A Short History of French Literature
hundred, to whose work have to be added hundreds of anonymous pieces. It
would seem indeed that during a considerable period the practice of song
writing was almost as incumbent on the French gentleman of the
thirteenth century as that of sonnetteering on the English gentleman of
the sixteenth. There are, however, not a few names which deserve
separate notice. The first of these in point of time, and not the last
in point of literary importance, is that of Quesnes de Bethune, the
ancestor of Sully, and himself a famous warrior, statesman, and poet.
His epitaph by a poet not usually remarkable for eloquence[70] is a very
striking one. It gives us approximately the date of his death, 1224; and
the word _vieux_ is supposed to show that Quesnes must have been born at
least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. He took part in two
crusades, that of Philip Augustus and that which Villehardouin has
chronicled. His poems[71] are of all classes, historical, satirical, and
amorous, some of last being addressed to Marie, Countess of Champagne;
and his Chansons are, in the technical sense, some of the earliest we
possess. Contemporary with Quesnes apparently was the personage who is
known under the title of Chatelain de Coucy, and whose love for the Lady
of Fayel resulted in an interchange of very tender and beautiful verse;
the poem known as the lady's own is one of the very best of its kind.
Long afterwards lover and lady became the hero and heroine of a romance,
which has led some persons to throw doubt upon their historical
existence, and the Lady of Fayel has even been deprived of her poem by a
well-known kind of criticism. Of more importance is Thibaut de
Champagne, King of Navarre, who is indeed the most important single
figure of early French lyrical poetry. He was born in 1201, and died in
1253. His high position as a feudal prince in both north and south, the
minority of St. Louis, and the intimate relations which existed between
the King's mother, Blanche of Castille, and Thibaut, made him the mark
for a good deal of satirical invective. There is a tradition that he was
Blanche's lover, the only objection to which is that the Queen was
thirty years his senior. Thibaut's poems have been more than once
reprinted, the last edition being that of M. Tarbe[72]; this contains
eighty-one pieces, not a few of which, however, are probably the work of
others. The majority of them are Chansons d'Amour, of the kind just
defined. There are, however, a good many Jeux-Partis, and a certain
number of nondescript poems on miscellaneous subjects. There is more
reason for the common opinion which attributes to Thibaut the marriage
of the poetical qualities of northern and southern France, than the mere
fact of his having been both Count of Champagne and King of Navarre. His
poems have in reality something of the freshness and the individuality
of the Trouveres, mixed with a great deal of the formal grace and
elegance of the Troubadours. The following may serve as an example:--
Contre le tens qui desbrise
Yvers, et revient este,
Et la mauvis se desguise,
Qui de lonc tens n'a chante
Ferai chanson. Car a gre
Me vient que j'aie en pense
Amor, qui en moi s'est mise.
Bien m'a droit son dart gete.
Douce dame, de franchise,
N'ai je point en vos trove:
S'ele ne s'i est puis mise
Que je ne vos esgarde,
Trop avez vers moi fierte.
Mais ce fait vostre biaute,
Ou il n'i a pas de devise,
Tant en i a grand plante.
En moi n'a point d'astenance
Que je puisse aillors penser,
Pors que la, ou conoissance
Ne merci ne puis trover.
Bien fui fait por li amer;
Car ne m'en puis saoler.
Et quant plus aurai cheance,
Plus la me convendra douter.
D'une riens sui en doutance,
Que je ne puis plus celer,
Qu'en li n'ait un po d'enfance.
Ce me fait deconforter,
Que s'a moi a bon penser
Ne l'ose ele desmontrer.
Si feist qu'a sa semblance
Le poisse deviner.
Des que je li fis priere
Et la pris a esgarder,
Me fist amors la lumiere
Des iels par le cuer passer.
Cil conduit me fait grever:
Dont je ne me soi garder:
Ne ne puet torner arriere
Mon cuer; miex voudrait crever.
Dame, a vos m'estuet clamer,
Et que merci vos requiere.
Diex m'i laist pitie trover!
[Sidenote: Minor Singers.]
[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.]
Besides Thibaut there are not a few other song writers of the thirteenth
century, who rise out of the crowd named by M. Paulin Paris. Some of
these, as might be expected, are famous for their achievements in other
departments of literature. Such are Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel, Guyot
de Provins. There are, however, two, Gace Brule and Colin Muset, who
survive solely but worthily as song writers. Gace Brule was a knight of
Champagne, Colin Muset a professed minstrel. The former chiefly composed
sentimental work; the latter, with the proverbial or professional gaiety
of his class, drew nearer to the satirical tone of the Fabliau writers.
His best-known and most usually quoted work describes the different
welcome which he receives from his family on his return from
professional tours, according to the success or ill-success with which
he has met. Two other poets, Adam de la Halle and Ruteboeuf, are far
more prominent in literary history. Adam de la Halle[73] bore the
surname 'Le Bossu d'Arras,' from his native town, though the term
hunchback seems to have had no literal application to him. His exact
date is not known, but it must probably have been from the fourth to the
ninth decade of the thirteenth century. His dramatic works, which are of
signal importance, will be noticed elsewhere. But besides these he has
left some seventy or eighty lyrical pieces of one kind or another.
Adam's life was not uneventful; he was at first a monk, but left his
convent and married. Then he proved as faithless to his temporal as he
had been to his spiritual vows. He lampooned his wife, his family, his
townsmen, and, shaking the dust of Arras from his feet, retired first to
Douai and then to the court of Robert of Artois, whom he accompanied to
Italy. He died in that country about 1288. The style of Adam de la Halle
varies from the coarsest satire to the most graceful tenderness. Of the
latter the following song is a good specimen:--
Diex!
Comment porroie
Trouver voie
D'aler a chelui
Cui amiete je sui?
Chainturelle, va-i
En lieu de mi;
Car tu fus sieue aussi,
Si m'en conquerra miex.
Mais comment serai sans ti?
Dieus!
Chainturelle, mar vous vi;
Au deschaindre m'ochies;
De mes grietes a vous me confortoie,
Quant je vous sentoie,
Ai mi!
A le saveur de mon ami.
Ne pour quant d'autres en ai,
A cleus d'argent et de soie,
Pour men user.
Mais lasse! comment porroie
Sans cheli durer
Qui me tient en joie?
Canchonnete, chelui proie
Qui le m'envoya,
Puis que jou ne puis aler la.
Qu'il en viengne a moi,
Chi droit,
A jour failli,
Pour faire tous ses boins,
Et il m'orra,
Quant il ert joins,
Canter a haute vois:
_Par chi va la mignotise,_
_Par chi ou je vois_.
[Sidenote: Ruteboeuf]
Ruteboeuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more
fortunate than most of the poets of early France in leaving a
considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and
collectively edited[74]. Little or nothing, however, is known about him,
except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230;
he was certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to
any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian
or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable
in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject.
The first consists of personal and of comic poems; the second of poems
sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and
events; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the
latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division
_La Pauvrete Ruteboeuf_, _Le Mariage Ruteboeuf_, etc., are
complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there
is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as _Renart le
Bestourne_, _Le Dit des Cordeliers_, _Frere Denise_, _Le Dit de
l'Erberie_, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many
lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety,
chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a
characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Ruteboeuf's
sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second
class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of
thought. Many of these poems are _complaintes_ or elaborate elegies
(often composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as
Geoffroy de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the
_Complainte d'Outremer_, the _Complainte de Constantinople_, the _Dit de
la Voie de Tunes_, the _Debat du Croise et du Decroise_, are comments
on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in
favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France
with their degeneracy. 'Mort sont Ogier et Charlemagne' is an
often-quoted exclamation of Ruteboeuf in this sense. The third class
includes _La Mort Ruteboeuf_, otherwise _La Repentance Ruteboeuf_,
_La Voie de Paradis_, various poems to the Virgin, the lives of St. Mary
of Egypt and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the miracle play of
_Theophile_. Ruteboeuf's favourite metres are either the continuous
octosyllabic couplet, or else a stanza composed of an octosyllabic
couplet and a line of four syllables, the termination of the latter
being caught up by the succeeding couplet. In this the _Mariage_ is
written, of which a specimen may be given:--
En l'an de l'incarnacion,
VIII jors apres la nascion
Jhesu qui soufri passion,
en l'an soissante,
qu'arbres n'a foille, oisel ne chante,
fis je toute la rien dolante
que de cuer m'aime:
nis li musarz musart me claime.
or puis filer, qu'il me faut traime;
mult ai a faire.
deus ne fist cuer tant de pute aire,
tant li aie fait de contraire
ne de martire,
s'il en mon martire se mire,
qui ne doie de bon cuer dire
'je te claim cuite.'
envoier un home en Egypte,
ceste dolor est plus petite
que n'est la moie;
je n'en puis mais se je m'esmoie.
l'en dit que fous qui ne foloie
pert sa saison:
sui je mariez sanz raison?
or n'ai ne borde ne maison.
encor plus fort:
por plus doner de reconfort
a ceus qui me heent de mort,
tel fame ai prise
que nus fors moi n'aime ne prise,
et s'estoit povre et entreprise,
quant je la pris.
a ci mariage de pris,
c'or sui povres et entrepris
ausi comme ele,
et si n'est pas gente ne bele.
cinquante anz a en s'escuele,
s'est maigre et seche:
n'ai pas paor qu'ele me treche.
despuis que fu nez en la greche
deus de Marie,
ne fu mais tele espouserie.
je sui toz plains d'envoiserie:
bien pert a l'uevre.
Though he has less of the 'lyrical cry' than some others, Ruteboeuf is
perhaps the most vigorous poet of his time.
[Sidenote: Lais. Marie de France.]
There is one division of early poetry which may also be noticed under