ROMANCES. 379 



Saave, sauvo mon ame ot defends-la centre tons jii'rils. 



A cause des peches que j'ui fails en ma vie.' 



II a tondu a Dicu le gant de sa main droite : 



Saint Gabriel 1'a re<;u. 



Alore sa tele s'est inclinco sur son bras, 



Et il est alle, mains jointes, a sa fin. 



Dieu lui envoie un de sea anges cherubins 



t saint Michel du Peril. 



Saint Gabriel est venu avec eux : 



Ils emportent 1'ame du comte au Paradis." * . . 



" Roland " and the first romances were, as we see, essentially French 

 creations, in which the trouveurs had embodied in a literary and dramatic 

 form the scattered and uncertain traditions which were embedded in the 

 memory of the nobility, and vaguely retained by means of the popular songs 

 in the recollection of the lower classes. There can be no doubt that their 

 object was to stimulate the warlike and patriotic feeling of the lords and 

 barons of France who listened to them with such unfeigned satisfaction. 

 It is thus easy to infer, by comparison of dates, that they must have come 

 into existence at about the time of the first Crusade in 1095, and that they 

 were imported into the East during the great Crusade led by Godfrey de 

 Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, and his brothers, Baudoin, Count of Flanders, 

 and Eustace, Count of Boulogne ; by Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois, 

 son of King Henry I. ; by Raymond, Count of Toulouse ; by Robert, Duke of 

 Normandy ; and by other chiefs of the French race. The heroic songs of the 

 jugglers were well calculated to lessen the dreariness of the long and perilous 

 voyage undertaken by the chevaliers, who remained absent for five or six 

 years, and did not consider their task accomplished until after they had 

 captured Jerusalem (1099). It was then that Godfrey de Bouillon, pro- 

 claimed King by his companions in arms, converted Palestine into a Christian 

 kingdom, introducing into it the laws, the language, and the customs of 

 France. It may be said that from this period the chansons de geste and 

 national romances obtained a foothold in this new France of the East, the 

 residents in which were ever gazing westward. 



The romances, originating in France, returned thither with the crusaders, 

 and spread at the same time throughout Europe, where their popularity 

 increased from year to year. They became the fashion, and romances, 



* Translation of M. Leon Gautier. 



