Town, hamlet,
river, forest, and field; royal palace, princely castle, and starving
peasants' hut; pulpit, stage, and salon; port, camp, and marketplace;
tribunal and university; factory, shop, studio, smithy; tavern and
gambling-hell and den of thieves; convent and jail, torture-chamber and
gibbet-close, and what not all!
And at every successive step our once desponding, over-anxious,
over-burdened latter-day souls have swelled with joy and pride and hope
at the triumphs of our own day all along the line! Yea, even though we
have heard the illustrious Bossuet preach, and applauded Moliere in one
of his own plays, and gazed at and listened to (and almost forgiven)
Racine and Corneille, and Boileau and Fenelon, and the good
Lafontaine--those five ruthless persecutors of our own innocent French
childhood!
And still ascending the stream of time, we have hobnobbed with Montaigne
and Rabelais, and been personally bored by Malherbe, and sat at
Ronsard's feet, and ridden by Froissart's side, and slummed with
Francois Villon--in what enchanted slums! ...
Francois Villon! Think of that, ye fond British bards and bardlets
of to-day--ye would-be translators and imitators of that
never-to-be-translated, never-to-be-imitated lament, the immortal
_Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis_!
And while I speak of it, I may as well mention that we have seen them
too, or some of them--those fair ladies _he_ had never seen, and who had
already melted away before his coming, like the snows of yester year,
_les neiges d'antan!_ Bertha, with the big feet; Joan of Arc, the good
Lorrainer (what would she think of her native province now!); the very
learned Heloise, for love of whom one Peter Esbaillart, or Abelard (a
more luckless Peter than even I!), suffered such cruel indignities at
monkish hands; and that haughty, naughty queen, in her Tower of Nesle,
_"Qui commanda que Buridan Fut jecte en ung Sac en Seine.
Pages:
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339