Out of
him flows much of Rabelais; and through Rabelais, directly
and indirectly, a deep, permanent, and growing inspiration.
Not only his style, but his callous pertinent way of looking
upon the sordid and ugly sides of life, becomes every day a
more specific feature in the literature of France. And only
the other year, a work of some power appeared in Paris, and
appeared with infinite scandal, which owed its whole inner
significance and much of its outward form to the study of our
rhyming thief.
The world to which he introduces us is, as before said,
blackguardly and bleak. Paris swarms before us, full of
famine, shame, and death; monks and the servants of great
lords hold high wassail upon cakes and pastry; the poor man
licks his lips before the baker's window; people with patched
eyes sprawl all night under the stalls; chuckling Tabary
transcribes an improper romance; bare-bosomed lasses and
ruffling students swagger in the streets; the drunkard goes
stumbling homewards; the graveyard is full of bones; and away
on Montfaucon, Colin de Cayeux and Montigny hang draggled in
the rain. Is there nothing better to be seen than sordid
misery and worthless joys? Only where the poor old mother of
the poet kneels in church below painted windows, and makes
tremulous supplication to the Mother of God.
In our mixed world, full of green fields and happy lovers,
where not long before, Joan of Arc had led one of the highest
and noblest lives in the whole story of mankind, this was all
worth chronicling that our poet could perceive.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243