untrustworthy.

France, through a representative in a foreign land, however, comes into
line again in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in a really
serious fashion, thanks to the very considerable learning of a French
refugee, Jacob Le Duchat, who died in 1748. He had a most thorough
knowledge of the French prose-writers of the sixteenth century, and he made
them accessible by his editions of the Quinze Joies du Mariage, of Henri
Estienne, of Agrippa d'Aubigne, of L'Etoile, and of the Satyre Menippee.
In 1711 he published an edition of Rabelais at Amsterdam, through Henry
Bordesius, in five duodecimo volumes. The reprint in quarto which he
issued in 1741, seven years before his death, is, with its engravings by
Bernard Picot, a fine library edition. Le Duchat's is the first of the
critical editions. It takes account of differences in the texts, and
begins to point out the variations. His very numerous notes are
remarkable, and are still worthy of most serious consideration. He was the
first to offer useful elucidations, and these have been repeated after him,
and with good reason will continue to be so. The Abbe de Massy's edition
of 1752, also an Amsterdam production, has made use of Le Duchat's but does
not take its place. Finally, at the end of the century, Cazin printed
Rabelais in his little volume, in 1782, and Bartiers issued two editions
(of no importance) at Paris in 1782 and 1798. Fortunately the nineteenth
century has occupied itself with the great 'Satyrique' in a more competent
and useful fashion.

In 1820 L'Aulnaye published through Desoer his three little volumes,
printed in exquisite style, and which have other merits besides. His
volume of annotations, in which, that nothing might be lost of his own
notes, he has included many things not directly relating to Rabelais, is
full of observations and curious remarks which are very useful additions to