From a literary point of view, however, the exercises of the century, in what may be called applied scholarship, were, leaving out of sight for the moment Amyot's work, and also that, presently to be mentioned, of Herberay, of greater merit than its pure translations. All the mediaeval legends, assigning classical or semi-classical origins to the populations of France, were resumed and amplified by Jean Lemaire de Belges, in the first years of the century, in his _Illustrations des Gaules_. Lemaire belongs, as has been said elsewhere, for the most part to the earlier school of the Rhetoriqueurs, but his literary power was considerable. The style of research, mingling as it did antiquarian and historical elements with a strong infusion of what was purely literary, was illustrated during the period by three persons who deserve special mention. Claude Fauchet is a name of great importance in French literary history. So long as mediaeval literature actually flourished we should expect to find, and we do find, no attention paid to its history and development. Fauchet was the first person, so far as is known, who devoted himself to something like a critical examination of its results; and as many of the materials which he had at his disposal have perished, his work, with all its drawbacks, is still very valuable. His _Antiquites Gauloises et Francoises_ are purely historical, but display a sound spirit of criticism. His _Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et Poesie Francoise, Ryme et Romans, plus les Noms et Sommaires des Oeuvres de CXXVII Poetes Francois vivans avant l'an MCCC_, is a work for its period (1581) almost unique. Philologically, of course, Fauchet is far from infallible, as, for instance, in his theory, obviously indefensible, that French is a cross between the tongues of the Gauls and the Romans. But his 'Noms et Sommaires' are actually taken from the study of manuscripts; and, as the works of the Trouveres had, with few exceptions, long dropped out of sight, except in late fifteenth-century prose versions, the attempt to make them known was as salutary as it was bold. [Sidenote: Pasquier.]