It so happened that the mediaeval theatre closed, as far as its exclusive possession of the stage is concerned, with one of the most remarkable of all its writers. Pierre Gringore[205], who towards the close of his career preferred the spelling Gringoire, was a Norman by birth. His poetical and dramatic capacity has been considerably exaggerated by the learned but crotchety scholar who was at first charged with the joint editorship of his works in the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne. But, when the hyperboles of M. Charles d'Hericault are reduced to their simplest terms, Gringore remains a remarkable figure. It is to him that we owe the only complete and really noteworthy tetralogy, composed of _cry_, sotie, morality, and farce, which exists to show the final result of the mediaeval play--the _Jeu du Prince des Sots_. To him is also due the most remarkable of the sixteenth-century mysteries, that of _Saint Louis_; and his miscellaneous poems, as yet not fully collected, show us a man of letters possessed of no small faculty for miscellaneous work. Gringore first emerges as a pamphleteer in verse, on the side of the policy of Louis XII. He held the important position of _mere sotte_ in the company of persons who charged themselves with playing the sotie, and Louis perceived the advantages which he might gain by enlisting such a writer on his side. Gringore's early works are allegorical poems of the kind which the increasing admiration of the _Roman de la Rose_, joined to the practice of the Rhetoriqueurs, had made fashionable in France; but they are directly political in tone, and an undercurrent of dramatic intention is always manifest in them. _Les folles Entreprises_ is a very remarkable work. It might be described as a series of monologues of the kind usual and already described, but continuous, and having the independent parts bound to each other by speeches of the author _in propria persona_. The titles of the separate sections--_L'Entreprise des folz Orgueilleux_, _Reflexions de l'Auteur sur la Guerre d'Italie_, _le Blason de Pratique_, _Balade et Supplication a la Vierge Marie_ (_et se peult Interpreter sur la Royne de France_), etc.--explain the plan of this curious book as well as any laboured analysis could do. The author takes what he considers to be the chief grievances in Church and State, and dilates upon them in the manner, half moralising, half allegoric, which was popular. An argument of _Les folles Entreprises_ would, however, require considerable space. It enters into the most recondite theological questions, and of its general tone the heading of the last chapter tells as good a story as anything else can do: 'Comme le tres-chrestien roy et Justice relevent Foy qui estait abattu par Richesse et Papelardise.' Other works of the same semi-dramatic, semi-poetical kind are even more directly political in substance: _Les Entreprises de Venise_; _La Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs_ (Pope Julius), etc.