The story of the _Chastelaine de Vergi_[89] (dated by its editor between 1282 and 1288) is an example of a different kind from _Flamenca_; still abstract in its personages, still sentimental, but wholly unlike _Flamenca_ in the tragic stress of its sentiment and in the pathos of its incidents. There is no plot in _Flamenca_, or only just enough to display the author's resources of eloquence; in the _Chastelaine de Vergi_ there is no rhetorical expansion or effusion, but instead of that the coherent closely-reasoned argument of a romantic tragedy, with nothing in it out of keeping with the conditions of "real life." It is a moral example to show the disastrous result of breaking the first law of chivalrous love, which enjoins loyal secrecy on the lover; the tragedy in this case arises from the strong compulsion of honour under which the commandment is transgressed. [Footnote 89: Ed. G. Raynaud, _Romania_, xxi. p. 145.] There was a knight who was the lover of the Chastelaine de Vergi, unknown to all the world. Their love was discovered by the jealous machinations of the Duchess of Burgundy, whom the knight had neglected. The Duchess made use of her knowledge to insult the Chastelaine; the Chastelaine died of a broken heart at the thought that her lover had betrayed her; the knight found her dead, and threw himself on his sword to make amends for his unwilling disloyalty. Even a summary like this may show that the plot has capabilities and opportunities in it; and though the scheme of the short story does not allow the author to make use of them in the full detailed manner of the great novelists, he understands what he is about, and his work is a very fine instance of sensitive and clearly-executed medieval narrative, which has nothing to learn (in its own kind, and granting the conditions assumed by the author) from any later fiction. The story of the _Lady of Vergi_ was known to Boccaccio, and was repeated both by Bandello and by Queen Margaret of Navarre. It is time to consider how the work of the medieval romantic schools was taken up and continued by many of the most notable writers of the period which no longer can be called medieval, in which modern literature makes a new and definite beginning; especially in the works of the two modern poets who have done most to save and adapt the inheritance of medieval romance for modern forms of literature--Boccaccio and Chaucer.