(^26 FRENCH EPIC POETRY. 



passage of sterling beauty can be found in the midst of this mass 

 of turgid and copious verse. Besides, there is unmistakable gran- 

 deur in the author's conception, genuine wholeheartedness in 

 his attempt, and noble honesty in his endeavour. So much 

 so that we need have no fear of belittling the poet of Paradise 

 Lost when, in saying Milton, we devote a flash of pious thought 

 to Du Bartas as his harbinger. 



Alongside of the Divine Semaine, there is only one epic 

 poem to record in the i6th century. It is that quaint and curious 

 work, Les Tragiqnes, by Agrippa d'Aubigne, the grandfather of 

 Frangoise d'Aubigne, whom we know better as the widow of 

 Paul Scarron, and best as Mme. de Maintenon, the last Queen 

 of Louis XIV. 



For the right understanding and appreciation of the poem, 

 which is a mixture of Christian mysticism, learned allegory, 

 satire, and apocalyptic visions, it is necessary to know the 

 complex personality of the author, who was a fervent disciple of 

 Ronsard. D'Aubigne was in his youth a specimen of the very 

 perfect, gentle knight of the Renaissance, a brilliant cavalier, a 

 talker full of wit, a gay rhymster, and a learned humanist. Later 

 on he becomes a fanatic of Calvinism careering through the fair 

 land of France, sword in hand and a Bible in his saddle-bag; an 

 irritable, surly, brutally intolerant man, stringing his alexandrines 

 together, as he says himself, in the trenches, on horseback with 

 jackboots on his legs. He began his poem when he lay griev- 

 ously wounded after the Battle of Castel-Jaloux in 1577, and 

 gave it to the light in 1616. As a whole, it presents a picture of 

 the calamities which afflicted France during the dark period of 

 the religious wars. In the first three 'cantos, bearing respectively 

 the significant titles of Miscresl, Princes,^ and La Chamhre^ 

 Doree, D'Aubigne describes the civil wars, the conception of the 

 Court, and the infamy of the tribunals and jud.ges, ready to sell 

 Justice to the highest bidder. The last four cantos, Les Feux, 

 Les Fers, Vengeance, and Jugement, present the martyrs of the 

 new faith dying on the stake and in dungeons, or butchered 

 during St. Bartholomew's Night. They show, in spite of these 

 persecutions, the steady growth of the Reformed Church, and 

 how the executioners of these martyrs were either struck by 

 divine vengeance on this earth, or condemned to eternal torture 

 by the justice of the Lord of Hosts. The poem is in the truly 

 tpic strain, well planned and logically arranged. It contains, in 

 the shape of short, terse aphorisms, quite a number of racy and 

 delicate thoughts. Its style, which on the whole is energetic and 

 clear, is often impetuous in the author's outbursts of passion. 



However, the same defects which clog and deface the Fran- 

 eiade and the Semaines are here in our way whenever we try to 

 enjoy this poem ; and we must needs come to the conclusion that, 

 in spite of their noble efforts, neither Ronsard, nor Du Bartas, nor 

 D'Aubigne, have succeeded in endowing French literature with 

 the grand epic, of which the Pleiad e had made such high-sounding 

 ?nd pompous promises. 



