_ternaire_, has become possible:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
_Où je filai | pensivement | la blanche laine_. (Th. de Banville.)

Then the 'mute e's' are disregarded:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
_Avec les filles | du vieux seigneur | en robes blanches_.
(H. de Régnier.)

The number of syllables is of little account:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
_Des mortes douces | qui moururent là | quelque soir.
(H. de Régnier).

The hiatus is no longer tabooed, and lastly, not only the artificial
rules of rhyme, but rhyme itself, is being done away with: assonance
may take its place. If the constitution of the French language did not
make it unlikely that these reforms should prove permanent, the vehicle
of French poetic thought would become mere harmonious prose.




APPENDIX II.

_THE PAST TENSES IN FRENCH_.