_France._

The French regular drama.

France was the only country, besides Italy, in which classical tragedy
was naturalized. In 1531 the Benedictine Barthelemy of Loches printed a
_Christus Xylonicus_; and a very notable impulse was given both to the
translation and to the imitation of ancient models by a series of
efforts made in the university of Paris and other French places of
learning. The most successful of these attempts was the _Johannes
Baptistes_ of George Buchanan, who taught in Paris for five years and at
a rather later date resided at Bordeaux, where in 1540 he composed this
celebrated tragedy (afterwards translated into four or five modern
languages), in which it is now ascertained that he had in view the trial
and condemnation of Sir Thomas More. He also wrote _Jephthah_, and
translated into Latin the _Medea_ and _Alcestis_ of Euripides. At a
rather later date the great scholar M. A. Muret (Muretus) produced his
_Julius Caesar_, a work perhaps superior in correctness to Buchanan's
tragic masterpiece, but inferior to it in likeness to life. About the
same time the enthusiasm of the Paris classicists showed itself in
several translations of Sophoclean and Euripidean tragedies into French
verse.[80]

Jodelle.

Thus the beginnings of the regular drama in France, which, without
absolutely determining, potently swayed its entire course, came to
connect themselves directly with the great literary movement of the
Renaissance. Du Bellay sounded the note of attack which converted that
movement in France into an endeavour to transform the national
literature; and in Ronsard the classical school of poetry put forward
its conquering hero and sovereign lawgiver. Among the disciples who
gathered round Ronsard, and with him formed the "Pleiad" of French
literature, Etienne Jodelle, the reformer of the French theatre, soon
held a distinguished place. The stage of this period left ample room for
the enterprise of this youthful writer. The popularity of the old
entertainments had reached its height when Louis XII., in his conflict
with Pope Julius II., had not scrupled to call in the aid of Pierre
Gringoire (Gringon), and when the _Mere sotte_ had mockingly masqueraded
in the petticoats of Holy Church. In the reign of Francis I. the
Inquisition, and on occasion the king himself, had to some extent
succeeded in repressing the audacity of the actors, whose follies were
at the same time an utter abomination in the