reated like prisoners of war, were shot down in squads
by the Convention soldiery; "Louis XVII."; "The Replacement of the Statue
of Henry IV."; "The Death of the Duke of Berry"; "The Birth of the Duke
of Bourdeaux" and his "Baptism"; "The Funeral of Louis XVIII."; "The
Consecration of Charles X."; "The Death of Mlle. de Sombreuil," the
royalist heroine who saved her father's life by drinking a cupful of
human blood in the days of the Terror; and "La Bande Noire," which
denounces with great bitterness the violation of the tombs of the kings
of France by the regicides, and pleads for the preservation of the ruins
of feudal times:

"O murs! o creneaux! o tourelle!
Remparts, fosses aux ponts mouvants!
Lourds faisceaux de colonnes freles!
Fiers chateaux! modestes couvents!
Cloitres poudreux, salles antiques,
Ou gemissaient les saints cantiques,
Ou riaient les banquets joyeux!
Lieux ou le coeur met ses chimeres!
Eglises ou priaient nos meres
Tours ou combattaient nos aieux!"

In these two ode collections, though the Catholic and legitimist
inspiration is everywhere apparent, there is nothing revolutionary in the
language or verse forms. But in the "Odes et Ballades" of 1826, "the
romantic challenge," says Saintsbury, "is definitely thrown down. The
subjects are taken by preference from times and countries which the
classical tradition had regarded as barbarous. The metres and rhythm are
studiously broken, varied, and irregular; the language has the utmost
possible glow of colour, as opposed to the cold correctness of classical
poetry, the completest disdain of conventional periphrasis, the boldest
reliance on exotic terms and daring neologisms." This description
applies more particularly to the Ballades, many of which, such as "La
Ronde du Sabbat," "La Legende de la Nonne," "La Chasse du Burgrave," and
"Le Pas d'Armes du Roi Jean" are mediaeval studies in which the lawless
_grotesquerie_ of Gothic art runs riot. "The author, in composing them,"
says the preface, "has tried to give some idea of what the poems of the
first troubadours of the Middle Ages might have been; those Christian
rhapsodists who had nothing in the world but their swords and their
guitars, and went from castle to castle paying for their entertainment
with their songs." To show that liberty in art does not mean disorder,
the author draws an elaborate contrast between the garden of Versailles
and a primitive forest, in a passag