Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/42

24 The ballads he has composed in this spirit may be counted by the dozen: monotonous and gloomy variations of the same dismal theme. There must have prevailed among the nobility a general disposition to melancholy; otherwise we could not account for the manifest popularity of these poems.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the tone is still unchanged; Jean Meschinot sighs as did Deschamps.

He too is convinced that all goes wrong in the world; there is no justice any more; the great exploit the small, and the small exploit each other. He pretends to have been led by his hypochondria within an ace of suicide. He depicts himself in the following terms: