FRANCE (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) 403 elsewhere. It is the most generally known of all languages among civilized nations, and many illustrious foreigners, as Leibnitz, Hum- boldt, Gibbon, and Sir William Jones, have written some of their works in it. The dialects of the langue (Toe, particularly the Limousin, Languedocien, and Provencal, are spoken S. of a line passing through the departments of Charente, Charente-Inferieure, Haute -Vienne, Creuse, Allier, Puy-de-D6rne, Haute-Loire, Ardeche, Drome, and Isere. Celtic (Breyzad) is spoken by about 1,000,000 people in Finis- tere, C6te-du-Nord, and Morbihan ; Basque by about 150,000 in Basses-Pyrenees; Flemish in parts of Le Nord and Pas-de-Calais ; Catalan in Pyrenees-Orientales ; and Italian in Corsica. Among the authors of grammars of the French tongue are : J. Sylvius (1537) ; Robert and Henry Stephens (Paris, 1558 and 1579); Ramus, Grammaire franfaise (1571); Vauge- las, Remarques sur la langue f ran false (1647) ; the Port-Royal writers, Lancelot and Arnauld, Grammaire generate et raisonnee (1660, often republished) ; Wailly, Grammaire franfaise (1754); BeauzSe, Grammaire generate (Paris, 1767); Levizac, "Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the French Tongue" (1801); Fabre, Syntaxe franfaise (1803) ; Gueroult, Grammaire franfaise (1806) ; Lhomond, Ele- ments de la grammaire franfaise (last ed., 1865) ; Girault-Duvivier, Grammaire des gram- maires (1811, many times reprinted); Landais, Grammaire generale et raisonnee, a compila- tion from numerous sources (1836); Noel and Chapsal, Nouvelle grammaire franfaise (1823, many times republished). Still later are the grammars of Letellier, Poitevin, and Larousse. Among the best dictionaries are those by Robert Stephens (French and Latin, 1543); Aimar de Ranconnet (1606); Richelet (1680); Furetiere (1690) ; Menage (1694) ; the fa- mous dictionary of Trevoux, so named from its place of publication (1704) ; those of Boiste and Bastien (1800), Roquefort, Raymond, La- veaux, and Landais; several works by Charles Nodier ; and Bescherelle, Dictionnaire na- tional, on Grand, dictionnaire critique de la langue franfaise (2 vols. 4to, 1843-'6). .The Dictionnaire de V academic franfaise was pub- lished in 2 vols. fol. in 1694, and has been several times reprinted. A Dictionnaire his - torique de la langue franfaise, on a grand scale, is in preparation by the academy. The latest and best dictionary is that of E. Lit- tre in 4 vols. 4to (Paris, 1863-'73). Girard (1736), Beauzee (1769), Roubaud (1785), and Guizot (1809-'22) have written on French synonymes; and Gerusez (1801), Henry (1811), Villemain, in the dictionary of the academy, J. J. Ampere (1841), F. Wey (1845), and F. Genin (1845-'6), on the history of the French language. LITERATURE. The earliest litera- ture of France is that of the trouveres and troubadours. The latter, who wrote in the soft southern langue d'oc, produced short lyri- cal effusions on love or matters of trifling import ; they flourished most during the llth and 12th centuries. The trouveres, on the other hand, in their narrative poems, known as chansons de geste, and written in the ener- getic langue d'oil, treated of great national subjects and celebrated the heroic deeds of il- lustrious kings and knights. Some of their compositions, the earliest especially, have a striking character of grandeur, which may sometimes be not unfavorably compared with that of the ancient epic poems. These chan- sons de geste, which are also called romans, are very numerous, and have been classified into three cycles, bearing respectively the names of Charlemagne, King Arthur, and Alexander. The first cycle of course includes all the poems that celebrate the deeds of the great Frankish emperor, his descendants and vassals; one of the oldest and perhaps the most magnificent of this category is entitled La chanson de Poland ou de Roncevaux. The Armorican cycle or that of King Arthur is filled with the traditionary legends connected with old Britain and the achievements of the Norman warriors; the Roman de Brut, or that of King Arthur of Britain, on one side, and the Roman de Rou, or that of the dukes of Nor- mandy, on the other, may be said to be the double foundation on which all the poems be- longing to this series rest. The cycle of Alex- ander consists of poems in which recollections of Greece and Rome are strangely mixed with chivalric notions and legends of fairy land. The "History of the Taking of Troy," com- posed about 1160 by Benoit de St. Maure, and the "Romance of Alexander," about 1180, by Lambert li Cors and Alexandre of Paris, are fair specimens of these compositions. They were succeeded by satirical and allegorical poems of equally vast proportions, some of which enjoyed unparalleled popularity, such as the Roman du renard and the Roman de la rose, from which Chaucer afterward adapted and partly translated his "Romaunt of the Rose." The fabliaux and several lighter kinds of poetry cultivated by the troubadours were also treated by the trouveres, who found here an appropriate field for their ingenuity and ready wit. Among those who excelled in the fabliaux was Rutebeuf, who lived in the reign of St. Louis. Songs were not neglected, and those of Abelard in the 12th century enjoy- ed a wide popularity. Audefroy le Bastard, Quesnes of Bethune, and the castellan of Coucy were among his most distinguished successors. Thibaud, count of Champagne and king of Na- varre, deserves to be particularly mentioned ; the songs in which he alludes to his love for Queen Blanche of Castile, the mother of King Louis IX. of France, have given him historical celebrity. The progress of prose was slower than that of poetry, but the 13th century pre- sents two specimens showing that it had al- ready acquired a certain degree of power and polish ; these are the " Chronicle of the Con- quest of Constantinople," by Villehardouin
