a poem ostensibly written by Turold around 1100 AD. The poem is about Charlemagne's army fighting Saracens in Spain in 778. Roland's stepfather Ganelon betrays the French army by informing the Saracens of a weakness in the flank yada yada yada Roland's platoon is wiped out by the Saracens and Ganelon, accused of treason, is drawn and quartered, and 30 of his relatives are hanged.
It is the oldest surviving piece of French literature.
image of Roland (dead) and King Chuck (This work is in the public domain)
"It's very certain that if I had lived in the time of the Crusades I should have brought from Palestine a thousand Saracens' ears, but my dear Rolande was there. This redoubtable sword, which came to me from a distant cousin, was the one carried by Rolande the Furious; it has sent a devil of a lot of men into the other world."
"I'm always afraid that you will fall over it; it seems to me too big for you."
Charles Paul de Kock. The Barber of Paris
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I am sure that in a book — and to that extent my feelings were closely akin to those of Françoise — such a conception of mourning, in the manner of the Chanson de Roland and of the porch of Saint-André-des-Champs, would have seemed most attractive.