As an example of the darker threads we may take the career of Guilhelm de Cabestaing, the unfortunate author of the famous canzo, a fragment of which is printed at the head of the chapter. He is one of the most prominent figures in troubadour history. He celebrated the charms of Berengaria des Baux, but his real love was for the wife of the Count of Rousillon, a ferocious person who suspected the troubadour's passion and set to work to entrap him by questions as to the state of his heart. Guilhelm, seeing his danger, admitted that he was seriously in love, but with the wife of another seigneur.
"Ah!" said the Count, pretending great sympathy, "I will help you in your suit; we will go at once to the castle of the fair lady."
Guilhelm had reluctantly to go, dreading the worst; but the lady, realising the situation, played up to the part, acknowledging her love for Guilhelm, and the Count's suspicions were thus allayed, but only to be aroused again by the canzo ("lou douz cossire") which Sermonda asked her lover to write to assure her that his faithlessness was only apparent. The gruesome end of the story, the treacherous slaying of the troubadour, the serving up of the heart at table to the wife, and her suicide on hearing the ghastly truth, illustrates too well the darker side of the life of the epoch.
FARM IN PROVENCE.
By Joseph Pennell.
Pons de Chapteuil was a troubadour whose story greatly interested us, partly because of the romantic idea of the two mountain-set castles, one the home of Pons, at Chapteuil, near Le Puy, the other that of Alazais of Mercoeur, about twenty-five miles distant, "as one would measure across the mountains of Auvergne," says Justin Smith in his charming account of the story.
"Really it seems a little strange and eerie," he exclaims, "the romance between these two castles in the sky—a little like a love-affair between the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn."
The story was tender and bright and sad, as love-stories are apt to be, and very characteristic of the time. First the admiration and sympathy and the necessary adoration, then the taking fire of two generous natures; for this time the hero of romance is one to claim our admiration as a noble follower of the laws of chivalry.
"It was his pleasure to defend the weak of every sort, to be brave, true, faithful, liberal, and always to stand for the right."