QUATRIEME PARTIE

Observation. — French versification is essentially syllabic, and French poetry is always rhymed. In scanning, it must be observed that final et not followed by a vowel, and not at the end of a line, counts as a separate syllable. Thus each line in 1 has six syllables; in 2 each line has twelve, except lines 14 and 16, which have eight syllables each. This e at the end of a line is sometimes very faintly pronounced in reading. Final ent in verbs of the 3d pers. plur., forms a syllable only when preceded by a consonant.