In the sixteenth century the great essayist Montaigne (1533-92) published his three books of _Essays_: a prose-classic of profound influence on thought, expressing the most liberal ideas--though he professed to be a Catholic--about religion and pleading for tolerance amidst the fierce controversies of the time. Montaigne was a universal scholar and the whole of life is reflected in his pages. Very different was Francois Rabelais (1495-1553), one of the greatest of the Renaissance writers. Though a priest and a monk for thirty years, his long rambling stories (chiefly _Pantagruel, King of the Dipsodes_, and _The Heroic Deeds and Sayings of the Good Pantagruel_) are so free that his name has given us the word “Rabelaisean” for improper stories. I have a literal translation, in five volumes, by Sir T. Urquhart (published in London in 1897), but it is rare. Rabelais is, apart from sex, often filthy, but many critics forget that even in this he is only expressing his world, the faults of which he sought to expose by wit and caricature. He wanted frank mirth and laughter substituted for hypocritical enjoyments. A French classic of quite the opposite type is the _Discourse on Method_ of the mathematician and philosopher Descartes (1596-1650). His works, however, are now chiefly of interest in the evolution of thought. In the sense in which we take “classics” here we turn rather to the three great poets who supremely represent the Renaissance in France: Corneille, Racine, and Molière. Corneille (1606-84) and Racine (1630-99) are both best known for their tragedies, which were directly inspired by those of the early Greek tragedians and were written in a severe classical style. Corneille is the more austere and dignified of the two, and he is seen at his best in _Polyeucte_ (based upon the martyrdom of an early Christian) and _Andromeda_ (a classical tragedy). Racine is, perhaps, a little less severe and more human than Corneille. He also wrote classical tragedies after the Greek model (_Iphigenia_, _Phaedra_, etc.), a biblical play _Esther_, and a number of historical and other plays. Molière (whose real name was Jean Baptiste Poqelin, 1622-73) is one of the great comedians of the world. He took the name Molière because he went on the stage. He is seen at his best in _Les Precieuses Ridicules_ (which pokes fun at pretentious ladies who talk literature), _Tartuffe_ (a satire of religious hypocrites), _The Misanthrope_, and _Don Juan_. For the freedom of his attacks on the Church he was excommunicated, but he was protected by the king, to whom his father had been valet. Boileau, or Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711), is added to these three as the fourth great poet of the time. His masterpiece is _The Poetic Art_. Like his contemporary Molière he was skeptical (though he rather insincerely wrote a prose-work _On the Love of God_), while Racine and Corneille were devout Catholics.