The transformation of the older pastoral form into the newer began, doubtless, with the rendering into French of _Daphnis and Chloe_,[131] which appeared in the same year with the complete _Heptameron_ (1559). Twelve years later, in 1571, Belleforest's _La Pyrenee et Pastorale Amoureuse_ rather took the title than exemplified the kind; but in 1578 the translation of Montemayor's _Diana_ definitely turned the current into the new-old channel. It was not, however, till seven years later still that "_Les Bergeries de Juliette_, de l'invention d'Ollenix du Mont Sacre" (a rather exceptionally foolish anagram of Nicolas de Montreux) essayed something original in the style. Montreux issued his work, of which more presently, again and again in five instalments, the last of which appeared thirteen years later than the first. And it has been proved with immense bibliographical labour by M. Reynier,[132] that though the last decade of the sixteenth century in France was almost as fertile in short love-romances[133] as ours was in sonnet-cycles, the pastoral form was, whether deliberately or not, for the most part eschewed, though there were one or two exceptions of little if any consequence. It is indeed noteworthy that (only four years before the first part of the _Astree_) a second translation or the _Diana_ came out. But it was not till 1607 that this first part actually appeared, and in the opinion of its own time generally, and our own time for the most part, though not in that of the interval, made a new epoch in the history of French fiction. [Sidenote: Their general character.]