from the physicality of the knights in the Renaissance novel (such as Amadis of Gaul). The only element of d'Urfé's work which did not produce imitations was its roman pastoral setting. In theorizing the origins of the novel, the early 17th century conceived of the form as "an epic in prose"; in truth, the epic poem at the end of the Renaissance had few thematic differences from the novel. Novelistic love had spilled into the epic, and adventurous knights had become the subject of novels. The novels from 1640 to 1660 would complete this melding. These novels contained multiple volumes and were structurally complicated, using the same techniques of inserted stories and tale-within-a-tale dialogues as d'Urfé. Often called romans de longue haleine (or "deep-breath books"), they usually took place in ancient Rome, Egypt or Persia, used historical characters (for this reason they are called romans héroiques) and told the adventures of a series of perfect lovers sent (by accident or misfortune) to the four corners of the world. Unlike the chivalric romance, magical elements and creatures were relatively rare. Furthermore, there was a concentration in these works on psychological analysis and on moral and sentimental questions which the Renaissance novel lacked. Many of these novels were actually romans à clé which described actual contemporary relationships under disguised novelistic names and characters. The most famous of these authors and novels are: Madeleine de Scudéry (1607–1701) Ibrahim, ou l'illustre Bassa (4 vols. 1641) Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus (10 vols. 1648–1653) Clélie, histoire romaine (10 vols. 1654–1661) Almahide, ou l'esclave reine (8 vols. 1661–1663) Roland Le Vayer de Boutigny (1627–1685) Mithridate (1648–51) Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède Cassandre (10 vols. 1642–1645) Cleopatre (1646–57) Faramond (1661) Baroque comic fiction Not all fiction of the first half of the 17th century was a wild flight of fancy in far-flung lands and rarefied, adventurous love stories. Influenced by the international success of the picaresque novel from Spain (such as Lazarillo de Tormes), and by Miguel de Cervantes' short-story collection Exemplary Tales (which appeared in French beginning in 1614) and Don Quixote de la Mancha (French translation 1614–1618), the French novelists of the first half of the 17th century also chose to describe and satirize their own era and its excesses. Other important satirical models were provided by Fernando de Rojas' La Celestina and John Barclay's (1582–1621) two satirical Latin works, Euphormio sive Satiricon