Le roman de la rose

which only comes at the end of the entire work.

This is laden with incidents, some of which are quite ingeniously brought into the subject, while others are thrown in without any known reason. The stories, in particular, are placed in such an extraordinary manner that any other place than where they are would have suited them just as well.

Style of this Romance.

Our Language was only just emerging from the Barbarism that remained from the Celtic and Teutonic original: "Theudesque" languages when this Romance was begun. Thus, it should be regarded as a kind of prodigy to see reigning there, alongside the natural order of our language, so few foreign and barbarian terms. I will even say that, contrary to the custom of Poets of those early times, one finds very few low and popular manners, which are very often marks either of the lack of education of our first versifiers, or the lack of choice they brought to their private friendships. Proverbs, which usually make up the

heritage of the common people, are employed here in a manner distinguished and noble enough to suggest that their Author frequented the Court more than the People. He even discarded all those that carried common and mechanical ideas with them, which most of our early authors did not do, as they put everything to use, good and bad, under the false persuasion that it was the unique way to please everyone.

It must be admitted, however, that regarding the substance of the style, some differences exist between the early manuscripts of this work and those of later times. But there are even more differences between the manuscripts and the common printed editions. It is good to provide some clarifications here on these differences. Since this Romance was the Book of Courtiers, and since it was in common and, so to speak, daily use, efforts were always made in new copies to make it conform to the common language of the Court, and sometimes even to the style of the Provinces where it was copied. This is what Étienne Pasquier observes in Book VIII of his Re- original: "Recherches"