The first is that the book was a very popular one; the
second, that there was no doubt among well-informed persons, of whom and
in whose company Estienne most certainly was, that the _Heptameron_ was
in more than name the work of its supposed author.
From what went before it Margaret could, and could not, borrow certain
well-defined things. Models both Italian and French gave her the scheme
of including a large number of short and curtly, but not skimpingly,
told stories in one general framework, and of subdividing them into
groups dealing more or less with the same subject or class of subject.
She had also in her predecessors the example of drawing largely on that
perennial and somewhat facile source of laughter--the putting together
of incidents and phrases which even by those who laugh at them are
regarded as indecorous. But of this expedient she availed herself rather
less than any of her forerunners. She had further the example of a
generally satirical intent; but here, too, she was not content merely to
follow, and her satire is, for the most part, limited to the corruptions
and abuses of the monastic orders.
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