nches are
of various epochs and by various authors, was composed partly in the
continental estates of the kings of England, partly in the France of
French kings. It was built up, part after part, during several
centuries, beginning with the twelfth: built like a cathedral, each
author adding a wing, a tower, a belfry, a steeple; without caring, most
of the time, to make known his name; so that the poem has come down to
us, like the poems in stone of the architects, almost anonymously, the
work of every one, an expression and outcome of the popular mind.

For many Frenchmen of ancient France, a _chanson_ was a sufficient
revenge, or at least served as a temporary one. So much pleasure was
taken in it, that by such means the tyranny of the ruler was forgotten.
On more than one occasion where in other countries a riot would have
been unavoidable, in France a song has sufficed; discontent, thus
attenuated, no longer rose to fury. More than one jacquerie has been
delayed, if not averted, by the "Roman de Renart."

In this ample comedy everybody has a part to perform; everybody and
everything is in turn laughed at: the king, the nobles, the citizens,
the Pope, the pilgrims, the monks, every belief and every custom,[205]
religion, and justice, the powerful, the rich, the hypocrites, the
simple-minded; and, so that nothing shall be wanting, the author scoffs
at himself and his caste; he knows its failings, points them out and
laughs at them. The tone is heroi-comical: for the jest to take effect,
the contrast must be clearly visible, and we should keep in view the
importance of principles and the majesty of kings:

"Lordings, you have heard many a tale, related by many a tale-teller,
how Paris ravished Helen, the trouble it brought him, and the sorrow!...
also gests and fabliaux; but never did you hear of the war--such a hard
one it was, and of such great import--between Renard and Ysengrin."[206]

The personages are animals; their sentiments are human; king lion swears
like a man[207]; but the way in which they sit, or stand, or move, is
that of their species. Every motion of theirs is observed with that
correctness of eye which is always found in early times among animal
painters, long before painters of the human figure rise to the same
excellence. There are perfect descriptions of Ysengrin, who feels very
foolish after a rebuke of the king's, and "sits with his tail between
his legs"; of the cock, monarch of the barn-yar