It was fitting that agriculture, which is the staple industry of France, should contribute to her literature at this period--the most genuine and exuberant period of its history, if not that which produced the most minutely finished work. The _Theatre de l'Agriculture et du Menage des Champs_ of Olivier de Serres was published in the last year of the century. The author was a native of the town of Villeneuve du Berg, in the present department of Ardeche. He was a Protestant and a great favourite of Henri IV., to whom he was useful in developing Sully's plans of internal economy. The _Theatre de l'Agriculture_ was long the classic book on the subject, and the author has been honoured, in quite recent times, by statues and other demonstrations. Like most books of the kind, it is much overlaid with erudition, but this only adds to its picturesqueness; and, as the author's precepts were founded on a life's experience of his subject, it certainly cannot be reproached with a want of practical knowledge and aim. Not a few other authors would require notice, if space permitted, in this class of scientific and erudite authors, particularly in the class of linguistics and literature. Such is Geoffroy Tory, a printer, grammarian, and prose-writer of merit in the early part of the century, who anticipated Rabelais in his protest against the indiscriminate Latinisation of the later Rhetoriqueurs. Not a few other writers, such as Pelletier and Fontaine, busied themselves during the period with grammar and prosody; while towards the close of it, the first French bibliographers of eminence, La Croix du Maine, and Du Verdier, made their appearance. But the works of all these, as rather ancillary to literature than actually literary, must here be passed over. FOOTNOTES: [209] Cauvin or Chauvin is the more correct form, but the Latinised Calvinus made Calvin more usual. Calvin's works are voluminous. The _Institution_ was published in convenient shape at Paris in 1859. [210] Most of Amyot is accessible only in the old editions. A beautiful edition of the _Daphnis and Chloe_ has been published by L. Glady. London, 1878. [211] Dolet's works are not easily to be found except in public libraries. The standard book on him is that of Mr. R. C. Christie (London, 1880), one of the best monographs on French literary history to be found in any language. [212] 2 vols. Paris, 1849. CHAPTER VII. MONTAIGNE AND BRANTOME. [Sidenote: Disenchantment of the late Renaissance.]