, man is either entirely good or entirely bad. There are no fine
shades, no observation of character. The language in which these poems
are composed is extremely simple, without elaboration, without ornament.
Everything is sacrificed to the telling of a story by a narrator of
little skill, who helps himself along by means of a picturesque, but
almost childish fancy, and a primitive sentiment of rhythm. Two great
merits, however, all the best of these poems possess, force and
lucidity; and they celebrate, what they did much to create, that
unselfish elevation of temper which we call the spirit of chivalry.

Perhaps the most important cycle of chansons de geste was that which was
collected around the name of Charlemagne, and was known as the _Geste du
roi_. A group of this cycle dealt