Learned controversies have agitated the rival partisans of the Langue d'oc and Langue d'oeil, as to their comparative antiquity, their mutual relations, and the degree of influence on the literature of modern Europe which may properly be ascribed to each. The exact period to be assigned to the formation of the proper Northern Romance we can hardly expect to determine; the most probable theory may be, that one common Romance was universally diffused as the popular tongue over the Gallic provinces at a very early period, perhaps even under the Roman Government itself, but at least during that gradual dissolution of the Roman institutions, which took place on the establishment of the barbarian monarchies. It was, in fact, only such a language as might be expected to arise from the adoption of the Latin tongue by strangers, and was properly characterized by the term "Romana rustica." Its separation into different dialects to the extent which is exhibited in the two leading divisions-the Norman and Provençal—was the effect of later political operations. France, till the close of the Carlovingian dynasty, was in reality a mere province of Germany, and ruled by one who was, properly speaking, a foreign prince, with a court composed of his soldiers, whose language (the Francic) was totally different from that of the population governed. The ancient inhabitants are, in the legal docu

ments of the conquerors, all Romans. Their language is the Roman language. On the final separation of the kingdom of France from the Empire, the real population of Gaul recovered its weight, and in time the court assumed its proper language. But for a long period it is manifest that the German rulers of France, and their military retainers, did not even trouble themselves to understand the dialect of the inhabitants and landholders. Even in 948, at the council of Ingelheim, Frodoard mentions that the Archbishop Artaud translated his letter into German, that Louis IV. might be able to understand it. The inconvenience of this state of things seems to have been in some degree remedied by the use of the Latin language for state purposes. At length, on the cessation of the Norman wars and the accession of Capet, arose the monarchy of France, (adopting the name which was in reality a badge of ancient servitude, as belonging to those Germans, on a separation from whom the independence of Gaul began;) and then, too, the language of its inhabitants once more became that of the state, under the name of French, which however belongs in truth as little to it as to the monarchy. The dialect of the North was more adulterated than that of the South, by intermixture with the German tribes; and the long separation of the Gallic provinces into France (properly so called) and Provence, left both tongues to form

in an independent manner. The South had always been less under the immediate dominion of the Francic army, and it had not been ravaged like the North by wave after wave of Norman devastation. It had reposed in comparative peace from the foundation of the kingdom of Arles and Provence, by Boson, in the 9th century; the Roman institutions had, to a great extent, been preserved, and its language had of course experienced less change. In the 11th century, therefore, we find the Provençal tongue melodious and flexible, while the Northern was struggling into notice as a written language, as yet crude and unfashioned: and we have some of the most harmonious of the Provençal songs much earlier than the date which we can with any certainty assign to the rudest productions of a similar kind in the North.

It does not follow, however, that the latest in time should be deprived of all claim to originality; for the same awakening of the intellect, the same materials for the exercise of the imagination, and the same stimulus from the institutions of the age, would in both countries produce in due time their natural results. In many of the favourite topics of pursuit, it is difficult to determine which dialect is entitled to the honour of invention; and in truth a great similarity must be expected to exist; for after a time the poets of both districts met and were

patronized at the same courts; the princes of the North allied themselves to the daughters of the South; the English monarchs, the principal patrons of the Norman literature, had possessions in both divisions, and drew the singers of both to their courts; and one common cause united them in the East.

The early intercourse between the two great divisions of France is not marked by expressions of much kindness or conciliation. Robert king of France about the year 1000 married Constance daughter of William count of Provence or Aquitaine; and the courtiers who followed in her train are thus described: -"Circa millessimum incarnati verbi annum, cum Robertus accepisset sibi reginam Constantiam a partibus Aquitaniæ in conjugium, cœperunt confluere, gratiâ ejus reginæ, in Franciam atque Burgundiam ab Averniâ et Aquitaniâ, homines omni levitate vanissimi, moribus et veste distorti, armis et equorum phaleris incompositi, a medio capitis nudati, histrionum more barbis tonsi, caligis et ocreis turpissimi, fidei et pacis fœdere omnino vacui; quorum itaque nefanda exemplaria, heu, proh dolor! tanta gens Francorum (nuper omnium honestissima) ac Burgundionum sitibunda rapuit." (Glaber, p. 38, in Duchesne, Script. Rer. Franc. t. iv.) A few years later, a Norman (Radulph. Cadomens. in gestis Tancredi, ap. Murator.) describes an equally strong opposition of character:-" Gentis hujus (Francorum) sublimis est

oculus, spiritus ferox, promptæ ad arma dextræ, cæterùm ad spargendum prodigæ, ad congregandum ignavæ. His, quantum anati gallina, Provinciales moribus, animis, cultu, victu adversantur; parce vivendo, sollicite perscrutando, laboriferi: sed ne verum taceam, minus bellicosi." To return the compliment, William of Poitiers, the first Troubadour, boasts in one of his songs that he had never let a Frenchman or Norman appear at his court:

Qu' anc non ac Norman ni Frances
Dins mon ostau.

It is very uncertain when the first efforts were made to raise the Northern French to the dignity of a poetic language; but we have every reason to believe that it was, at any rate, confined to devotional pieces, riming legends, and perhaps chronicles, till the æra of Louis VII. of France and Henry II. of England, (or rather more decisively the reign of Philip Augustus,) commencing with the latter half of the 12th century. And on this is built the commonly received opinion, that the marriage of Eleanor of Guienne, first with a French and afterwards with an English monarch, brought into notice the Provençal poets, of whom she was a zealous patron, and gave a stimulus to the application of the language of the North, then characterized by its simplicity and naïveté, to similar purposes. One of the most distin