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To the gross salt of Jean de Meung, even more than to the courtly perfume of Guillaume de Lorris, may be ascribed the long-lived popularity of the "Roman de la Rose"; and thus a work, of which already the theme and first conception imply a great step forwards from the previous range of mediaeval poetry, became a favourite with all classes by reason of the piquancy of its flavour, and the quotable applicability of many of its passages.
Thus Gower's book, as he says at its close, stands "between earnest and game," and might be fairly described as a "Romaunt of the Rose," without either the descriptive grace of Guillaume de Lorris, or the wicked wit of Jean de Meung, but full of learning and matter, and written by an author certainly not devoid of the art of telling stories.
"Did I then but dream that Montresor arrested me yesterday on the road to Meung? Ah! I recollect! M. de Montresor gave me leave on parole to go to Reaux." Then, like an avalanche, remembrance swept down upon me, and my memory drew a vivid picture of the happenings at St. Sulpice. "My God!" I cried. "Am I not dead, then?"
"Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours, and at no cost of blood." "It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there and receive the surrender." "Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the Constable and his fifteen hundred; and when Talbot knows that Beaugency has fallen it will have an effect upon him."
It was the Maid's wish to enter Orleans from the northern side, but the officers with her thought this would be a great imprudence, and followed the opposite bank of the river. Passing through Beaugency and Meung, they went on by Saint Die, Saint Laurent, and Clery, without meeting with any attack from the enemy who occupied these places.
What poet has been so alert to recognize the master-spirits of his own time and his father's? De Meung and Granson among the French Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio of the Italians each comes in for his share of praise from Chaucer, or of the princely borrowings which are still more eloquent than praise. Yet, for all this, Chaucer is far indeed from founding the art of criticism.
"Much nearer, monseigneur; his majesty must by this time have arrived at Meung." "Does the court accompany him?" "Yes, monseigneur." "A propos, I forgot to ask you after M. le Cardinal." "His eminence appears to enjoy good health, monseigneur." "His nieces accompany him, no doubt?" "No, monseigneur, his eminence has ordered the Mesdemoiselles de Mancini to set out for Brouage.
Jean de Meung was not a great artist; he wrote without distinction, and without sense of form; it is his bold and voluminous thought that gives him a high place in French literature. In virtue alike of his popularization of an encyclopedic store of knowledge and of his underlying doctrine the worship of Nature he ranks as a true forerunner of the great movement of the Renaissance.
Had he not begun by translating the wicked satire of Jean de Meung, "a heresy against the law" of Love, and had he not, by cynically painting in his Cressid a picture of woman's perfidy, encouraged men to be less faithful to women That be as true as ever was any steel?
Perhaps they thought that, if everybody could transmute metals, gold would be so plentiful that it would be no longer valuable, and that some new art would be requisite to transmute it back again into steel and iron. If so, society is much indebted to them for their forbearance. Jean De Meung
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