istake is interesting, and is probably the first example of
that fatal error of not knowing when to leave off, which is even worse
than the commoner one (to be found in some great artists) of "huddling
up the story." The only thing to be said in excuse is that you could cut
his majesty Florus out of the title and tale at once without even the
slightest difficulty, and with no need to mend or meddle in any other
way.

The remaining stories of the thirteenth-century volume are curiously
contrasted. One is a short prose version of that exquisite _chanson de
geste_, _Amis et Amiles_, of which it has been said above that any one
who cannot "taste" it need never hope to understand mediaeval
literature. The full beauty of the verse story does not appear in the
prose; but some does.

[Sidenote: _Le Comtesse de Ponthieu._]

Of the other, the so-called "Comtesse de Ponthieu" (though she is not
really this, being only the Count's daughter and the wife of a vassal),
I thought rather badly when I first read it thirty or forty years ago,
and till the present occasion I have never read it since. Now I think
better of it, especially as a story suggestive in story-telling art. The
original stumbling-block, which I still see, though I can get over or
round it better now, was, I think, the character of the heroine, who
inherits not merely the tendency to play fast and loose with successive
husbands, which is observable in both _chanson_ and _roman_ heroines,
but something of the very unlovely savagery which is also sometimes
characteristic of them; while the hero also is put in "unpleasant"
circumstances. He is a gentleman and a good knight, and though only a
vassal of the Count of Ponthieu, he, as has been said, marries the
Count's daughter, entirely to her and her father's satisfaction. But
they are childless, and the inevitable "monseigneur Saint _Jakeme_" (St.
James of Compostella) suggests himself for pilgrimage. Thiebault, the
knight, obtains leave from his lady to go, and she, by a device not
unprettily told, gets from him leave to go too. Unfortunately and
unwisely they send their suite on one morning, and ride alone through a
forest, where they are set upon by eight banditti. Thiebault fights
these odds without flinching, and actually kills three, but is
overpowered by sheer numbers. They do not kill him, but bind and toss
him into a thicket, after which they take vengeance of outrage on the
lady and depart, fearing the return