ral government, and a royal command had gone forth for the
demolition of many of them. That her stories were read and prized
for at least a century and more is evident from the manuscripts--five
in number, and all of the thirteenth, or the beginning of the
fourteenth, century--which still exist. Her renown, too, had travelled
even beyond the seas, for in about A.D. 1245 a translation of her lays
into Norse was made by order of the king, Haakon the Fourth. The fact
that their popularity began to wane after a hundred years or so is in
no wise an adverse criticism of their intrinsic worth, for in the
fourteenth century English was, in high places, beginning to take the
place of French, and naturally the demand created a supply. But even
if this had not been so, Marie's work had served its purpose, and of
necessity passed into the crucible of human thought and expression, to
be resolved into matter suited to other needs and conditions. As has
been well said, "les siecles se succedent, et chacun porte son fruit,
qui n'est pas celui du siecle precedent: les livres sont les fruits
des moeurs."

Of the five manuscripts still extant, two are in the British Museum.
One of these is the most complete that has come down to us, seeing
that, in addition to its including the largest number of lays--twelve
in all,--it alone contains the prologue, in which for a moment the
illusive Marie lifts, as it were, her all-enshrouding veil. It is a
small manuscript, beautifully inscribed, and even after its seven
hundred years of existence, as fresh as is the love enshrined in its
parchment pages. How strange a feeling possesses us as we turn over
its leaves, leaves across which the shadows of readers of bygone days
still seem to flit! Could these pages speak, of what would they tell?
Of desires that die not, of longings that are immortal, of love
enthroned.

When first read, these stories, so simply are they told, may seem
somewhat slight and superficial. But this is the general
characteristic of mediaeval literature, which, for the most part,
recognised things in outline only, and sought, and perhaps possessed,
but little knowledge of the hidden springs of motive. The writers of
those times troubled as little about moral, as the early painters did
about physical, anatomy. Still, in spite of this indifference to what
has become almost a craze in our own day, Marie's lays are so full of
charming detail, deftly handled, that they give much the s