The original _Oeuvres_ of Helisenne form a rather appetising little volume, fat, and close and small printed, as indeed is the case with most, but not quite all, of the books now under notice. The complementary pieces are mainly moralities, as indeed are, in intention, the _Angoisses_ themselves. These latter seem to me better worth reprinting than most other things as yet not reprinted, from the _Heptameron_ (Helisenne, be it remembered, preceded Marguerite) for nearly a hundred years. The later parts, though (or perhaps even because) they contrast curiously with the first, are by no means destitute of interest; and M. Reynier, I think, is a little hard on them if he has perhaps been a little kind to their predecessor. The lingo is indeed almost always stupendous and occasionally terrible. The printer aids sometimes; for it was not at once that I could emend the description of the B. V. M. as "Mere et Fille de _l'aliltonat_ [ant] plasmateur" into "_altitonant_" ("loud-thundering"), while _plasmateur_ itself, though perfectly intelligible and legitimate, a favourite with the _rhetoriqueurs_, and borrowed from them even in Middle Scots, is not exactly everybody's word. But from her very exordium she may be fairly judged. "Au temps que la Deesse Cibele despouilla son glacial et gelide habit, et vestit sa verdoyante robe, tapissee de diverses couleurs, je fus procree, de noblesse." And, after all, there _is_ a certain nobility in this fashion of speech and of literary presentation. CHAPTER VIII THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I _The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story_ [Sidenote: Immense importance of the seventeenth century in our subject.]