euses_. Of these societies
the most celebrated was that of the Parisian _Enfants sans Souci_.
With this were closely associated the Basochiens, the corporation
of clerks to the _procureurs_ of the Parlement of Paris.[3] It may
be that the _sots_ of the capital were only members of the _basoche_,
assuming for the occasion the motley garb. In colleges, scholars
performed at first in Latin plays, but from the fifteenth century
in French. At the same time, troupes of performers occasionally moved
from city to city, exhibiting a Mystery, but they did not hold together
when the occasion had passed. Professional comedians were brought
from Italy to Lyons in 1548, for the entertainment of Henri II. and
Catherine de Medicis. From that date companies of French actors appear
to become numerous. New species of the drama--tragedy, comedy,
pastoral--replace the mediaeval forms; but much of the genius of
French classical comedy is a development from the Morality, the
_sottie_, and the farce. To present these newer forms the service
of trained actors was required. During the last quarter of the
sixteenth century the amateur performers of the ancient drama finally
disappear.

[Footnote 3: This corporation, known as the _Royaume de la Basoche_
(_basilica_), was probably as old as the fourteenth century.]

BOOK THE SECOND
_THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY_

CHAPTER I
RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION

The literature of the sixteenth century is dominated by two chief
influences--that of the Renaissance and that of the Reformation. When
French armies under Charles VIII. and Louis XII. made a descent on
Italy, they found everywhere a recognition of the importance of art,
an enthusiasm for beauty, a feeling for the aesthetic as well as the
scholarly aspects of antiquity, a new joy in life, an universal
curiosity, a new confidence in human reason. To Latin culture a Greek
culture had been added; and side by side with the mediaeval master
of the understanding, Aristotle, the master of the imaginative reason,
Plato, was held in honour. Before the first quarter of the sixteenth
century closed, France had received a great gift from Italy, which
profoundly modified, but by no means effaced, the characteristics
of her national genius. The Reformation was a recovery of Christian
antiquity and of Hebraism, and for a time the religious movement made
common cause with the Renaissance; but the grave morals, the
opposition of grace to nature, and the