Excerpt from The Literature of the French Renaissance: An Introductory Essay There are few periods of literature that seem to lend themselves better to historical treatment than that of the French Renaissance. Though it is illustrated by two of the greatest names on the roll of French literature, Rabelais and Montaigne, the general aspect that it presents to us is the record rather of a great national literary movement than of individual men of letters. Moreover this move ment was a faithful reflexion of a corresponding change in the whole social and intellectual life of the people. At all times I believe the literature of a nation to be more or less of an index to its moral and intellectual state. It is especially so in times of great stress and fermentation. It was preeminently so in the time of the Renaissance. 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.