This fact or set of facts has made the actual nature of the original Charlemagne Romances the subject of much mistake and misstatement on the part of general historians of literature. The widely read and generally accurate Dunlop knew nothing whatever about them, except in early printed versions representing their very latest form, and in the hopelessly travestied eighteenth-century _Bibliotheque des Romans_ of the Comte de Tressan. He therefore assigned to them[19] a position altogether inferior to their real importance, and actually apologised for the writers, in that, coming _after_ the Arthurian historians, they were compelled to imitation. As a matter of fact, it is probable that all the most striking and original _chansons de geste_, certainly all those of the best period, were in existence before a single one of the great Arthurian romances was written; and as both the French and English, and even the German, writers of these latter were certainly acquainted with the _chansons_, the imitation, if there were any, must lie on their side. As a matter of fact, however, there is little or none. The later and less genuine _chansons_ borrow to some extent the methods and incidents in the romances; but the romances at no time exhibit much resemblance to the _chansons_ proper, which have an extremely distinct, racy, and original character of their own. Hallam, writing later than Dunlop, and if with a less wide knowledge of Romance, with a much greater proficiency in general literary history, practically passes the _chansons de geste_ over altogether in the introduction to his _Literature of Europe_, which purports to summarise all that is important in the _History of the Middle Ages_, and to supplement and correct that book itself. [Footnote 19: Dunlop, _History of Prose Fiction_ (ed. Wilson, London, 1888), i. 274-351. Had Dunlop rigidly confined himself to _prose_ fiction, the censure in the text might not be quite fair. As a matter of fact, however, he does not, and it would have been impossible for him to do so.] [Sidenote: _Their isolation and origin._]