to one not a Frenchman. The briefest citation will show this:

"Carles li Reis, nostre Emperere magnes,
Sela anz tuz pleins ad estet en Espaigne;
Tresqu'en la mer, cunquist la tere altaigne.
N'i ad castel ki devant lui remagnet."

("Charles le Roi, notre grand Empereur,
Sept ans entiers est resté en Espagne;
Jusqu' à la mer, il a conquis la haute terre.
Pas de château qui tienne devant lui."

--GAUTIER.)



However, it has been transmuted into modern French, and latterly twice
translated into English verse; and the English translations appear to
have preserved remarkably both the power and sweetness of the original.

The poem centres almost wholly upon this deadly battle in the
Pyrenees,--the last battle of Roland its hero. Charlemagne and the
Franks had invaded Spain, and spent seven years warring with the Moors
and conquering their cities. On their return, as the poem narrates it,
the Moors, instigated by a traitor in Charlemagne's army, plotted an
ambush in this pass of Roncesvalles. The army began its march. The main
body defiled through in safety, and turned westward to await the
rear-guard nearer the coast. But when that division, the flower of the
Frankish forces,--commanded by Roland, his bosom friend Oliver, the
warrior-archbishop Turpin, and the others of the twelve great