lle. Chappelain also showed her translation to persons who knew both
languages, and they found her work perfect; lastly, and what more can be
required? she sends a challenge to Baudoin and his accomplices, and
invites them to a decisive combat: "She is ready to show that she knows
the English language better than they, and they would not dare to appear
in order to speak it with her in the presence of persons capable of
judging." Baudoin does not appear, indeed, to have accepted this
challenge, but neither does it seem to have discouraged him. He closes
the preface of his last volume with this poetical apostrophe to those
who are envious of his reputation: "By the mouth of good wits--Apollo
holds you in contempt,--Troop so ignorant and bold:--For you profane his
beauteous gifts,--And cause thistles to spring up--In the midst of your
Arcady."[239]

What astonishes us now, when we follow the vicissitudes of the
long-forgotten dispute of these two writers is that so much passion
should have been expended over Sidney's romance, however great might be
its merit; while the attention of no one in France was attracted by
Shakespeare and the inimitable group of dramatists of his time. No
Baudoin, no Genevieve Chappelain disputed the honour of translating
"Hamlet," and a century was still to elapse before so much as
Shakespeare's name should figure in a book printed in France.[240]

This double translation of the "Arcadia" did not, however, pass
unnoticed, far from it; and from time to time we find the name of Sidney
reappearing in French books, while the giants of English literature
continued entirely unknown on the continent. When Charles Sorel
satirized the long-winded romances of his time in his "Berger
Extravagant," he did not forget Sidney, who figures among the authors
alternately praised and criticized in the disputation between Clarimond
and Philiris. The criticism is not very severe, and compared with the
treatment inflicted on other authors, it would seem that Sorel wished to
show courtesy to a foreigner who had been invited, so to say, as a
visitor to France by his translators.[241] Copies of Sidney's original
"Arcadia" crept into France, and are to be found in rather unexpected
places. Thus a copy of the edition of 1605 is to be seen in the National
Library in Paris, with the [Greek: Ph Ph] of surintendant Fouquet on the
cover. The way in which the letters are interlaced shows that the book
did not come from Fouquet'