The title of Les Quinze Joyes de mariage is, with a profanity characteristic of the time, borrowed from a popular litany, Les Quinze Joies de Notre Dame, and each chapter terminates with a liturgical refrain voicing the miseries of marriage. Evidence in favour of La Sale’s authorship is brought forward by M. E. Gossart (Bibliophile belge, 1871, pp. 83-7), who quotes from his didactic treatise of La Salle a passage paraphrased from St Jerome’s treatise against Jovinian which contains the chief elements of the satire. Gaston Paris (Revue de Paris, Dec. 1897) expressed an opinion that to find anything like the malicious penetration by which La Sale divines the most intimate details of married life, and the painful exactness of the description, it is necessary to travel as far as Balzac. The theme itself was common enough in the middle ages in France, but the dialogue of the Quinze Joyes is unusually natural and pregnant. Each of the fifteen vignettes is perfect in its kind. There is no redundance. The diffuseness of romance is replaced by the methods of the writers of the fabliaux.
In the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles the Italian novella is naturalized in France. The book is modelled on the Decameron of Boccaccio, and owes something to the Latin Facetiae of the contemporary scholar Poggio; but the stories are rarely borrowed, and in cases where the Nouvelles have Italian parallels they appear to be independent variants. In most cases the general immorality of the conception is matched by the grossness of the details, but the ninety-eighth story narrates what appears to be a genuine tragedy, and is of an entirely different nature from the other contes. It is another version of the story of Floridam et Elvide already mentioned.
Not content with allowing these achievements to La Sale, some critics have proposed to ascribe to him also the farce of Maître Pathelin.
The best editions of La Sale’s undoubted and reputed works are:—Petit Jehan de Saintré by J. M. Guichard (1843); Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles by Thomas Wright (Bibl. elzévérienne, 1858); Les Quinze Joyes de mariage by P. Jannet (Bibl. elzév., 1857). La Salade was printed more than once during the 16th century. La Salle was never printed. For its contents see E. Gossart in the Bibliophile belge (1871, pp. 77 et seq.). See also the authorities quoted above, and Joseph Nève, Antoine de la Salle, sa vie et ses ouvrages ... suivi du Réconfort de Madame de Fresne ... et de fragments et documents inédits (1903), who argues for the rejection of Les Quinze Joyes and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles from La Sale’s works; Pietro Toldo, Contributo allo studio della novella francese del XV e XVI secolo (1895), and a review of it by Gaston Paris in the Journal des Savants (May 1895); L. Stern, “Versuch über Antoine de la Salle,” in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, vol. xlvi.; and G. Raynaud, “Un Nouveau Manuscrit du Petit Jehan de Saintré,” in Romania, vol. xxxi.
(M. Br.)
[1] For his career, see Paul Durrieu, Les Gascons en Italie (Auch, 1885, pp. 107-71).
[2] For the legend of the Sibyl current in Italy at the time, given by La Sale, and its inter-relation with the Tannhäuser story, see W. Soederhjelm, “A. de la Salle et la légende de Tannhäuser” in Mémoires de la soc. néo-philologique d’Helsingfors (1897, vol. ii.); and Gaston Paris, “Le Paradis de la Reine Sibylle,” and “La Légende du Tannhäuser,” in the Revue de Paris (Dec. 1897 and March 1898).
LASALLE, ANTOINE CHEVALIER LOUIS COLLINET, Count (1775-1809), French soldier, belonged to a noble family in Lorraine. His grandfather was Abraham Fabert, marshal of France. Entering the French army at the age of eleven, he had reached the rank of lieutenant when the Revolution broke out. As an aristocrat, he lost his commission, but he enlisted in the ranks, where his desperate bravery and innate power of command soon distinguished him. By 1795 he had won back his grade, and was serving as a staff-officer in the army of Italy. On one occasion, at Vicenza, he rivalled Seydlitz’s feat of leaping his horse over the parapet of a bridge to avoid capture, and, later, in Egypt, he saved Davout’s life in action. By 1800 he had become colonel, and in one combat in that year he had two horses killed under him, and broke seven swords. Five years later, having attained the rank of general of brigade, he was present with his brigade of light cavalry at Austerlitz. In the pursuit after Jena in 1806, though he had but 600 hussars and not one piece of artillery with him, he terrified the commandant of the strong fortress of Stettin into surrender, a feat rarely equalled save by that of Cromwell on Bletchingdon House. Made general of division for this exploit, he was next in the Polish campaign, and at Heilsberg saved the life of Murat, grand duke of Berg. When the Peninsular War began, Lasalle was sent out with one of the cavalry divisions, and at Medina de Rio Seco, Gamonal and Medellin broke every body of troops which he charged. A year later, at the head of one of the cavalry divisions of the Grande Armée he took part in the Austrian war. At Wagram he was killed at the head of his men. With the possible exception of Curély, who was in 1809 still unknown, Napoleon never possessed a better leader of light horse. Wild and irregular in his private life, Lasalle was far more than a beau sabreur. To talent and experience he added that power of feeling the pulse of the battle which is the true gift of a great leader. A statue of him was erected in Lunéville in 1893. His remains were brought from Austria to the Invalides in 1891.