Century by a gay company of French minstrels, called "the seven troubadours." But in time they had become forgotten. It is due to Clemence Isaure, a poetess born in 1464 at Toulouse, that these festivals were renewed. Fixing the first of May as the day of these Floral Games, she invited all poets and poetesses to participate in peaceful contest, assigning as prizes for the victors five different flowers, wrought in gold and silver. There was an amaranth of gold for the best ode; a silver violet for a poem of from sixty to one hundred Alexandrine lines; a silver eglantine for the best prose composition; a silver marigold for an elegy, and a silver lily for a hymn.
These contests have been held in Toulouse through all the centuries. They were recognized by the French Government in 1694, and confirmed by letters-patent from the king. Some twenty-five years ago they were likewise introduced into Germany, and held first in Cologne.
The brilliant age of the Renaissance produced several women writers and poets, whose works are still read. The literary annals of Italy shine with such illustrious names as Cassandra Fidelis, the Venetian; Veronica Gambara, of Brescia; Lucia Bertana, of Bologna; Tarquenia Molza, of Modena; Gaspara Stampa, of Padua; and the great Vittoria Colonna, of Marino, whose sonnets as well as her beauty and virtues were extolled by all contemporaries.
In Spain Marianne de Carbajal and Maria de Zayas, during the 17th Century, the classic period of Spanish literature, became the pride of their country.
In France Marguerite d'Angouleme wrote a delightful book, "the Heptameron," similar in plan to the famous "Decamerone" by Boccaccio. In the middle of the 16th Century Louise Labbé, known in French literature as "La belle cordiere," produced her "Debat de Folie et d' Amour," a work full of wit, originality and beauty. Erasmus and La Fontaine were both indebted to it; the former for the idea of "The Praise of Folly," and the latter for "L' Amour et la Folie." In truth, La Fontaine's poem is only a versification of the prose story of Louise Labbé.
Of the illustrious French women, who during the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries made their "salons" the gathering-places for men and women of letters, several became widely known for their own poems and works of fiction. As for instance Madeline de Scudery, Anne de Seguier, Claudine de Tencin, Madame de la Sabliére, Madeline de Souvré, and Anne Dacier, of whom Voltaire said, that no woman ever rendered greater services to literature.
In the literature of the 19th Century Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baroness de Stael-Holstein, held a singular
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