It was inevitable that such extraordinary works as _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ should attract special imitators in the direction of their outward form. It was also inevitable that this imitation should frequently fix upon these Rabelaisian characteristics which are least deserving of imitation, and most likely to be depraved in the hands of imitators. It fell within the plan of the master to indulge in what has been called _fatrasie_, the huddling together, that is to say, of a medley of language and images which is best known to English readers in the not always successful following of Sterne. It pleased him also to disguise his naturally terse, strong and nervous style in a burlesque envelope of redundant language, partly ironical, partly the result of superfluous erudition, and partly that of a certain childish wantonness and exuberance, which is one of his raciest and pleasantest characteristics. In both these points he was somewhat corruptly followed. But fortunately the romancical writers of the 16th century had not Rabelais for their sole model, but were also influenced by the simple and straightforward style of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_. The joint influence gives us some admirable work. Nicholas of Troyes, a saddler of Champagne, came too early (his _Grand Parangon des nouvelles nouvelles_ appeared in 1536) to copy Rabelais. But Noel du Fail (d. c. 1585?), a judge at Rennes, shows the double influence in his _Propos rustiques_ and _Contes d'Eutrapel_, both of which, especially the former, are lively and well-written pictures of contemporary life and thought, as the country magistrate actually saw and dealt with them. In 1558, however, appeared two works of far higher literary and social interest. These are the _Heptameron_ of the queen of Navarre, and the _Contes et joyeux devis_ of Bonaventure des Periers (c. 1500-1544). Des Periers, who was a courtier of Marguerite's, has sometimes been thought to have had a good deal to do with the first-named work as well as with the second, and was also the author of a curious Lucianic satire, strongly sceptical in cast, the _Cymbalum mundi_. Indeed, not merely the queen's prose works, but also the poems gracefully entitled _Les Marguerites de la Marguerite_, are often attributed to the literary men whom the sister of Francis I. gathered round her. However this may be, some single influence of power enough to give unity and distinctness of savour evidently presided over the composition of the _Heptameron_. Composed as it is on the model of Boccaccio, its tone and character are entirely different, and few works have a more individual charm. The _Tales_ of des Periers are shorter, simpler and more homely; there is more wit in them and less refinement. But both works breathe, more powerfully perhaps than any others, the peculiar mixture of cultivated and poetical voluptuousness with a certain religiosity and a vigorous spirit of action which characterizes the French Renaissance. Later in