The Project Gutenberg EBook of Avril, by H. Belloc

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Avril
Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance

Author: H. Belloc

Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #18839]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AVRIL ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Renald Levesque and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

AVRIL

BEING

ESSAYS ON THE POETRY OF THE
FRENCH RENAISSANCE

BY

H. BELLOC

"... _Ceux dont la Fantaisie
Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu
Tousjours acheveront quelque grant Poesie,
Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu._"

LONDON
DUCKWORTH AND CO.
3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVE NT GARDEN, W.C.

1904

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

Part of this book originally appeared
in "The Pilot," and is here reprinted
by kind permission of the Editor.

CONTENTS

CHARLES OF ORLEANS
VILLON
MAROT
RONSARD
Du BELLAY
MALHERBE

DEDICATION

TO
F.Y. ECCLES

MY DEAR ECCLES,

You will, I know, permit me to address you these essays which are more
the product of your erudition than of my enthusiasm.

With the motives of their appearance you are familiar.

We have wondered together that a society so avid of experience and
enlargement as is ours, should ignore the chief expression of its
closest neighbour, its highest rival and its coheir in Europe: should
ignore, I mean, the literature of the French.

We have laughed together, not without despair, to see the mind of
England, for all its majesty and breadth, informed at th