ds of d'Urfe's
familiar Forez and on the banks of the Lignon; the time is of
Merovingian antiquity. The shepherd Celadon, banished on suspicion
of faithlessness from the presence of his beloved Astree, seeks death
beneath the stream; he is saved by the nymphs, escapes the amorous
pursuit of Galatea, assumes a feminine garb, and, protected by the
Druid Adamas, has the felicity of daily beholding his shepherdess.
At length he declares himself, and is overwhelmed with reproaches;
true lover that he is, when he offers his body to the devouring lions
of the Fountain of Love, the beasts refuse their prey; the venerable
Druid discreetly guides events; Celadon's fidelity receives its
reward in marriage, and the banks of the Lignon become a scene of
universal joy. The colours of the _Astree_ are faded now as those
of some ancient tapestry, but during many years its success was
prodigious. D'Urfe's highest honour, of many, is the confession of
La Fontaine:--

"_Etant petit garcon je lisais son roman,
Et je le lis encore ayant la barbe grise._"

The _Astree_ won its popularity, in part because it united the old
attraction of a chivalric or heroic strain with that of the newer
pastoral; in part because it idealised the gallantries and developed
the amorous casuistry of the day, not without a real sense of the
power of love; in part because it was supposed to exhibit ideal
portraits of distinguished contemporaries. It was the parent of a
numerous progeny; and as the heroic romance of the seventeenth century
is derived in direct succession from the loves of Celadon and Astree,
so the comic romance, beside all that it owes to the tradition of
the _esprit gaulois_, owes something to the mocking gaiety with which
d'Urfe exhibits the adventures and emotional vicissitudes of his
inconstant shepherd Hylas.

[Footnote 1: It should be noted that the close of the _Astree_ is
by D'Urfe's secretary Baro.]

In the political and social reconstruction which followed the civil
and religious wars, the need of discipline and order in literature
was felt; in this province, also, unity under a law was seen to be
desirable. The work of the Pleiade had in a great measure failed;
they had attempted to organise poetry and its methods, and poetry
was still disorganised. To reduce the realm of caprice and fantasy
to obedience to law was the work of FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE. Born at
Caen in 1555, he had published in 1587 his _Larmes de Saint Pierre_,