lineal descendants from Francus, a son of Priam, and thus connects
French history with the war of Troy, just as Wace, in the Norman Roman
de Rou, traces a similar analogy between the Trojan Brutus and
Britain. Later French poets have attempted epics, more or less popular
in their time, among which are Alaric by Scudéri, Clovis by St.
Sorlin, and two poems on La Pucelle, one by Chapelain, and the other
by Voltaire.

Next comes la Henriade, also by Voltaire, a half bombastic, half
satirical account of Henry IV's wars to gain the crown of France. This
poem also contains some very fine and justly famous passages, but is
too long and too artificial, as a whole, to please modern readers.

The most popular of all the French prose epics is, without dispute,
Fénelon's Télémaque, or account of Telemachus' journeys to find some
trace of his long-absent father Ulysses.

Les Martyrs by Chateaubriand, and La Légende des Siècles by Victor
Hugo, complete the tale of important French epics to date.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: See the author's "Legends of the Middle Ages."]




THE SONG OF ROLAND[8]