Explore "Three French Moralists and the Gallantry of France" by Edmund Gosse on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The spirit displayed by the young French officers in this war deserves to be compared in many essential respects with that which is blazoned in the glorious "Chanson de Roland. " It is interesting to remember that during the long years in which the direct influence of that greatest of medieval epics was obscured, it was chiefly known through the paraphrase of it executed in German by the monk Konrad in the twelfth century. Many years ago, Gaston Paris pointed out the curious fact that Konrad completely modified the character of the "Chanson de Roland" by omitting all expressions of warlike devotion to "la douce France," and by concentrating the emotion of the poem on its religious sentiment. But the real theme of the "Chanson de Roland," as we know now, was the passionate attachment of the heroes to the soil of France; "ils etaient pousses par l'amour de la patrie, de l'empereur francais leur seigneur, de leur famille, et surtout de la gloire."
It is a remarkable instance of German "penetration" that in the paraphrase of the "Chanson de Roland" which Germany so long foisted upon Europe, these elements were successfully effaced. There was a sort of poetical revenge, therefore, in the attitude of those who answered the challenge of Germany in the true spirit of Roland and Oliver.