ity, and unlike, too, to what came after it. It dealt with
high-minded love and honor, the devotion of the strong to the weak, and
the supernatural in fiction. All this, which formed part of its
composition, has been attributed to both the Arabians and the Germans;
but it was in truth a peculiar production of the Normans, the most
active and enterprising people in Europe, a nation who pushed into
Russia, Constantinople, England, France, Sicily and Syria. A treasury
of a later date, from which the Trouveres drew their fabliaux in the
thirteenth century, was a collection of Indian tales that had been
translated into Latin in the tenth century. These fabliaux show that
inventiveness, gaiety, and simple, yet delightful esprit, which is
found nowhere but among the French. The Arabian tales, which had found
their way into France, were also turned into verse, while the anecdotes
that were picked up in the castles and towns of France, furnished other
material for the fabliaux. These tales were the common property of the
country at large, and are the source from which Boccaccio, La Fontaine,
and others drew their inspiration. Some of them became famous and have
been passed down from one age to another.

The Renard of Goethe, and the Zaire of Voltaire were taken from the old
fabliaux. In the fourteenth century the coming of the Popes and the
Roman Court to Avignon introduced an Italian element, and the language
of Tuscany took the place of the Provencal among the upper classes.

La Fontaine, called the "Prince of Fablists," appeared in the
seventeenth century. Many of his fables were borrowed from ancient
sources; but clothed in a new dress. He has been closely imitated by
his Confreres and by the fablists of other nations; but has easily
remained the most renowned of them all.

The philosophy of Descartes in the sixteenth century prepared the way
for Locke, Newton and Leibnitz; and his system, although now little
used, was really the foundation of what followed. He is said to have
given new and fresher impulse to mathematical and philosophical study
than any other student, either ancient or modern.

Pascal, a contemporary of Descartes, is renowned for his Provencal
Letters, a book that has become a classic in France. It is full of wit,
and of exquisite beauty of language; but its teaching is pure
sophistry. Pascal first set the example of writing about religion in a
tone of mock levity, especially when by so doing, he could a