in 1854; and in 1858 Sacuntala, a ballet, at the Opéra. It was the production of La Statue at the Théatre lyrique in 1861 that brought Reyer's name prominently before the public. But Reyer had to wait several years before obtaining a real and permanent success. Erostrate, an opera produced at Baden-Baden in 1862, and given at the Paris Opéra some ten years later, was a failure. The composer had in the meanwhile set to work on Sigurd, the subject of which is the same that inspired Wagner in Siegfried and Gotterddmmerung. It was at last produced in Brussels in 1884, and subsequently brought out at the Paris Opéra. Sigurd is a work of great value, displaying its composer's elevated notions as regards the form of the “ lyrical drama.” Salarnrnbé, founded upon Flaubert's romance, was successfully produced at Brussels in 1890. Gluck, Weber, Berlioz and Wagner exercised most influence over Reyer. As a musical critic (preceding Berlioz in that capacity for the Journal des débats) Reyer was a well-known writer; and he became librarian of the Paris Opéra, and a member of the Institute. His Quarante Ans de musique (with biographical notice by E. Henriot) was published in 1909.
REYNARD THE FOX, a beast-epic, current in French,
Dutch and German literature. The cycle of animal stories
collected round the names of Reynard the Fox and Isengrim
the Wolf in the 12th century seems to have arisen on the borderland
of France and Flanders. Much of the material may be
found in Aesop, in Physiologus, and in the 12th-century Disciplina
Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsus. But the difference is very great.
The intention of the trouveres who recited the exploits of Reynard
was, in the earlier stages, in no sense didactic. The tales, like
those of “ Uncle Remus, ” were amusing in themselves; they
were based on widely diffused folklore, and Reynard and his
companions were not originally men disguised as animals.
Jacob Grimm (Reinhart Fuchs, 1834) maintained their popular
origin; his theories, which have been much contested, have
received additional support from the researches of K. Krohn,
who discovered many of the stories most characteristic of the
cycle in existing Finnish folklore, where they can hardly have
arrived through learned channels.
There is abundant evidence that Isengrim and Reynard were firmly established in the popular imagination in the 13th century, and even earlier. Guibert de Nogent (De Vita sua, book 3, chap.viii., printed Paris, 1651), in referring to the disturbances at Laon in 1112, says that the bishop Gaudri was accustomed to call one of his enemies Isengrim, and it is obvious from the context that the taunt was perfectly understood by the popular mind. Philip the Fair is said to have annoyed Pope Boniface III., who died 'in 1303, by the representation of the “ Procession Renart ”; and in 1204-1206 in Flanders two opposing parties were designated Isangrini and Blavotini (blue-footed). The principal names of the Reynard cycle, and the earliest in use, were German. Reynard himself (Raginohardus, strong in counsel), Bruin the Bear, Baldwin the Ass, Tibert the Cat, Hirsent the She-wolf, had German names, most of which were used as person-names in Lorraine. Whatever the sources of the stories, it was in France that the cycle obtained its greatest vogue. The Roman de Renart as printed by Méon (Paris, 4 vols., 1826) runs to over 40,000 lines, and contains a great number of detached episodes or branches, to which the trouvéres gave a certain unity by attaching them to the traditionary feud between Reynard and Isengrim. This rapidly became symbolic of the triumph of craft and eloquence over brute strength. Renart was a popular epic parodying feudal institutions as represented in the romances of chivalry, and readily adapting itself to satire of the rich, of the forms of justice, and of the clergy.
The early French originals are lost, the most ancient existing fragments being in Latin. The fable of the lion's sickness and his cure by the wolf's skin occurs in the Ecbasis cujusdarn captivrl per Tropologiam (ed. E. Voigt; Strassburg, 1875), written by a monk of St Evre at Toul (Meurthe-et-Moselle) about 940. Ysengrimus (ed. E. Voigt; Halle, 1884), a clerical satire written by Nivard of Ghent about 1148, includes the story of the lion's sickness and the pilgrimage of Bertiliana the Goat. Another Latin poem, Reinardus -vulpes (ed. F. ]. Mone; Stuttgart, 183 2), contains in addition the theft of the bacon, and how Isengrim is induced to fish with his tail. A simpler version, derived probably from a French original, is Isingrtnes not, written in German about 1180 by the Alsatian Heinrich der Glichezare. Only fragments of this poem are preserved, but about a quarter of a century later it was re-written with little change in the subject matter as Reinhart Fuchs (ed. ]. Grimm, Berlin, 1834; and K. Reissenberger, Halle, 1886). Most later versions of Reynard have been derived, however, from the Flemish Reinaert de 'vos (ed. ]. F. Willems, Ghent, 1836; and E. Martin, Paderborn, 1874), written about 12 50 in East Flanders by Willem. Reinaert is a poem of 3474 lines. The corresponding branch of the French Roman de Renart (for which and its satirical sequels, Le Couronnement Renart, Renart le nouveau, and Renart le contrefait, see FRENCH LITERATURE) is one of the earliest and best of the great French cycle.
The fable was, like other French works, known in England, but did not at once pass into the popular stock. Odo of Cheriton, who died in 1247, used the Reynard stories in his sermons, and many of them occur in his collection of Parabolae (ed. Hervieux, Fabulistes latins, 1884, vol. i.). The English poem of the Vox and the Wolf dates from the 13th century; and the “ Nonne Preestes Tale ” of Chaucer, in which, however, the fox is Rossel and the ass Brunel, is a genuine Reynard history. Willem's Reinaert de Vos was left incomplete, and the continuation-about 4000 lines in a more didactic vein-was added by an unknown writer of West Flanders about 1370. The first copy printed in any language was the Dutch prose version, H ystorie can Reynaert de Vos, printed at Gouda by Gheraert Leeuw in 1479. On this Caxton based his Historye of reynart the foxe (reprinted by E. Arber, 1878), which he nnished on the 6th of June 1481. As a satire on the church, especially on monks and nuns, Reynard became popular with reformers, and numerous versions followed in England and Germany. A Low German version, Reineke Fuchs, with a prose commentary by Hinrek Alckmer (Henry of Alkmaar), was issued from the Antwerp press of Gheraert Leeuw in 1487. From this rifacimento was derived the Low German Reynke de Vos (ed. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Breslau, 1834; and Friedrich Prien, Halle, 1887), which was printed' at Lübeck in 1498. Michael Beuther is said to have been the translator into High German (Reiniken Fuchs, 1544); and the book was made available to the general European public in the Latin version of Hartmann Schopper, Opus Poeticurn de adrnirabili fallacia et astutia Vulpeoulae Reinikes Libros quatuor (Frankfort, 1567). The modern German version (1794) of Goethe has been often reprinted, notably in 1846 with illustrations by Wilhelm von Kaulbach.
Reynard is dealt with by Carlyle in an essay “On German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries " in the Foreign Quarterly Review (1831). An admirable account of the Reynard cycle is given by W. ]. Thoms in his edition of Caxton's version for the Percy Society (1844). Prien's edition of Reynke de Vos contains bibliographical particulars of the German, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic and English editions (cp. Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.'v. Renart). The best edition of the Roman de Renart is by Ernest Martin (3 vols., Strassburg and Paris, 1881-1887). See also Léopold Sudre, Les Sources du roman de Renard (Paris, 1890); Jacob Grimm, Sendschreiben an C. Lachrnann uber Reinhart Fuchs (Leipzig, 1840); Gaston Paris, “ Le Roman de Renard ” in the Journal des savants (Dec. 1894 and Feb. 1895); Kaarle Krohn, Bar und Fuchs (Helsingfors, 1888), 'and the editions mentioned above, The story is told in modern French by Paulin Paris, Les Aventures de Maitre Renart et d'Ysengr'in son compere (1861), and in English by Joseph jacobs, following a modernized text of Caxton made by “ Felix Summerley ” (Sir H. Cole), in The M ost Deleclable History of Reynard the Fox (1895), with a valuable introduction.
REYNOLDS, JOHN FULTON (1820-1863), American soldier, was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of September 1820, and graduated at West Point in 1841. He became first lieutenant of artillery in 1846, and was breveted captain and major for gallantry in the Mexican War. He took part in the Utah expedition under Brigadier-General Albert Sidney Johnston. In 1859 he was made commandant of cadets
