In the Roman de Renart, the fox brushes with death several times, but at the last minute, miraculously, he is always spared. This is how branch I shows him condemned to death by the king and the court. However, a final subterfuge saves him: he declares that he wants to atone for his crimes by a pilgrimage, so that Noble forgives him and he can escape. Branch XVII also claims to bring the Romance to a definitive conclusion: Renart dies and his funeral is carried out. But at the moment when the groupil is buried, he leaps out of the grave and flees, taking Chanteclerc who was holding the censer. The same theme will be taken up again in a later branch, branch XXIII, where once again Renart escapes the sentence pronounced against him. In short, Renart is immortal. The hero of the animal epic, symbol as much as character, cannot die. - [Author]

Language: French