This learned innovation spread throughout western Europe.[401] In France, toward the close of the fifteenth century, according to Agrippa d'Aubigne, a certain Mousset had translated the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into French hexameters; but nothing else is known either of Mousset or of his translations. As early as 1500 one Michel de Bouteauville, the author of an _Art de metrifier francois_, wrote a poem in classical distichs on the English war. Sibilet (1548) accepted the use of classical metres, though with some distrust, for to him rhyme seemed as essential to French poetry as long and short syllables to Greek and Latin. In 1562 Ramus, in his _Grammar_, recommended the ancient versification, and expressed his regret that it had not been accepted with favor by the public. In the same year Jacques de la Taille wrote his treatise, _La Maniere de faire des Vers en francois comme en grec et en latin_, but it was not published until 1573, eleven years after his death. His main object in writing the book was to show that it is not as difficult to employ quantity in French verse as some people think, nor even any more difficult than in Greek and Latin.[402] In answer to the objection that the vulgar tongues are by their nature incapable of quantity, he argues, after the manner of Du Bellay, that such things do not proceed from the nature of a language, but from the labor and diligence of those who employ it. He is tired of vulgar rhymes, and is anxious to find a more ingenious and more difficult path to Parnassus. He then proceeds to treat of quantity and measure in French, of feet and verse, and of figures and poetic license.[403]