But the Italian ancestors or patterns need not be dealt with
here, and can be discovered with ease and pleasure by any one who wishes
in the drier pages of Dunlop, or in the more flowery and starry pages of
Mr. Symonds' "History of the Renaissance in Italy." The next few pages
will deal only with the French tale-tellers, whose productions before
Margaret's days were, if not very numerous, far from uninteresting, and
whose influence on the slight difference of _genre_ which distinguishes
the tales before us from Italian tales was by no means slight.
In France, as everywhere else, prose fiction, like prose of all kinds,
was considerably later in production than verse, and short tales of the
kind before us were especially postponed by the number, excellence, and
popularity of the verse _fabliaux_. Of these, large numbers have come
down to us, and they exactly correspond in verse to the tales of the
_Decameron_ and the _Heptameron_ in prose, except that the satirical
motive is even more strongly marked, and that touches of romantic
sentiment are rarer.
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