440 ROMANCE LITERATURE 



The example given thirty years earlier by Barbazan, instead of urg- 

 ing him on to follow the same path, turns him from it. France did 

 not yet seem ready for the publication of original texts. 1 Neverthe- 

 less as early as 1742, one year before being received at the Academic 

 des Inscriptions, Levesque de la Ravaliere published the Poesies du Roi 

 Thibaut de Navarre. 2 This is indeed a swallow that brought no summer. 

 I have reached the end of my retrospective review. What I shall 

 add to this will concern more the future than the past. As we have 

 seen, much had been done in Italy, not much elsewhere. France stood 

 in the very rear, although she had labored more than Spain ; and this 

 was because of the vastness of the task. Yet, both where much and 

 where little had been done, things had to be done over. It w r as the 

 least of evils that methods of investigation must be more rigorous, or 

 rather that the critical rigor used by some in certain cases should be 

 used everywhere. This would be accomplished per se, in consequence 

 of a normal progress. But the greatest needs were of a different kind. 

 Greater depth and breadth of thought were requisite. Not the mere 

 connection, but the intimate relation, the very life of facts was to be 

 laid bare, so that scholarship should be the means, not the end. 

 And, on the other hand, that taste, breaking its fetters, should acquire 

 a full aptitude to appreciate the beautiful wherever it might appear, 

 independently of traditional prejudice, the drama, with the scare- 

 crow of the three unities, is at hand to illustrate better than any 

 other kind. This was no venture into unknown regions. Few centuries 

 have thought as much as the eighteenth, to which none can deny the 

 legitimacy of the title of philosopher, which it assumed (how often was 



me flatter d'avoir affaibli la prevention on quelques personnes pourroient etre 

 que la lecture des Romans de Chevalerie e"toit une lecture aussi ingrate et inutile 

 quo frivole et insipide; qu'il me soit permis de souhaiter que quelques gens de 

 Lettres se partagent entre eux le peniblc travail de lire ces sortes d'ouvrages, 

 dont le temps detruit tous les jours quelques morceaux, d'en faire des extraits, 

 qu'iis rapporteront a un systeme general et uniforme. . . . On pourroit ainsi 

 parvenir a avoir une bibliotheque generale et complete de tous nos anciens Ro- 

 mans de Chevalerie, dont la fable, rapportee tres-sommairement, renfermeroit ou 

 le detail, ou du moins 1'indication de ce qui regarde 1'auteur, son ouvrage, et les 

 antres auteurs du temps dont il auroit fait mention. On s'attacheroit par pre- 

 ference a tout ce qui paroitroit de quelque usage pour 1'Histoire, pour les Genea- 

 logies, pour les Antiquites franchises et pour la Geographic: sans rien omettre de 

 ce qui donneroit quelques lumieres sur le progres des Arts et des Sciences. On 

 pourroit y conserver encore ce qu 'il y auroit de remarquable du cote de 1'esprit et de 

 Tin volition ; quelques tours delicats et naifs, quelques traits de morale et quelques 

 pcns<'"s ingi'nieuses." Thus speaks I/a Curne in the remarkable " Memoire concer- 

 narit la lecture des anciens Romans de Chevalerie," Histoire de I' Academic Royale 

 di-fi /n.vrription.o et Indies Lettres, xvu, 797-798. Nobody will deny that this design, 

 oxprf ssfd on the 17th of December, 1743, is worthy of note. Consider how much 

 it anticipates facts. 



1 p. ixxxvii: " Ce n'est pas connaitre les Lecteurs Francois que de leur presenter 

 un par'-il travail. Aussi 1'ouvrage est-il resto inronnu, et il est meme ignore des 

 Gens dc Lcttrfs." RffiVct that even La Curne had contented himself, in 1752, 

 with publishing in translation Aucassin ct Nicolctle. In that form it had good 

 luck, and was reprinted in ] 7">G and 1760. 



2 M. clc- la Ravaliere had had special reasons of an historical nature for taking 

 interest in those poems. 



