Excerpt from Half-Hours With the Best Foreign Authors, Vol. 3 The literature of France - to which the present volume is devoted - forms a subject of great interest, both bistori cally and critically, and some preliminary discussion of it seems indispensable as introductory to our selections. It was the first to emerge from the gloom of the dark ages, to arouse the sleeping thought of Europe, and to fill the neigh boring nations with the spirit of lyric and epic poetry. And it has been persistent from that time to this, with none of the dormant intervals which have marked the literatures of Germany, Spain, and Italy, and to a minor extent that of England. Its historical details are, there fore, of great importance, but in this introductory note we can give them only in brief outline. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.