During the greater part of the century French romances were in England the main reading of people who had leisure. They were read in the original, for French was a current language in society at that time, and they were read in translations both by society and by the ordinary public. Most of them were rendered into English, and so important were these works considered that sometimes several translators tried their skill at the same romance, and published independently the result of their labours, as if their author had been Virgil or Ariosto, or any classical writer. French ideas in the matter of novels were adopted so cordially that not only under Charles I., but even during the civil war and under Cromwell this rage for reading and translating did not abate. The contrary, it is true, has often been asserted, without inquiry, and as a matter of course; but this erroneous statement was due to a mere _a priori_ argument, and had no other ground than the improbability of the same fashion predominating in the London of the Roundheads and the Paris of the Precieuses. What likelihood was there of any popularity being bestowed upon heroes who were nothing if not befeathered heroes, heroes _a panaches_ at a time when Puritans reigned supreme, staunch adversaries as we know of _panaches_, curls, vain talk, and every sort of worldly vanity? Was it not the time when books were published on "The unlovelinesse of Love-lockes," being "a summarie discourse prooving the wearing and nourishing of a locke or love-locke to be altogether unseemely, and unlawfull unto Christians. In which there are likewise some passages collected out of Fathers, Councells and sundry authors and historians against face-painting, the wearing of supposititious, poudred, frizled or extraordinary long haire, the inordinate affectation of corporall beautie, and womens mannish, unnaturall, impudent, and unchristian cutting of their haire"?[326] So early in the century as 1628 it was thus discovered that women's short hair and men's long wigs were equally unchristian. What was to be the fate of our well-curled heroes? They were received with open arms. "Polexandre," for example, was published in English in 1647; "Ibrahim ou l'illustre Bassa," "Cassandre," and "Cleopatre" in 1652; "Le Grand Cyrus" in 1653, the very year in which Cromwell became Protector; the first part of "Clelie" in 1656; "Astree" in 1657; "Scipion" in 1660, &c. The English prefaces to these French novels plainly showed that, notwithstanding the puritanical taunts of the party in power, publishers felt no doubt as to the success of their undertaking. These works were not spread timidly among the public; they were announced noisily in the most pompous terms: