Women of Mediaeval France Part 4

CHAPTER III

WOMEN IN EARLY PROVENcAL AND FRENCH LITERATURE

GUILHELM--or William--X., Duke of Aquitaine, remorseful because of the ravages committed in Normandy by himself and his allies in 1136, started on an expiatory pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint-James of Compostella.

Before going he willed to Louis the Fat, King of France, the guardians.h.i.+p of his daughter, "la tres n.o.ble demoiselle Eleonore," sole heiress of his extensive dominions, including Poitou, Marche, the Limousin, Auvergne, Gascony, and Guienne. This Eleanor was to be the brilliant and pa.s.sionate Queen of England, mother of Richard of the Lion Heart and of John Lackland. But we will not antic.i.p.ate her story, for sixteen years of her life precede the time when she became the queen of Henry II.

The youthful heiress had been left as the feudal ward of King Louis, who lost no time in securing her domain for the crown of France. Duke Guilhelm died in the church of Compostella April 9, 1137-1138. Eleanor, now d.u.c.h.ess of Aquitaine, was but sixteen years of age, but she was not long to remain unmarried. Prince Louis of France, accompanied by a gorgeous company of five hundred knights, under command of the Count Palatine, Thibaud de Champagne, came as her suitor,--a suitor whom she could not refuse. She was married, and crowned as future Queen of France. On their way back from Bordeaux to Paris the young couple met the news of the death of Louis the Fat. Eleanor was thus Queen of France indeed, but there was more of the south, of Toulouse and Bordeaux and the troubadours in her nature than was quite good for one who was the wife of the correct, devout, narrow-minded, though not stupid or unkind Louis VII.

She came of a race notorious for reckless love of pleasure, for sparkling wit, for vehemence of temper and strong pa.s.sions, for utter disregard of the merely decorous, the sober commonplace rules of either morals or society. We have seen some of the pranks of her grandfather, William of Poitou. Her father was not less high-tempered, though less brilliant than his troubadour predecessor. His fits of extravagance were followed by fits of penitence in whose sincerity one may place some faith, whereas the troubadour was certainly never sad for long, and apparently not much imbued with religious ardor, even if he did go to the Holy Land as a pious crusader. Eleanor inherited her grandfather's temper and his love of literature, music, fighting, and all that made life worth living, according to the standards of her native land. Let us look at this land of the troubadours, from which Eleanor came, and try to picture the environment to which she was accustomed and which she abandoned to live with the sober, monkish, unlovely French king, whose court and whose city of Paris did not compare with the gay capital of Bordeaux, where her father and her grandfather had gathered the most brilliant poets and musicians of Provence.

While the northern and western portions of France, including even that muddy _Lutetia Parisorum_ which has become the modern Paris, were for but a short time, comparatively, under Roman rule, there was a portion of France, between the Rhone and the Swiss Alps, which was so distinctively and peculiarly a part of the great empire that it was called _Provincia_, "the Province," or, as we know it, Provence. It was in this beautiful land, the French Riviera, that the Roman legions established their first posts, long before there was a Roman Empire.

Here they found a civilization ready to their hands, for in the centre of their new Provincia was the famous port of Ma.s.sillia--Ma.r.s.eilles--established long before by Greeks and Phoenicians. To the present day one finds at Aries, at Mimes, at Avignon, t.i.tanic ruins bearing witness to the Roman civilization. It was a fertile country, glowing with rich fruits and flowers, and favored with a climate which has made it famous since the days of Rome. While the north of France was hopelessly barbarized by Teutonic inroads and long years of barbaric warfare, the civilization of Provence was rather checked than destroyed. Ma.r.s.eilles was still a port, and the commerce of the east, of the Mediterranean, of Rome, came through Ma.r.s.eilles, not only for Gaul but for Britain. The influence of this constant intercourse, no less than the large infusion of Latin or h.e.l.lenic blood, kept the people of Provence from relapsing into the primitive state of the people further to the north. They were, moreover, a gay and pleasure-loving people by nature, and probably always less savage and rough than the Franks. We may remember that even at the beginning of our story the court of the pious King Robert, according to the monkish chronicles, was hopelessly corrupted by the attendants of his Provencal bride, Constance, with their scandalously fas.h.i.+oned costumes and their unG.o.dly minstrelsy. The rich clothing, the minstrelsy, the more gracious manners, were always characteristic of the southerners, from the very first moment we hear of them until the end.

During the eleventh century, while the kingdom of France was just beginning to gain something like an ascendancy over the other provinces which were eventually to const.i.tute a real power under one rule, the riches and the power of the Mediterranean district came to full flower.

We speak of this whole territory as Provence, although in reality Provence proper was but a small portion of the whole. It would be, perhaps, better to confine one's self to the old distinction between north and south France, based on the difference in dialect. Dante, distinguis.h.i.+ng between three groups of the tongues derived from Latin, says: _Alii Oc, alii Oil, alii Si, affirmando loquuntur:_--"For the affirmative, some use Oc (Provencal) some use Oil (French), some use Si (Italian)." The langue d'oc was the tongue used in that part of France south of a line drawn from the south of the Garonne to the Alps, including not only Provence but Guienne, Gascony, Languedoc, Auvergne, etc. The people and the language, however, throughout this whole territory, were generally named from that Provincia which, as we have said, was the most fertile and the most favored. Thus, in ordinary speech, a citizen of Beziers, Toulouse, or even Bordeaux was as much a Provencal as one from Aries or Aix.

Among the other influences to which Provence owed part of its culture one must not forget that of Spain. At the time of which we write a large part of the richest lands in Spain was in the possession of a race more cultured, more intellectual, more refined, despite their warlike nature, than any race with which western Europe had yet come in contact. The story of the Saracen empire in Spain, its rise, its glorious struggle, its almost fabulous luxury, and its pathetic fall, is one of the most fascinating in history. Arab songs, Arab singers, Arab instruments became known among the Spaniards, and even in the face of continual warfare some little of infidel arts and sciences and refinements penetrated and softened the rougher-mannered civilization of the Christians.

On Spain itself this Oriental influence was, of course, strongest; but the relations between Spain and the south of France were at all times close, and the relations between Provence and Spain were made still more intimate when, in the early part of the twelfth century, the crown of Provence pa.s.sed to Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, who had married Douce de Provence.

Under these influences the n.o.bility of Provence developed a culture perhaps purely artificial and exotic, but certainly far in advance of that prevailing in any other part of France. With their civilization came, of course, a knowledge of the gentler arts and a feeling for the beautiful. At a time when French literature consisted of a few fragments of doc.u.ments, chronicles, or dull legends of the saints, Provence had developed a literature of most astonis.h.i.+ng richness and delicacy. The surprising thing about this literature of Provence is that it has no beginnings, no childhood, but is almost as perfect in artistic finish, in the careful handling of most intricate rhymes and stanzas, when the first troubadour sings as it became during the two hundred years of its life. There were songs or poems in stanzas of varying structure and lines of varying length, some really lyric, and some epic. The most distinctive forms of the lyric poetry were probably the dirge or _planh_; the contention or _tenson_, a poem in which two or more persons maintain an argument on questions of love, or chivalry, etc., each using stanzas terminating in similar rhymes, somewhat like the style of poem long after known in Scottish literature as a "flyting;" and the satiric poem or pasquinade, the _sirvente_, often a fierce war song in which the poet lashed his foes and urged his men on to battle.

The social conditions of France during this period were such as to make caste distinctions very marked. That a _roturier_, a plain peasant, or even a tradesman, should become the social equal of a n.o.ble was a thing unheard of. But in Provence--curiously enough when one remembers the excessive refinement of luxury encouraged in this land of flowers--the society was much more democratic. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that among a people who had already discovered that literature and music were arts the artist was welcomed, talent was recognized and rewarded, no matter in what cla.s.s it was found. Yet the troubadours as a cla.s.s belong to the n.o.bility. That this was almost necessarily so one can easily understand, for the troubadour was expected to live a life of gay extravagance in his own chateau and to travel about the country during favoring weather, accompanied by a little band of retainers who must be trained musicians, and who at the castles they visited sang or performed pieces of their master's composing.

We can imagine what a flutter there must have been in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the ladies, always the prime object of the troubadour's songs, when the gay cavalcade approached, heralded by the song of the _jongleurs_: "We come, bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the troubles both of body and mind. It is contained in a vase of gold, adorned with jewels, the most rare. Even to see it is wonderful pleasure, as you will find if you care to try. The balsam is the music of our master, the vase of gold is our courtly company. Would you have the vase open, and disclose its ineffable treasure?"

The troubadour himself must go in knightly panoply, and he and his musicians or jongleurs were usually provided with rich clothing. Gifts, of course, might be accepted from a sovereign, but no pecuniary recompense; the knightly minstrel disdained to sing for hire; it was pure love of his art that inspired him, and the idea of making it a lucrative profession never occurred to him. The troubadour, therefore, had to live upon his patrimony--until he squandered it in riotous living--and only a gentleman could afford to do that. Of the scores of troubadours whose names are known to us, the great majority are n.o.bles, though not always belonging to the higher n.o.bility; but the artist, the musician who "found" enchanting melodies, was almost _ex officio_ a knight, a chevalier, the terms troubadour and chevalier being interchangeable, and knighthood was considered so essential that one of the well-known troubadours was accused of having conferred the dignity upon himself, since no one else would knight him. Among the number of the troubadours one can count a score or more of reigning princes, "counts and dukes by the dozen,... many princes of royal blood, and finally four kings." Yet beside the royal troubadour, and a.s.sociated with him in a perfect freemasonry of art, one finds the troubadour of humble birth. Bertrand de Born, the petty baron, was on terms of perfect equality with the sons of Henry II.: Geoffrey, he called by the nickname of _Ra.s.sa_, Henry was _Marinier_, and Richard was _Richard Oc e No_ (Richard Yea and Nay). Pierre Vidal, the most eccentric of all the _genus irritabile_, was the son of a furrier of Toulouse, and yet, being a poet, was the friend of princes, notably of Alphonso, the troubadour king of Arragon. Bernard de Ventadour, who ventured, unrebuked, to send love songs to haughty Queen Eleanor, was the son of the baker of the chateau de Ventadour. There was, therefore, much greater freedom of intercourse in Provence than in the north of France, where feudalism had taken deeper root, where the warrior was merely a hard hitter, not a musician who went about equally prepared to fight or to sing.

The grace and polish of Provencal society was, of course, only relative.

At best, it was merely a surface polish in many cases; and to us the manners of the troubadours might seem as coa.r.s.e as their morals were corrupt. The very extravagance of the troubadour's life, with its constant demands for large expenditure in travel or in fantastic entertainments and revels at his chateau, the persistent thirst for excitement and pleasure in themselves would have been sufficient to foster licentious habits. Prodigality reduced many a troubadour to the rank of a mere jongleur or hired musician. A mediaeval moralist remarks, for the benefit of _la cigale_,--who probably paid no attention whatever, but went on singing,--_h.o.m.o joculatoribus intentus cito habebit uxorem cut nomen erit paupertas, ex qua generabitur filius cui nomen erit derisio_ (He who devotes himself to minstrelsy will soon have a wife named Poverty, of whom will be born a son named Ignominy.) But whether or not the troubadour made a sinful waste of his fortune, his one business in life was understood to be making love.

Every troubadour chose some lady to whom he devoted his talents, seeking to make her

"Glorious by his pen, and famous by his sword."

Like a true knight-errant of music and poetry, he travelled over the land, singing the praises of his lady-love and upholding the superiority of her charms in the lists, in battles with the infidel, or in any chance adventure on the road. After enduring in her honor whatever fortune might send him, and singing to her in songs of triumph or in plaintive love songs, he would return to claim his reward. So far, all is romantic and innocent enough. One can indulge in lovely sentimental fancies concerning this world of gentle singers and fair ladies and poesy and suns.h.i.+ne. But in sober fact the loves of the troubadours were neither so romantic nor even so innocent as one would gladly think. In a certain cla.s.s of modern novels, the hero rarely experiences a _grande pa.s.sion_, as it is charitably called, except for some other man's wife; so the lady to whom the troubadour devotes himself, to whom he pours out his pa.s.sion with all the cunning and warmth that art can devise, and of whose favors he sometimes most ungallantly boasts, is almost invariably a married woman. Fortunately, despite the fact that poets are given to proclaiming that truth and poetry are almost synonyms, most of us do not take them _au pied de la lettre_. "Most loving is feigning," says a good authority, and certainly most of the protestations in erotic poetry are hardly to be taken at their face value. So we may safely a.s.sume that the intercourse between the troubadours and the ladies to whom their songs are dedicated was generally quite innocent; and the burning desire, the tragic despair, or the exultant pa.s.sion, of the poems was also largely figurative, mere squibs and crackers of love. Certainly, if it were otherwise, the husbands of Provence were most unselfish patrons of art.

Yet, making all the allowances that common sense or charity may warrant, we have to admit that there is only too much evidence of deplorable moral laxity in the days of the troubadours. The very first troubadour of note, Count William of Poitou, Eleanor's grandfather, was notorious for his contemptuous att.i.tude toward the Church and for his licentiousness. In fact, the poems of William are coa.r.s.e and almost brutal in their tone, utterly lacking in the superfine gallantry, the preciosity, which is characteristic of the love poetry of his troubadour successors. There is in the poems a sort of bold laughter and wit, and the technical part of the work shows a most surprising artistic finish, but nothing that speaks of chivalrous ideals. It is with some wonder, therefore, that we read in the old Provencal biography of this first of the troubadours that "the Count of Poitou was one of the most courteous men in the world, and a great deceiver of ladies; and he was a brave knight and had much to do with love affairs; and he knew well how to sing and make verses; and for a long time he roamed all through the land to deceive the ladies." According to all accounts, William was very successful in this gallant undertaking. It was the troubadour's business, openly avowed, to "deceive the ladies," and among a people so susceptible as those of Provence many must have been the domestic tragedies brought on by these erotic knights-errant.

When love making, or the writing of love songs, becomes a profession one need not be surprised to find that there is a great deal of pure conventionality. The love of beauty is not supreme in all hearts, even in those of poets, and so the love poetry of the troubadours is as artificial, as overstrained and oversweetened as a panegyric of an Elizabethan poet upon that very questionable beauty of the "vestal throned in the west." What was the actual standard of beauty among the ladies of Provence is hard to determine, for they are all much the same in the songs of the troubadours. The lady has skin whiter than milk, purer than the driven snow, of tint more delicate than the pearl. Upon her cheeks the roses vie with the lilies, the delicate color mounting at the sound of her praises and melting away in danger or distress. A wealth of flaxen hair, of silky texture, crowns her head, and a pair of soft blue eyes gaze languis.h.i.+ngly upon the lover; and when they close, the sun is gone from the face of nature, so dark does the world seem to him. But when she walks abroad in smiling beauty, the very birds stop their own love making to chant of her loveliness, and the flowers turn to look at her. With all this delicacy of physical beauty goes a const.i.tution as delicate, for she faints at the news of disaster or danger to her troubadour. When the monkish chroniclers are so very cold in their descriptions of personal charms, we are left to the poets. It may be, then, that, in troubadour eyes at least, Eleanor herself was of the type we have described.

It was from a society formed of such elements, and from the very home of music and poetry, that the young Queen of France came to Paris, at that time no doubt a very dismal place, inhabited by people who, however superior as Christians, must have seemed to her uncultured barbarians.

The details of her life during the first ten or fifteen years after her marriage are obscure, and certainly of little historic interest. We can feel sure only that her union with Louis VII. must have been distinctly and increasingly irksome to both parties. With the best will in the world, historians can say no more of him than that he was a safe and conservative ruler, never achieving any marked success, and yet never incurring serious disaster. As a man he was cold, personally unattractive and unsympathetic, possessed of unquestioned physical courage, and yet at times fatally timid and irresolute; easily influenced,' especially by the one power which one might fancy most distasteful to Eleanor, the Church, for he was devout to the point of superst.i.tion. If Eleanor had been a mere sybarite, a nerveless devotee of pleasure, she might have lived in obscurity and borne with the puritanism of her husband. But her blood was too hot for that; she was full of ambition and of energy and relentless determination to realize that ambition. As Queen of France there was no great role for her to play. She was young, and for the moment Louis and his counsellors governed France, while she was satisfied with less ambitious occupations. One of these occupations was, no doubt, keeping up her connection with the troubadours of her native land, with whom her family and her ducal court of Bordeaux were traditionally a.s.sociated. The exact dates of her friends.h.i.+p with various troubadours we do not, of course, know; but we do know that she made rather frequent trips to her beloved Bordeaux during these years, and that she was commonly recognized as a patroness of the troubadours.

We next hear of Eleanor in a role not altogether in keeping with her troubadour affiliations: one does not think of the daughter of William of Poitou as a defender of the Cross, yet it is as a crusader that Eleanor first makes a stir in history. Much has been made by historians of the influence of the Crusades; here we are concerned to remark only that the spirit of adventure spread even to the women, and that many a dame went to the Holy Land, some even in panoply of war. It was a wonderful step forward in the freedom of women, if we recall the conditions existing a generation before. Our great Provencal queen was a typical representative, not only of the chivalry and love of adventure of Provence, but of the spirit of greater independence prevailing among women. When her grave and devout husband began his preparations for the Second Crusade, in 1147, Eleanor determined to accompany him.

A woman of her energy could not, of course, be content with the _faineant_ role of spouse and consoler. Accordingly, she organized a regular band of Amazons among the great ladies of France, including the Countesses of Toulouse and Flanders and other n.o.ble dames. The costume of this troop was the most notable thing about them. The gay and extravagant queen had devoted much time and thought to the devising of a dress sufficiently showy for herself and her ladies, and, according to the accounts of the chronicler William of Tyre, to whom we are indebted for most of the details of her crusading exploits, Eleanor and her companions presented a gorgeous spectacle. Accompanied by bands of troubadours and musicians, with much flaunting of gay banners and glittering of spangles, Queen Eleanor, clad man-fas.h.i.+on, in glittering spangle armor, and her ladies rode in the van of the army. Their discarded distaffs these martial ladies sent to recreant knights who had preferred staying at home to crusading.

The saintly Bernard of Clairvaux, the most powerful religious influence of his time, one whose inspired preaching could move vast audiences to a perfect frenzy of religious exaltation, had been induced, almost compelled, to preach the crusade for that loyal son of the Church, Louis VII. Saint Bernard himself confessed to serious misgivings about the righteousness of this crusade, and would not be a second Peter the Hermit to lead the vast host of the Cross. One can imagine that the doings of Louis's queen must have filled the soul of Saint Bernard with misgivings still more serious. Eleanor, indeed, was incapable of religious feeling of sufficient depth to sympathize with the purer motives of fanaticism that inspired the best of the crusaders. For her it was a pleasure jaunt, a glorious opportunity to enjoy all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of being a queen, and at least the show of power.

Louis, perhaps, would have been glad to leave his rather too theatrical and frivolous consort behind, for the crusade was to him a serious business; but it is likely that the large contingent of Gascons and Poitevins, devoted to their troubadour d.u.c.h.ess, were hardly so eager about following the King of France.

The crusade, whose history we need not dwell upon, was like a triumphal procession as far as Constantinople. To be sure, there were misery and sickness and death among the hordes of poor camp followers and pilgrims who had sought the protection of the great army as they journeyed to that Holy Land whose mere sight, they fancied, would be as a balm to their seared consciences; but Queen Eleanor and her princesses experienced nothing but the vain excitement of it all, the wonders of the Greek civilization, the glitter and splendor. Warned by the disastrous experience of the Germans who had preceded him, Louis elected to follow the coast route along the sh.o.r.es of Asia Minor, and he and his army were safely transported across the straits by the Greeks.

In the march that followed, the vain and headstrong Eleanor more than once jeopardized herself and the whole army. She insisted on leading the van, and her too complaisant husband consented. The result was that Eleanor, with utter disregard of strategy and of ordinary military precautions, conducted her forces as if the expedition were merely a party of pleasure, selected her camps and her route according to the beauty of the landscape, and all the time flirted in the most irresponsible fas.h.i.+on with anyone who attracted her. It was said that she had a most shameful intrigue with a handsome young emir, accepted gifts from Sultan Noureddin, and spoke of her husband with increasing flippancy, disrespect, contempt. The army was saved in the mountain pa.s.ses by a knight from Eleanor's native land, one Gilbert, of whom really nothing is known, but who has been made the central figure in a romance in which Eleanor also plays her part.

From Satalia, on the Gulf of Cyprus, the king and Eleanor, with the more well to do among their followers, took s.h.i.+p for Antioch, abandoning the ma.s.s of poor followers to the mercies of the perfidious Greeks and the fierce Turks. In Antioch, Eleanor was received too kindly by her uncle, Raymond, Prince of Antioch, said to have been the handsomest man of his time, and as licentious as Eleanor's own grandfather had been. Despite their relations.h.i.+p, Eleanor's conduct with Raymond made Louis wildly jealous. She was already talking of a separation from Louis. The daughter of William of Poitou certainly could not, as she proclaimed, put up with a monk for her husband; but it is rather amazing to find her pretending that she wishes her marriage dissolved for reasons of conscience, since she and her husband are related within the degrees prohibited by that Church of which she has always been so devout a daughter. Louis carried her off, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, from Antioch, and we hear nothing more but complaints from him and soothing counsel from his friends until after he and Eleanor returned from this disastrous crusade. Eleanor's caprice and haughty temper had almost driven Louis to despair, and perhaps it was this constant domestic irritant which exacerbated his temper and caused those quarrels with the Emperor Conrad which resulted in the miserable failure of the Christian arms at the very gates of Damascus.

Eleanor returned to France, and continued to give her husband cause of complaint not only by her conduct but by her tongue. Yet the ill-a.s.sorted pair lived in marital relations until the winter of 1151-1152. During a journey to Aquitaine, however, a violent rupture occurred. Louis appealed to the Council of Beaugency for a divorce, declaring openly that he did not trust his wife, and could never feel sure of the legitimacy of her issue. But Eleanor, as usual, had been beforehand with him. She, too, appealed for divorce, and her appeal was in the hands of the Council before that of her husband. Less frank and more politic than Louis, Eleanor sought for an annulment of the marriage on the ground that she and Louis were cousins--they were related in the sixth degree. The Council, which might have been seriously embarra.s.sed by discussing and recognizing such a plea as that of Louis against one of the most powerful princesses of Christendom, discreetly granted Eleanor's plea, and annulled the marriage, March 18, 1152. Louis lost a wife who despised him, and whom he dreaded for her violence and her sharp tongue. France lost all those rich provinces which had come as Eleanor's dower.

The divorced queen, now reigning d.u.c.h.ess of Guienne, was at once pursued by a number of suitors. With all the romance and sentiment said to be characteristic of southern France in her day it is hard to reconcile facts like those that follow. Thibaud de Blois was bent on capturing the rich d.u.c.h.ess, and when she refused him, he plotted to capture her, to imprison her in his castle of Blois, and to force her to marry him.

Fortunately, Eleanor was warned of the plot and escaped to her own frontier; but here young Geoffrey of Anjou, aged eighteen, laid an ambuscade for her on the Loire, intending to marry her himself. Again she escaped, this time to her own county of Poitou. Into Poitiers she was followed almost at once by Geoffrey's elder brother, Henry Plantagenet. Handsome, masterful, brilliant, Henry was of the very type to captivate Eleanor. It is altogether probable that she had had a previous understanding with him, and had conducted the proceedings for divorce on his advice. At any rate, they were married at Bordeaux on the 1st of May, 1152, in spite of the opposition of Louis as Henry's feudal lord. Two years later Henry succeeded King Stephen, and Eleanor was Queen of England.

A troubadour queen was certainly no fit mate for Louis VII.; and now that Eleanor has secured her divorce from Louis, and has married a man of temperament somewhat similar to her own, let us step aside from the story of her career in history to tell something more of her relation to the troubadours, and of the troubadours themselves.

Not inheriting any of her grandfather's talent as a singer, Eleanor yet made her court a haven for troubadours. Unfortunately, we know but little of her personal relations with her troubadour courtiers, though tradition has conjectured that they were by no means always platonic. It was after her marriage to Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, that she became the special protectress of a forlorn troubadour lover, Bernard de Ventadour. He was, as we have noticed, of very low birth, the son of a baker in the Chateau de Ventadour; but he had risen in his lord's favor by reason of his poetic powers. The fair young Viscountess de Ventadour, a perfect angel of beauty in the eyes of the poet, delighted to listen to his songs of love. At first these songs did not distinctly refer to her; but the allusions became more unequivocal, and the songs became warmer, till one day, as they sat under the shade of a pine tree, Bernard singing to her, the viscountess suddenly kissed her minstrel.

The poet tells us in a song that so great was his bliss and ecstasy that the winter landscape seemed suddenly to blossom with all the flowers of spring. And now he sang more openly of love, and at length put the fair lady's own name in his songs as the object of his pa.s.sion. The viscount could no longer overlook his wife's conduct; so the viscountess was shut up in a tower and Bernard was driven out of the Limousin.

Eleanor gave the banished troubadour a kindly welcome. She listened to his songs, heard his plaintive story, and consoled him. Eleanor was unquestionably a beautiful woman, and at that time she was still in her prime. It is no wonder that the soft heart of the troubadour soon forgot its grief for the lost Lady de Ventadour in the new love for his gracious protector. Both Eleanor and the troubadour were probably really in love, for she was as susceptible as he, though neither was capable, perhaps, of lasting affection. At any rate, Bernard wrote for her songs full of love and longing, declaring that her image dwells with him always, that in her absence he cannot sleep, and that the mere thought of her is sweeter far than sleep. Henry II. was not himself irreproachable as a husband, and perhaps he thought it wise not to look too closely into what his wife was doing. Just at this time, however, Henry became King of England, and there was no need to urge Eleanor to hasten across the channel to become queen; her vanity was sufficient for that. The new queen and her troubadour were parted, and, says his biographer, from that time Bernard remained sad and woeful. He writes her that, for her sake, he will cross the channel, for he is both a Norman and an Englishman now; but we do not know that the intimacy between them was renewed.

This story is the only one of any detail showing the direct relations between Eleanor and the troubadours. There are, however, a score of other anecdotes which serve to show the relation of other women of her cla.s.s--not all princesses, but at least of the higher n.o.bility--to the troubadours. As ill.u.s.trative of the position of women in Provence at this time we may select a story as famous in troubadour annals as that of Francesca da Rimini.

The Lady Margarida de Roussillon, says the Provencal biography, was the "most beautiful lady of her time, and the most prized for all that is praiseworthy, and n.o.ble, and courteous." She lived in happiness with her husband, the powerful Baron Raymond de Roussillon. But in her suite was a page, Guillem de Cabestanh, poor, but of n.o.ble birth, with whose handsome face and gracious ways the Lady Margarida fell in love. "Love kindled her thoughts with fire," till at last the pa.s.sion so overmastered her that she said to Guillem one day: "Guillem, if a lady were to love you, could you love her?" "Certainly, my lady," replied the young man, "if I thought she loved truly." "Well spoken! Tell me, now, can you distinguish true love from counterfeit?"

These questions roused the smouldering love in Guillem's heart, and he gave vent to it in "stanzas graceful and gay, and tunes and canzos, and his songs found favor with all, but most with her for whom he sang."

Margarida, indeed, knew that he loved her and that the songs were inspired by her, though Guillem had not as yet ventured to name her in them or to speak to her. Once again she spoke to her timid lover, and he confessed his love. Then began the love story, the troubadour pouring out his sweetest songs and trusting fondly that, because he did not name her, no one would guess their love. But the gossips began to talk of them, till at last the scandal came to the ear of Sir Raymond. "He was ill pleased and hot with rage through having lost the friend he loved so well, and more because of the shame of his spouse." Instead of taking summary vengeance, however, he bided his time till the guilty pair could be self-convicted.

One day when Guillem had gone off hawking alone Margarida saw Raymond hide his sword under his cloak and follow after Guillem. She waited in fearful anxiety till they returned, Raymond apparently in good humor with Guillem and all the world. Raymond told her that he had discovered who was the lady of Guillem's songs. Margarida's terror may be imagined.

"I knew," said Raymond, "that no one could sing so well unless he loved.

When I conjured him, by his faith, to tell me whom he loved, he evaded me at first, but at length confessed that it was your sister, Lady Agnes de Tarascon." He then told her that it was all true, moreover, for he had ridden to the Chateau de Tarascon with Guillem, and that, after some hesitancy, the Lady Agnes had admitted that Guillem was her lover.

Margarida was at first dumfounded, and completely incredulous; but her husband's statements were so exact that she was finally convinced of Guillem's faithlessness.

At their first private interview she taxed him with his ingrat.i.tude, and would scarcely listen to his denials. Guillem told her that, seeing himself forced into a corner by Raymond's persistent questions, he had named the Lady Agnes in desperation, to prevent immediate discovery and death. The Lady Agnes and her husband, whom she had told of the intrigue, soon confirmed the lover's story. Lady Agnes had seen the distress in Guillem's countenance when Raymond brought him to Tarascon and asked her, in his presence, who was her lover. To save Guillem and her sister, Lady Agnes had admitted that Guillem was her lover, and she and her husband had done all in their power to convince Raymond of this fact. One need hardly remark on the social conditions or the general laxity of morals implied in the nave recital of such an incident.

To continue Margarida's story, the lovers were reconciled and Guillem celebrated the reconciliation in a song. Unfortunately he had grown rash, and alluded too openly in this song to the very circ.u.mstances of their case. "No man," he sang, "suffers greater martyrdom than I; for you, whom I desire more than aught in this world, I must disavow and deny, and lie as if no love were in my heart. Whate'er I do through fear of my life, you must take in good faith, even though you do not see why I do it." This song, some portions of which were violently amorous, came to the hands of Raymond. He guessed the truth at once, and planned an awful vengeance.

Some days later, as the husband and wife were seated at dinner, the Lady Margarida commented on the delicacy of a bit of deer's heart which she had eaten. "Do you know," said Raymond, "what you have been eating?"

"No, but I found it delicious." "This will show you," he said, raising before her the b.l.o.o.d.y head of Guillem Cabestanh. "Behold the head of the man whose heart you have just eaten!" The lady fainted at the horrible sight, and when she recovered screamed aloud that the heart she had eaten was so good and savory that never more would she eat meat. The maddened husband rushed at her with drawn sword, and she, to escape death at his hands, cast herself out of a window and was dashed to pieces.

The story has a little sequel, not less instructive and enlightening in its way. "The news of the deed spread rapidly, and was received everywhere with grief and indignation; and all the friends of Guillem and the lady, and all the courteous knights of the neighborhood, and all those who were lovers, united to make war against Raymond." King Alphonso of Arragon invaded Raymond's dominions, took him prisoner, kept him in captivity the rest of his days, and divided his property among the relatives of the murdered lovers. The unhappy pair he caused to be buried in one tomb, and erected over them a sumptuous monument, whither once a year came all the knights and all the fond lovers of Roussillon, Cerdagne, and Narbonnais, to pray for the souls of Guillem Cabestanh and the fair Lady Margarida. In the glamor of romance, morality and common decency are apt to be lost sight of. The romancer enlists all our sympathies for the guilty Paolo and Francesca of this story, while Raymond, the miserable husband, meets with captivity and the loss of his property. We may add that the main facts of this story are confirmed, even to the episode of the heart, by several accounts in ma.n.u.scripts, though imagination is doubtless responsible for certain details.

In the loves of the troubadours one is constantly encountering stories not less immoral though less tragic than this one, as we may see in the story of the Lady de Miravals. The wife of Raymond de Miravals, a rich baron and famous troubadour, being neglected by her husband, had formed a secret attachment for a knight called Bremon. She was pining in secret for her lover when, to her delight, Raymond threatened to divorce her, because he himself had tired of her and was in love with another lady who insisted that he should divorce his wife. Seeing in the threatened divorce a chance of perfect liberty in her relations with Bremon, the Lady de Miravals pretended extreme grief and indignation. Such treatment from an ungrateful husband she would not stand, she said. She would send for her parents and relatives to see justice done or to take her away.

To this Raymond, apparently, made no very determined resistance. The lady, with great show of wrath, sent a messenger to summon her family, secretly directing him to go to Bremon and tell him that she was ready to marry him if he would come. Bremon came with alacrity, accompanied by a troop of his knights, and halted at the gate of the castle. The expectant Lady de Miravals, seeing her lover ready, announced to Raymond that her friends had come for her, and that she would be pleased if he would allow her to leave at once. Raymond consented; in fact, he was so pleased at the prospect of being rid of his wife that, with unwonted courtesy, he himself conducted her to the castle gate. Seeing that her little plot was working so well, the runaway wife could not forbear adding one more touch to this lovely little deception. "Sir," said she to Raymond, "since we part such good friends, with no regrets, would you not be good enough to give me, no longer your wife, to this gentleman?"

Nothing was easier to Raymond than unmarrying a wife of whom he was tired. With ready courtesy he gave her to Bremon, who, receiving her from her husband's hands, put the ring on her finger and rode off, in high glee, with his lady-love.

We do not know whether the Lady de Miravals and her new husband found the course of their love smooth or rough; but the too complaisant Raymond met with very bad luck, which he most richly deserved. As soon as his wife was gone, he posted off to tell his lady-love that her commands had been obeyed and that he had now come to marry her. But this lady, who seems to have cared nothing for the foolish troubadour except to have the honor of having him make a fool of himself for her, said: "It is well done, Raymond; you have sent away your wife to please me.