_Roland_ is the great achievement of French epic, and there are other poems, also, not far removed from the severity of _Roland_ and inspired by the same patriotic and religious ardour. But the poem of _Garin of Lorraine_ (which begins with the defence of France against the infidels, but very soon passes to the business of the great feud--its proper theme), though it is lacking in the political motives, not to speak of the symbolical imagination of _Roland_, is significant in another way, because though much later in date, though written at a time when Romance was prevalent, it is both archaic in its subject and also comprehensive in its treatment. It has something like the freedom of movement and the ease which in the Icelandic Sagas go along with similar antique subjects. The French epic poetry is not all of it made sublime by the ideas of _Roland_; there is still scope for the free representation of life in different moods, with character as the dominant interest. It should not be forgotten that the French epic has room for comedy, not merely in the shape of "comic relief," though that unhappily is sometimes favoured by the _chansons de geste_, and by the romances as well, but in the "humours" inseparable from all large and unpedantic fiction. A good deal of credit on this account may be claimed for Galopin, the reckless humorist of the party of Garin of Lorraine, and something rather less for Rigaut the Villain Unwashed, another of Garin's friends. This latter appears to be one of the same family as Hreidar the Simple, in the Saga of Harald Hardrada; a figure of popular comedy, one of the lubbers who turn out something different from their promise. Clumsy strength and good-nature make one of the most elementary compounds, and may easily be misused (as in _Rainouart_) where the author has few scruples and no dramatic consistency. Galopin is a more singular humorist, a ribald and a prodigal, yet of gentle birth, and capable of good service when he can be got away from the tavern. There are several passages in the _chansons de geste_ where, as with _Rainouart_, the fun is of a grotesque and gigantic kind, like the fun to be got out of the giants in the Northern mythology, and the trolls in the Northern popular tales. The heathen champion Corsolt in the _Coronemenz Looïs_ makes good comedy of this sort, when he accosts the Pope: "Little man! why is your head shaved?" and explains to him his objection to the Pope's religion: "You are not well advised to talk to me of God: he has done me more wrong than any other man in the world," and so on.[75] [Footnote 75: