Ronsard, in his Franciade, claims the Franks as lineal descendants from Francus, a son of Priam, and thus connects French history with the war of Troy, just as Wace, in the Norman Roman de Rou, traces a similar analogy between the Trojan Brutus and Britain.

Later French poets have attempted epics, more or less popular in their time, among which are Alaric by Scuderi, Clovis by St.
Sorlin, and two poems on La Pucelle, one by Chapelain, and the other by Voltaire.
Next comes la Henriade, also by Voltaire, a half bombastic, half satirical account of Henry IV's wars to gain the crown of France.

This poem also contains some very fine and justly famous passages, but is too long and too artificial, as a whole, to please modern readers.
The most popular of all the French prose epics is, without dispute, Fenelon's Telemaque, or account of Telemachus' journeys to find some trace of his long-absent father Ulysses.
Les Martyrs by Chateaubriand, and La Legende des Siecles by Victor Hugo, complete the tale of important French epics to date.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 7: See the author's "Legends of the Middle Ages."] THE SONG OF ROLAND[8] _Introduction._ The earliest and greatest of the French epics, or chansons de geste, is the song of Roland, of which the oldest copy now extant is preserved in the Bodleian Library and dates back to the twelfth century.

Whether the Turoldus (Theroulde) mentioned at the end of the poem is poet, copyist, or mere reciter remains a matter of conjecture.
The poem is evidently based on popular songs which no longer exist.

It consists of 4002 verses, written in langue d'oil, grouped in stanzas or "laisses" of irregular length, in the heroic pentameter, having the same assonant rhyme, and each ending with "aoi," a word no one has succeeded in translating satisfactorily.