[68] For Melior, though of invisible beauty, is represented as delightful in every other way, as wise and witty and gracious in speech as becomes a white witch. And when her lover on one occasion thanks her for her _sermon_, there is no satire; he only means _sermo_. [69] Like Guy of Warwick; still more like Mr. Jaggers's clerk, though the circumstances are reversed. _He_ almost says in so many words, "Hullo! here's an engagement ring on my finger. We _can't_ have a marriage." [70] The author, _more suo_, intimates that the Court _ladies_ by no means shared these hostile feelings, and would have willingly been in Melior's place. [71] He induces him to turn Christian on the supposition of being his companion; and then gives him the slip. The neophyte's expressions on the occasion are not wholly edifying. [72] The good palfrey is found and in a state to carry his master, who is quite unable to walk. One hopes they did not leave the beast to the lions, tigers, wyverns, etc., for he could hardly hope for such a literal "stroke of luck" again. [73] The name will suggest, to those who have some wine-lore, no less a vintage than Chateau Yquem. Nothing could be better for a person in the Count's condition as a restorative. [74] These two directions obviously refer to the common mediaeval "wimple" arrangement. CHAPTER IV THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION [Sidenote: Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century. _Aucassin et Nicolette_ not quite typical.] The title of this chapter may seem an oversight or an impertinence, considering that large parts of an earlier one have been occupied with discussions and translations of the prose Arthurian Romances. It was, however, expressly pointed out that the priority of these is a matter of opinion, not of judgment; and it may be here quite frankly admitted that one of the most serious arguments against that priority is the extreme lateness of Old French Prose in any finished literary form. The excuse, however, if excuse be needed, does not turn on any such hinge as this. It was desired to treat, in the last two chapters, romance matter proper of the larger kind, whether that matter took the form of prose or of verse. Here, on the other hand, the object is to deal with the smaller but more miscellaneous body of fictitious matter (part, no doubt, of a larger) which presents it tolerably early, and in character foretells the immense development of the kind which French was to see later.[75] A portion of this body, sufficient for us, is contained in two little volumes of the _Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_, published rather less than sixty years ago (1856 and 1858) by MM. L. Moland and Ch. d'Hericault, the first devoted to thirteenth-, the second to fourteenth-century work. One of these, the now world-famous _Aucassin et Nicolette_, has been so much written about and so often translated already that it cannot be necessary to say a great deal about it here. It is, moreover, of a mixed