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Chrétien de Troies, the most famous of the old French trouvères in the latter part of the twelfth century, made the Arthur legend the subject for his "Romans" and "Contes," as well as for two epics on Tristan; the Holy Grail, Peredur, etc., belonging to the same cycle.
It is rather curious to note, in connection with this prophecy, that the doors of the Opéra Comique, which were closed against Offenbach after the failure of his Vert-Vert some years before the war, are to be reopened to him next season, his Contes de Hoffman having proved the "Open, sesame!" to those long-barred portals.
The next to appear was the heroine's page, Louis de Contes, aged fifteen when appointed to attend on Joan of Arc: at the time of the trial of her rehabilitation he was forty-two. Next came a very interesting witness, to wit, Joan of Arc's almoner, 'vénérable et religieux personne Jean Pasquerel. This worthy priest had been formerly in a Tours monastery. We do not find his age given at this time.
Like Eisen's vignettes, or the contes of innumerable story-tellers, they bring back to us the grace, the luxury, the prettiness, the frivolity of that Court which believed itself, till the rude awakening came, to contain all that was precious in the life of France.
Such were the words of two little girls walking home from a school for young ladies kept, at the Cathedral city of Winchester, by two Frenchwomen of quality, refugees from the persecutions preluding the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and who enlivened the studies of their pupils with the Contes de Commere L'Oie.
One of the foremost among the living writers of contes is M. Edmond About, whose exquisite humor is known to all readers of "The Man with the Broken Ear," a Short-story in conception, though unduly extended in execution.
Nevertheless, we are again puzzled, when we attempt to realise the personality of a man whose imagination could soar to the mystical and philosophical conception of "Seraphita," which is full of religious poetry, and who yet had the power in "Cesar Birotteau" to invest prosaic and even sordid details with absolute verisimilitude, or in the "Contes Drolatiques" would write, in Old French, stories of Rabelaisian breadth and humour.
Intrigues were formed in every direction; it was reported that the King had discharged his Ministers. The blackest calumnies were hatched. It was said that the Duc de La Rochecoupée had concocted a draught to send the Princess to sleep, and that Monsieur de Boulingrin was his accomplice. * Contes de Perrault, édition Aadré Lefevre, p. 86-108
"Y Cymmrodor," vol. vi. p. 194; Hunt, p. 120. Gerv. Tilb. Dcc. iii. c. 85. Sébillot, "Contes," vol. ii. p. 42; "Litt. Orale," p. 23; "Trad. et Super." p. 109. But in these cases the operation was performed painlessly enough, for the victims were unaware of their loss until they came to look in the glass. In one of Prof.
Webster, p. 120; Campbell, vol. i. p. 25; "Mélusine," vol. i. p. 446; "F. L. Españ." vol. i. p. 187; Schneller, p. 71; Imbriani, p. 411; Cosquin, vol. i. pp. 9, 25; Sébillot, "Contes," vol. i. p. 197; Grundtvig, vol. i. p. 46; Cavallius, p. 255; Maspons y Labros, p. 102; "F. L. Journal," vol. i. p. 284, quoting Lewis. Waldau, p. 248; Ralston, "R. F. Tales," p. 120, from Afanasief.
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