Indeed Pasquier has a not inconsiderable knowledge of mediæval poetry—a knowledge at any rate extending far beyond that of the _Pléiade_ generally, who were as a rule content to recognise, with a certain toleration, the _Roman de la Rose_. [Sidenote: _His knowledge of older French literature_,] He knows and praises Helinand, the authors of the great _Alixandre_, Thibaut de Champagne, Chrestien de Troyes, Raoul de Houdenc—not merely, it would seem, from Fauchet’s book, but in themselves; and he quotes _Ogier le Danois_, _Athis et Prophilias_, _Cléomadès_, &c. Like a sensible man, he has that indispensable chapter on Provençal literature which some would cast out of French literary history, thereby making it unintelligible. And then he passes to the prose Arthurian romances, and to the formal poetry of the fourteenth century, of which he speaks without any of the exaggerated and slightly unintelligent—certainly intolerant—contempt of Du Bellay and Vauquelin. “_Servitude, que je ne die gêne d’esprit, admirable_,” “_ces mignardises_” are his mild censures of them, and he gives particular attention to Froissart and Alain Chartier, with mention of Villon and others, and a very high eulogium of _Pathelin_. He does not, he says, know the author (nor do we), but he will dare to say that this farce, as a whole and in parts, _fait contrecarre_ to the comedies of both Greeks and Romans. He is fairly copious on the men of letters of the first half of the century, and then begins a new chapter with the picturesque and often-quoted phrase about the “great fleet of poets” that the reign of Henri II. brought forth, and their new style of poetry.