Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/189

174 the sentimental youth, the heartbroken young lady; and the whole company will melt into tears for a suffering which, safely off the stage of the ideal, would elicit only their anger or their contempt. But we, of a later generation, listen with cheeks unwet. This artificiality grates upon us. These broken hearts are all too much alike.

When the story takes a humorous turn, new difficulties arise. Queen Margaret certainly shows more spirit and vigour in this direction; her satire is often shrewd; she has a certain enjoyment of life, of pleasure, of adventure, and even of grossness, which is at all events better than the pointless pretence of her pathos. It at least is real; and it is very characteristic of her, of her nation, and of her time. It has a certain historical value, this free, loose, reckless gaiety of hers. And though there is, intrinsically, little humour in it, there is much humour in the reader's mind who notes the odd conjunction of this Rabelaisian fancy with the mystical piety of Oisille. It gives his imagination a certain humorous shock to realise that these moods are perfectly compatible with each other.

But the real value of the Heptameron lies in a certain direct actuality in the description of life and of manners in such a town as Alençon or Amboise at that period. We can frame a fair idea of the relative position of classes, of the all-pervading wealth and comfort, the great amount of time given to idleness and pleasure, and also of the thousand sad incongruities which France presented then. In this sense the Heptameron is really interesting. We rummage among its out-dated gallantry and strangely-fashioned piety, and forgotten in the medley, we find a handful of the life of the past. We feel it in our hands, as