In one of the little towns of Languedoc through which Joseph passed, a lady of the place heard some one complain that the “empereur n’a point de cortége,” on which she wrote the following lines:
La bienfaisance le précède
La modeste vertu se tient à son côté.
A la vertu l’humanité succède,
Et la marche finit par l’immortalité.
To which she annexed the title of “Cortége de l’Empereur.” I believe the original history of “The Maid and the Magpie,” which has given occasion to such pretty operas, was a circumstance that happened at Toulouse. A lady missed her jewels, and knowing that it was impossible that any one but her own maid could have entered the room at the time, the poor girl was imprisoned, tried, and executed. The jewels were afterwards found on the roof of the house, and a magpie was discovered to have been the thief. In one of the chapels of the cathedral there was always a lamp burning for the repose of her soul, on this account, and the family of the lady used to pray there.
The inhabitants of Toulouse had a taste for poetry, and many agreeable compositions in different kinds of metre were often read at the academy of the “Jeux Floraux,” an institution which is said to have owed its commencement to a lady named Clémence Isaure, of whose history, unfortunately, nothing more is known, to the great annoyance of whichever academician has the task of pronouncing an eulogium on this their benefactress, as is done regularly once a year. The prizes distributed on these occasions for the best compositions are flowers, in silver gilt (vermeil), appropriated to each different species of poetry. This institution dates from the early times of the Troubadours. The patois of Languedoc is an offspring of their language, and in some respects it resembles the Spanish.
One of these discourses, at the Floral Games, was read by the Chevalier d’A——, a knight of Malta, and a man of some little taste in literature. He was excessively lively, though not young; and he had many Italian books. We were not at the ceremony of pronouncing his vows, which took place while we were at Toulouse; but he told us that when he rose from this awful renunciation of the world, the first person he saw was Lady L——, a person very different in appearance from most of her countrywomen, for, though an Irishwoman, she was remarkably plain. “My first thought,” added the Chevalier d’A——, “then was, ‘Well, if all women are like Lady L——, there will be no great sacrifice in renouncing them.’” There was a convent of ladies, of the Order of Malta, which he took us to see. It was built in an elegant style of Italian architecture, and the ladies received us with great politeness. This Order dated from the time of the Crusades; and they had to make the same proofs of gentle blood for the same number of generations as the knights.