STUDY OF ROMANCE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 453 



French epic poetry where it really was, he studied it where he imag- 

 ined it to be. But he again shows depth of thought and sharp 

 insight by the importance he gives this kind. 



Fauriel's pretensions to claim the epic poetry of France for the 

 southern region 1 awoke the eager opposition of Paulin Paris, a youth 

 who, imbued with the spirit (I do not say with all the ideas) of the 

 Romantic School, had vowed himself to the literature of the langue 

 d'o'il. He so well understood the value of the epic that he began the 

 publication of a collection of texts concerning it, a collection which 

 would certainly have deserved to harbor the highest product, not 

 only of its kind, but of all the literary French Middle Ages. The 

 Chanson de Roland saw the light through the efforts of one of the other 

 scholars and exhumers of old texts, who had by this time grown 

 numerous. But amongst all who then wandered through the halls and 

 recesses of the old and no longer silent castle, none can contest the 

 leadership with Paulin Paris. Therefore when, in 1853, a special chair 

 for Old French literature was founded in the College de France, 

 Paris was rightly called to occupy it. This foundation is in itself 

 as eloquent as possible. And the Minister to whom it was due soon 

 afterwards accepted, and consecrated with a decree, the plan of pub- 

 lishing integrally, at the expense of the Government, all that could 

 be unearthed of the " Anciens poetes de la France." Nothing less! 

 It was the plan of dreamers. And practical reason soon took it upon 

 itself to restrain this daring. But nothing more characteristic can 

 be imagined. Now, we all see, France is wide awake. Nor is it to be 

 feared that sleep may fall upon her again. Nothing need be feared, 

 especially for the epic, to which an enthusiast, who has wept hot 

 tears over the Chansonde Roland, 3 has devoted himself. Leon Gautier 

 will have no peace until the Chanson has been introduced even into 

 the secondaty schools. 



Let us look upon the other Romance nations. Italy, as we know, 

 did not have to do, but to complete what had already been done, and 

 to do better. I hastily pass over the school of the Purists, amongst 



1 His ideas on the subject, which to a certain extent were later on by himself 

 recognized as faulty, had been soon after published; and something of these ideas 

 had already leaked out even before he mounted the chair. Villemain, Litterature 

 du moi/cn CH/C, vol. i, p. 245, note. 



2 Detailed information we receive from Gautier. Epnp<'cs francaiscs, 2d ed., vol. n. 

 p. 736. The wish for a wide publication of ancient French (epic) texts, was, I think, 

 expressed for the time in the 6th volume of the Ada Sanctorum Maii (col. 811) of 

 the Bollandists, published in 1688. Quotations from poems of the cycle of "Guil- 

 laume au Court nez'' that occurred in Catel's Ifi.^toirr dcs Comics dc Tolose, gave 

 there occasion to say :'' De Francica . . .veteri lingua fortassis non male merere- 

 tur qui eiusmodi poemata proferret in lucem.'' The wish, it is seen, comes from 

 foreign lips. In like manner the Italians, as early as the sixteenth century, had 

 conceived the design of publishing the Provcneal poets; and they had done moiv 

 than conceive the design. Certainly there were some who were unequal to th:> 

 enterprise they longed for; but that cannot be said of Barbieri, about whom see 

 Giornale di Filologia Romanza. vol. m, p. 3(>, note 1. 



3 Epopees fran^aiws, vol. n, pp. 733, 734. 



