This element of romance, however, appears
abundantly in the long prose versions of the Arthurian and other
legends, and we have a certain number of short prose stories of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, of which the most famous is that
of _Aucassin et Nicolette_. These latter, however, are rather short
romances than distinct prose tales of our kind. Of that kind the first
famous book in French, and the only famous book, besides the one before
us, is the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_. The authorship of this book
is very uncertain. It purports to be a collection of stories told by
different persons of the society of Louis XI., when he was but Dauphin,
and was in exile in Flanders under the protection of the Duke of
Burgundy. But it has of late years been very generally assigned
(though on rather slender grounds of probability, and none of positive
evidence), to Anthony de la Salle, the best French prose writer of
the fifteenth century, except Comines, and one on whom, with an odd
unanimity, conjectural criticism has bestowed, besides his acknowledged
romance of late chivalrous society, _Petit Jehan de Saintre_ (a work
which itself has some affinities with the class of story before us), not
only the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, but the famous satirical treatise
of the _Quinze Joyes du Mariage_, and the still more famous farce of
_Pathelin_.
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