nd
baptized on the same day, prove so alike as to become interchangeable.
Still, brought up in separate provinces, Amis and Amiles meet and
become friends only when knighted by Charlemagne, whose graciousness
toward them rouses the jealousy of the felon knight Hardre. When
Charlemagne finally offers his niece to Amiles (who, through modesty,
passes her on to Amis), the felon accuses the former of treacherously
loving the king's daughter Bellicent, and thereupon challenges him to
fight. Conscious of not being a traitor, although guilty of loving the
princess, Amiles dares not accept this challenge, and changes places
with Amis, who personates him in the lists. Because Amis thus commits
perjury to rescue his friend from a dilemma, he is in due time
stricken with leprosy, deserted by his wife, and sorely ill treated by
his vassals. After much suffering, he discovers his sole hope of cure
consists in bathing in the blood of the children which in the
meanwhile have been born to Amiles and to his princess-wife. When the
leper Amis reluctantly reveals this fact to his friend Amiles, the
latter, although broken-hearted, unhesitatingly slays his children.
Amis is immediately cured, and both knights hasten to church together
to return thanks and inform the mother of the death of her little
ones. The princess rushes to their chamber to mourn over their
corpses, only to discover that meantime they have been miraculously
restored to life! This story is very touchingly told in the old
Chanson, which contains many vivid and interesting descriptions of the
manners of the time.

In this cycle are also included Gerard de Roussillon, Hugues Capet,
Macaire (wherein occurs the famous episode of the Dog of Montargis),
and Huon de Bordeaux, which latter supplied Shakespeare, Wieland, and
Weber with some of the dramatis personae of their well-known comedy,
poem, and opera. We must also mention what are often termed the
Crusade epics, of which the stock topics are quarrels, challenges,
fights, banquets, and tournaments, and among which we note les
Enfances de Godefroi, Antioche, and Tudela's Song of the Crusade
against the Albigenses.

The third great cycle is known as Matiere de Rome la grand, or as the
antique cycle. It embodies Christianized versions of the doings of the
heroes of the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Thebais, Alexandreid, etc. In
their prose forms the Roman de Thebes, Roman de Troie, and Roman
d'Alexandre contain, besides, innumer