[17] Jean Bodel, a trouvère of the thirteenth century, furnished literary history with a valuable stock-quotation in the opening of his Chanson des Saisnes for the three great divisions of Romance:—
"Ne sont que trois matières à nul home attendant,
De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant."
—Chanson des Saxons, ed. Michel, Paris, 1839, vol. i. p. 1.
The lines following, less often quoted, are an interesting early locus for French literary patriotism.
[18] Or only in rare cases to later French history itself—Du Guesclin, and the Combat des Trente.
[19] Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction (ed. Wilson, London, 1888), i. 274-351. Had Dunlop rigidly confined himself to prose fiction, the censure in the text might not be quite fair. As a matter of fact, however, he does not, and it would have been impossible for him to do so.
[20] Editio princeps by Fr. Michel, 1837. Since that time it has been frequently reprinted, translated, and commented. Those who wish for an exact reproduction of the oldest MS. will find it given by Stengel (Heilbronn, 1878).
[21] V. infra on the scene in Aliscans between William of Orange and his sister Queen Blanchefleur.
[22] Even the famous and very admirable death-scene of Vivien (again v. infra) will not disprove these remarks.
[23] Immanuel Bekker had printed the Provençal Fierabras as early as 1829.
[24] V. the famous and all-important ninth chapter of the first book of the De Vulgari Eloquio.