The place of his birth is uncertain. Perhaps it was Lorraine, perhaps Normandy. His real name was Gringon, which he changed to Gringoire, for the poetical reason that it sounded better. His early history is almost entirely unknown; at the age of nineteen or twenty he produced his first poem, Le Chateau de Labour, in which he is supposed to have narrated his own experiences. Most probably he did. René, Charles of Orleans, Froissart, Deschamps, all the poets whose works he would study, began with a poetical exposition of their own experiences. There are, in Gringoire’s poem, the personages common to all mediaeval allegories, Raison, Donne Volonte, Talent de beau faire, for friends, and Souci, Tromperie, and the rest, for enemies. Finding that the trade in allegorical poems was ruined for want of demand, and discovering an opening in the direction of mysteries, Gringoire began to produce those dramas, and joined the “Enfants de Sans Souci.” The fraternity advanced him to the dignity of “Mère Sotte,” and afterwards to the highest honour of the guild, that of “Prine o des Sots.” For twenty years Gringoire seems to have been at the head of this,iilustrious confrérie, writing for them farces, soties, and satires. In this capacity of dramatist he exercised an extraordinary influence. At no time was the stage, rude and coarse as it was, more popular as a true exponent of the popular mind. Gringoire’s success lay in the fact that he followed, but did not attempt to lead; on his stage the people saw exhibited their passions, their judgments of the moment, their jealousies, their hatreds, and their ambitions. Brotherhoods of the kind existed all over France. In Paris there were the “Enfans Sans Souci,” the “Basochiens,” the “Confrérie de la Passion,” and the “Souverain Empire de Galilée”; at Dijon there were the “Mère Folle” and her family; in Flanders the “Société des Arbalétriers” played comedies; at Rouen the “Cornards” or “Conards” yielded to none in vigour and fearlessness of satire. There is every reason, therefore, to believe that Gringoire enjoyed considerable distinction as the leading spirit among the satirists of the capital. He adopted for his device, Tout par Raison, Raison par Tout, Par tout Raison. He has been called the “Aristophanes des Halles.” In one respect at least he resembles Aristophanes. He is serious in his merriment; there is purpose behind his extravagancies. Among his principal works are Les Falles Enterprises and Les Abus du Monde,— poems in which everything under the sun is criticized,— certain political pieces, such as La Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs {Serf des Serfs, i.e., servus servorum), under which title that of the pope is thinly veiled, and La Mère Sotte, with all her literary offspring. During the last twenty years of a long life he became orthodox, and contributed the Blason des Hereticques to orthodox literature. It was during this period also that he wrote the work by which he is best known, the Mystère de la Vie de Saint Louis, of which an analysis may be found in M. Leroy's Etudes sur les Mystères. After more than 300 years of oblivion this poet has been republished, not so much on account of his own merits as because of the position which he occupies in the history of dramatic literature.