Side by side with the southern _troubadours_, or a little later than they, the _trouveres_ of the north sang, with more manly ambition, of national themes, and, like Virgil, of arms and of heroes. Some productions of the _trouveres_ may fairly be allowed an elevation of aim and of treatment entitling them to be called epic in character. _Chansons de geste_ (songs of exploit), or _romans_, is the native name by which those primitive French poems are known. They exist in three principal cycles, or groups, of productions--one cycle composed of those pertaining to Charlemagne; one, of those pertaining to British Arthur, and a third, of those pertaining to ancient Greece and Rome, notably to Alexander the Great. The cycle revolving around the majestic legend of Charlemagne for its center was Teutonic, rather than Celtic, in spirit as well as in theme. It tended to the religious in tone. The Arthurian cycle was properly Celtic. It dealt more with adventures of love. The Alexandrian cycle, so named from one principal theme celebrated--namely, the deeds of Alexander the Great--mixed fantastically the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome with the then prevailing ideas of chivalry, and with the figments of fairy lore. (The metrical form employed in these poems gave its name to the Alexandrine line later so predominant in French poetry.) The volume of this quasi-epical verse, existing in its three groups, or cycles, is immense. So is that of the satire and the allegory in meter that followed. From this latter store of stock and example, Chaucer drew to supply his muse with material. The _fabliaux_, so called--fables, that is, or stories--were still another form of French literature in verse. It is only now, within the current decade of years, that a really ample collection of _fabliaux_--hitherto, with the exception of a few printed volumes of specimens, extant exclusively in manuscript--has been put into course of publication. Rutebeuf, a _trouvere_ of the reign of St. Louis (Louis IX., thirteenth century), is perhaps as conspicuous a personal name as any that thus far emerges out of the sea of practically anonymous early French authorship. A frankly sordid and mercenary singer, Rutebeuf always tending to mockery, was not seldom licentious--in both these respects anticipating, as probably also to some extent by example conforming, the subsequent literary spirit of his nation. The _fabliaux_ generally mingled with their narrative interest that spice of raillery and satire constantly so dear to the French literary appetite. Thibaud was, in a double sense, a royal singer of songs; for he reigned over Navarre, as well as chanted sweetly in verse his love and longing, so the disputed legend asserts, for Queen Blanche of Castile. Thibaud bears the historic title of The Song-maker. He has been styled the Beranger of the thirteenth century. To Thibaud is said to be due the introduction of the feminine rhyme into French