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 Gérard 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 Matière 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 Thèbes, Roman de Troie, and Roman
d'Alexandre contain, besides, innumerable mediaeval embellishments,
among others the first mention in French of the quest for the Fountain
of Youth.

Later on in French literature we come across the animal epic, or Roman
du Renard, a style of composition which found its latest and most
finished expression in Germany at the hands of Goethe, and the
allegorical epic, Le Roman de la Rose, wherein abstract ideas were
personified, such as Hope, Slander (Malebouche), Danger, etc.

There are also epic poems based on Le Combat des Trente and on the
doings of Du Guesclin. Ronsard, in his Franciade, claims the Franks as