In the ancient epic poems, love was nothing, here it is everything; and woman, who had no part, now plays the first; warlike feats are henceforth only a means to win her heart. Grass has grown over the bloody vale of Roncevaux, which is now enamelled with flowers; Roland's love, Durandal, has ascended to heaven, and will return no more. The new poets are the exact antithesis of the former ones. Religion, virtue, country, now count for nothing; love defies, nay more, replaces them. Marc's friends, who warn him, are traitors and felons, vowed to scorn and hate, as were formerly Gannelons, who betrayed fair France. To be in love is to be worthy of heaven, is to be a saint, and to practise virtue. This theory, put forward in the twelfth century by the singers of the British cycle, has survived, and will be found again in the "Astrée," in Byron, and in Musset.
These tales multiply, and their worldly, courteous, amorous character becomes more and more predominant. Woman already plays the part that she plays in the novels of yesterday. A glance opens Paradise to Arthur's knights; they find in a smile all the magic which it pleases us, the living of to-day, to discover there. A trite word of farewell from the woman they cherish is transformed by their imagination, and they keep it in their hearts as a talisman. Who has not cherished similar talismans? Lancelot recalls the past to queen Guinevere: "And you said, God be with you, fair, gentle friend! Never since have these words left my heart. It is these words that shall make me a preux, if ever I am one; for never since was I in such great peril but that I remembered these words. They have comforted me in all my sorrows; these words have kept and guarded me from all danger; these words have fed me when hungry and made me wealthy when poor."
"By my troth," said the queen, "those words were happily spoken, and blessed be God who caused me to speak them. But I did not put into them as much as you saw, and to many a knight have I spoken the same without thinking of more than what they plainly bear."[192]
After being a saint, the beloved object becomes a goddess; her wishes are decrees, her mysterious caprices are laws which must not even be questioned; harder rules of love are from year to year imposed on the heroes; they are expected to turn pale at the sight of their mistress; Lancelot espying a hair of Guinevere well-nigh faints; they observe the thirty-one regulations laid down by André le Chapelain, to guide the perfect lover.[193] After having been first an accessory, then an irresistible passion, love, that the poets think to magnify, will soon be nothing but a ceremonial. From the time of Lancelot we border on folly; military honour no longer counts for the hero; Guinevere out of caprice orders Lancelot to behave "his worst"; without hesitating or comprehending he obeys, and covers himself with shame. Each successive romance writer goes a step farther, and makes new additions; we come to immense compositions, to strings of adventures without any visible link; to heroes so uniformly wonderful that they cease to inspire any interest whatever. Tristan's rose-bush twined itself around the pillars, the pillars are lacking now, and the clusters of flowers trail on the ground. Tristan was a harbinger of Musset; Guinevere gives us a desire for a Cervantes.
Meanwhile, the minstrels of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries enjoy their success and their fame; their number increases; they are welcomed in the castles, hearkened to in the towns; their tales are copied in manuscripts, more and more magnificently painted. They celebrate, in England as in France, Gauvain, "le chevalier aux demoiselles," Ivain, "le chevalier au lion"; Merlin, Joseph of Arimathea, Percival and the quest of the mysterious Graal, and all the rest of the Round Table heroes.[194]
IV.
They have also shorter narratives in prose and verse, the subject of which is generally love, drawn from French, Latin, Greek, and even Hindu legends,[195] stories like those of Amis and Amile, of Floire and Blanchefleur, lays like those of Marie de France.[196] Marie was Norman, and lived in the time of Henry II., to whom she dedicated her poems. They are mostly graceful love-tales, sweetly told, without affectation or effort, and derived from Celtic originals, some being of Armorican and some of Welsh descent. Several are devoted to Tristan and other Arthurian knights. In the lay of the Ash, Marie tells a story of female virtue, the main incidents of which will be found again later in the tale of Griselda. Her lay of the Two Lovers would have delighted Musset:
"Truth is that in Neustria, which we call Normandy," lived once a nobleman who had a beautiful daughter; every one asked her in marriage, but he always refused, so as not to part from her. At last he declared he would give his daughter to the man who could carry her to the top of the mountain. All tried, but all failed.
A young count falls in love with her, and is loved again. She sends him to an old aunt of hers, who lives at Salerno, and will give him certain potions to increase his strength. He does all she bids him. On the day appointed, provided with a draught to swallow during the trial, he takes the fair maiden in his arms. She had fasted for many days so as to weigh less, and had put on an exceedingly light garment: "Except her shift, no other stuff she wore";
N'ot drap vestu fors la chemise.