NATIONAL POETRY. 



the principal incidents in which were also borrowed from the work ascribed 

 to .ZEsop. 



This " Roman de Renard," which comprised thirty-two branches springing 

 from the same trunk, but without forming a connected and homogeneous 

 whole, was undoubtedly composed by different authors, and at different 

 epochs, according to the requirements of the jugglers who recited or sang it 

 in the towns and villages, and who thus acquired for it a very widespreading 

 popularity. The middle and lower classes, more especially, took a lively 

 interest in the amusing and satirical adventures of the rulpeoulits, personified 

 under the name of Master Renard, and vying in cunning and mischief with 



A-mors me fait cowmen - cier U - ne chan? on no - ve - le , E - Ic me 





Tuet en - sei-gnier A a - mer la plus be le, 





Qui soil el mont vi-vant, 

 -fc-l 





m 



C'cst la be - leau corsgent, C'cst ce - le dont je chant. Diex m'endoint le - le no - 





^^_ ^ 



ve le, Qui soil mon ta-Ient, Que mc-nu et suvent, Mcscuerspor 



11 sau - le - le. 



Fig. 335. Song of Thihaud, Count of Champagne, with the Music. Published by Feti.i, afler 

 Manuscript (No. 7,222) in National Library, Paris. 



his uncle the Wolf, personified under the name of Tseng r in. The only one of 

 the authors whose name has come down to us is Pierre de St. Cloud. Satirical 

 poetry was then in vogue, and the writers, who were no longer the discredited 

 and despised jugglers of a former time, were very severe upon all sorts and 

 conditions of men. 



One of these general satires, which had a great success under the title of 

 the " Guyot Bible," was composed by an ecclesiastic, Guyot de Proving, 

 whose work displays much trenchant wit, but of a very truculent kind. He 



