_fabliau_-flower. But it is from
the thirteenth century that (with some others) we have _Aucassin et
Nicolette_.[159] If it was for a short time rather too much of a
fashion to praise (it cannot be over-praised) this exquisite story, no
wise man will allow himself to be disgusted any more than he will
allow himself to be attracted by fashion. This work of "the old
caitiff," as the author calls himself with a rather Hibernian
coaxingness, is what has been called a _cantefable_--that is to say,
it is not only obviously written, like verse romances and _fabliaux_,
for recitation, but it consists partly of prose, partly of verse, the
music for the latter being also given. Mr Swinburne, Mr Pater, and,
most of all, Mr Lang, have made it unnecessary to tell in any detailed
form the story how Aucassin, the son of Count Garin of Beaucaire, fell
in love with Nicolette, a Saracen captive, who has been bought by the
Viscount of the place and brought up as his daughter; how Nicolette
was shut up in a tower to keep her from Aucassin; how Count Bongars of
Valence assailed Beaucaire and was captured by Aucassin on the faith
of a promise from his father that Nicolette shall be restored to him;
how the Count broke his word, and Aucassin, setting his prisoner free,
was put in prison himself; how Nicolette escaped, and by her device
Aucassin also; how the lovers were united; and how, after a comic
interlude in the country of "Torelore," which could be spared by all
but folk-lorists, the damsel is discovered to be daughter of the King
of Carthage, and all ends in bowers of bliss.

[Footnote 159: Frequently edited: not least satisfactorily in the
_Nouvelles Francaises du XIIIme. Siecle_, referred to above. In 1887
two English translations, by Mr Lang and Mr Bourdillon, the latter
with the text and much apparatus, appeared: and Mr Bourdillon has
recently edited a facsimile of the unique MS. (Oxford, 1896).]

But even the enthusiasm and the art of three of the best writers of
English and lovers of literature in this half-century have not
exhausted the wonderful charm of this little piece. The famous
description of Nicolette, as she escapes from her prison and walks
through the daisies that look black against her white feet, is
certainly the most beautiful thing of the kind in mediaeval
prose-work, and the equal of anything of the kind anywhere. And for
original audacity few things surpass Aucassin's equally famous
inquiry, "En Paradis qu'ai-