Another part of the diversion offered at these gatherings was the recital by the princely troubadours of their songs, to the accompaniment of the viol and guitar, played by themselves or by the jongleurs. It was at this court that Guillaume de Cabestan sang the praises of the Princess Bérengère, wife of Lord des Baux, and those of her sister-in-law, Tricline Carbonnelle. These songs are largely concerned with the adventures of princes and knights in the domains of Love and War, and descriptions and histories of violent passions, to which the warm-blooded peoples of the South were peculiarly subject. So obsessed were these early poets with the fascination of the greater passions that one can hardly wonder at some of the fantastic turns their songs and stories took. Most of them have failed to stand the test of time; their affectations and pedantic unreality failing utterly to reflect natural feelings and spontaneous emotions.
The strange relationship that grew up between the troubadours and the great ladies to whom they offered their platonic admiration and regard, is sufficient to brand many of the lays with the stamp of insincerity. Each troubadour was, by a sort of unwritten code, bound to choose some lady-love; it did not matter if she were married—indeed, she generally was—and to this divinity, were she fair, fat, or ugly, he offered lays and songs that praised her beauty in extravagant terms.
As the troubadour was generally dependent on the patronage of the great for his bread, it was common to select the wife of his patron for this high honour. Doubtless if the troubadour were of humble or lowly origin, the difference of his estate from that of the object of his poetic worship would prevent any undue familiarity being encouraged, although many of the earlier love-songs of the troubadours affect a deep and “love-at-a-distance” kind of worship of the fair divinity. There are many stories told by the troubadours themselves that unblushingly proclaim that the relationships existing between worshipper and worshipped were such as to disturb domestic peace; but when outraged husbands wreaked their just wrath upon these sighing swains, the sympathy of the narrator of the story is invariably on the side of the author of the trouble.
One of the best known of these tales is as follows: Guillaume de Cabestan, before mentioned, made love in troubadour fashion to the wife of Raymond de Seillans. Raymond, doubtless, saw more in the attachment than he thought consistent with his honour, and to revenge himself upon the guilty lovers, he slew the poet, tore out his heart and had it cooked and served up for dinner. After his unsuspecting spouse had eaten of the dish, and he had made known to her the loathsome nature of her repast, the lady lost her reason and threw herself from a window on to the rocks below.
The Castle of Baux is now a crumbling mass of ruins. Every year sees additions to the collection of fallen boulders that lie like tumbled giants on the sloping terrace below.
The only chapel still in use, the best-preserved building
in the dismantled town, is dedicated to St. Vincent, the patron saint of Les Baux. It has a central nave flanked by two side aisles of unequal proportions and different dates, and of these the more ancient, to the right of the entrance, has little side chapels, cut out of the rock which forms the south side of the edifice.
Towards the end of the last century, for unexplained reasons, excavations were made in the crypt of the church, and several of the heavy slabs of stone that covered tombs were raised. Bodies, clad in rich garments, in a perfect state of preservation, were discovered, which, however, crumbled away on being handled and exposed to the air. All that remained were the long tresses of golden hair that belonged to a young girl, supposed to have been one of the princesses of Baux, whose wonderful beauty had long ago incited the troubadours to eulogy.