e geste into _La Geste du Roi_, _La
Geste de Guillaume_ and _La Geste de Doon_, are excluded certain poems
of minor importance,--some provincial, such as _Amis and Amiles_ and
_Garin_, some dealing with the Crusades, such as _Antioche_, and some
which are not connected with any existing cycle, such as _Ciperis de
Vignevaux_; most of this last category, however, are works of the
decadence.

The analysis which is here sketched is founded on the latest theories of
Leon Gautier, who has given the labour of a lifetime to the
investigation of this subject. The wealth of material is baffling to the
ordinary student; of the medieval chansons de geste many hundreds of
thousands of lines have been preserved. The habit of composing became in
the 14th century, as has been said, no longer an art but a monomania.
Needless to add that a very large proportion of the surviving poems have
never yet been published. All the best of the early chansons de geste
are written in ten-syllable verse, divided into stanzas or _laisses_ of
different length, united by a single assonance. Rhyme came in with the
13th century, and had the effect in languid bards of weakening the
narrative; the sing-song of it led at last to the abandonment of verse
in favour of plain historical prose. The general character of the
chansons de geste, especially of those of the 12th century, is hard,
coarse, inflexible, like the march of rough men stiffened by coats of
mail. There is no art and little grace, but a magnificent display of
force. These poems enshrine the self-sufficiency of a young and powerful
people; they are full of Gallic pride, they breathe the spirit of an
indomitable warlike energy. All their figures belong to the same social
order of things, and all illustrate the same fighting aristocracy. The
moving principle is that of chivalry, and what is presented is,
invariably, the spectacle of the processional life of a medieval
soldier. The age described is a disturbed one; the feudal anarchy of
Europe is united, for a moment, in defending western civilization
against the inroads of Asia, against "the yellow peril." But it is a
time of transition in Europe also, and Charlemagne, the immortal but
enfeebled emperor, whose beard is whiter than lilies, represents an old
order of things against which the rude barons of the North are
perpetually in successful revolt. The loud cry of the dying Ronald, as
E. Quinet said, rings through the whole poetical literature o