Minturno, it will be remembered, was the first to limit the action of the heroic poem to one year. In another passage he deduces the rule from the practice of Virgil and Homer;[370] but Ronsard seems to think that Virgil himself has not obeyed this law. We have already alluded to the influence of Minturno on the Pleiade. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, who explicitly acknowledges his indebtedness to Minturno, also follows him in limiting the action of the drama to one day and that of the epic to one year:-- "Or comme eux l'heroic suivant le droit sentier, Doit son oeuvre comprendre au cours d'un an entier; Le tragic, le comic, dedans une journee Comprend ce que fait l'autre au cours de son annee: Le theatre jamais ne doit estre rempli D'un argument plus long que d'un jour accompli."[371] The two last lines of this passage bear considerable resemblance to Boileau's famous statement of the unities three-quarters of a century later.[372] Toward the end of the sixteenth century, then, the unity of time, and in a less degree the unity of place, had become almost inviolable laws of the drama. But at this very period strong notes of revolt against the tyranny of the unities begin to be heard. Up to this time the classical Italian drama had been the pattern for French playwrights; but the irregular Spanish drama was now commencing to exert considerable influence in France, and with this Spanish influence came the Spanish opposition to the unities. In 1582 Jean de Beaubreuil, in the preface of his tragedy of _Regulus_, had spoken with contempt of the rule of twenty-four hours as _trop superstitieux_. But De Laudun was probably the first European critic to argue formally against it. The concluding chapter of his _Art Poetique_ (1598) gives five different reasons why the unity of time should not be observed in the drama. The chapter is entitled, "Concerning those who say that the action of tragedy must conclude in a single day;" and De Laudun begins by asserting that this opinion had never been sustained by any good author. This is fairly conclusive evidence that De Laudun had never directly consulted Aristotle's _Poetics_, but was indebted for his knowledge of Aristotle to the Italians, and especially to Scaliger. The five arguments which he formulates against the unity of time are as follows:--