Note 89 — Chapter V

Perhaps one should guard against a possible repetition of a not uncommon critical mistake—that of inferring ignorance from absence of mention. I am quite aware that no exhaustive catalogue of known French stories in prose has been given; and the failure to supplement a former glance at the late prose versions of romance is intentional. They have nothing new in romance-, still less in novel-character for us. The Bibliothèque Elzévirienne volumes have been dwelt upon, not as a corpus, but because they appear to represent, without any unfair manipulation or "window-dressing," the kind at the time with a remarkable combination of interest both individual and contrasted.