to be found in Hucher, _Le Saint Graal_ (3 vols., Le Mans,
1875-78); in Michel's _Petit Saint Graal_ (Paris, 1841); in the
_Merlin_ of MM. G. Paris and Ulrich (Paris, 1886). But _Lancelot_ and
the later parts are practically inaccessible in any modern edition.]

[Sidenote: _Robert de Borron._]

The other claimant for the authorship of a main part of the story--in
this case the Merlin part, and the long history of the Graal from the
days of Joseph of Arimathea downwards--is a much more shadowy person,
a certain Robert de Borron, a knight of the north of France. Nobody
has much interest in disturbing Borron's claims, though they also have
been attacked; and it is only necessary to say that there is not the
slightest ground for supposing that he was an ancestor of Lord Byron,
as was once very gratuitously done, the time when he was first heard
of happening to coincide with the popularity of that poet.

[Sidenote: _Chrestien de Troyes._]

The third personage who is certainly or uncertainly connected by name
with the original framework of the legend is again more substantial
than Robert de Borron, though less so than Walter Map. As his surname,
derived from his birthplace, indicates, Chrestien de Troyes was of
Champenois extraction, thus belonging to the province which, with
Normandy, contributed most to early French literature. And he seems to
have been attached not merely to the court of his native prince, the
Count of Champagne, but to those of the neighbouring Walloon lordships
or principalities of Flanders and Hainault. Of his considerable work
(all of it done, it would seem, before the end of the twelfth century)
by far the larger part is Arthurian--the immense romance of _Percevale
le Gallois_,[48] much of which, however, is the work of continuators;
the interesting episode of the Lancelot saga, called _Le Chevalier a
la Charette_; _Erec et Enide_, the story known to every one from Lord
Tennyson's idyll; the _Chevalier au Lyon_, a Gawain legend; and
_Cliges_, which is quite on the outside of the Arthurian group. All
these works are written in octosyllabic couplets, particularly light
and skipping, somewhat destitute of force and grip, but full of grace
and charm. Of their contents more presently.

[Footnote 48: Ed. Potvin, 6 vols., Mons, 1866-70. Dr Foerster has
undertaken a complete Chrestien, of which the 2d and 3d vols. are
_Yvain_ ("Le Chevalier au Lyon") and _Erec_ (Halle, 1887-90). _Le
Chevalier a la Charet