ROMANCES. 



369 



Hut each of those matters comprised a number of different subjects, which 

 corresponded with one another by a succession of homogeneous and analogous 

 facts. They were so many cycles forming one vast whole, in which were 

 "rouped personages of the same race and of the same character. The three 

 principal cycles of the Geste in France, for instance, were those which had 



Fig. 306. A Compiler. Miniature from a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century. 

 In the Burgundy Library, Brussels. 



for their central figures Charlemagne, William of Orange, and Renaud dc 

 Jlontiiuban, us is indicated by the following line from the romance of 

 " Girars dc Yiane : " " H'ot que trois Gestes en France la garnie." A gest* 



3 B 



