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 bloody 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 manuscripts, 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. Now go and prepare for a magnificent wedding at your castle, and let me know when you are ready to receive your bride in fitting style." The troubadour rushed home, spent weeks and squandered his substance in preparations for his bride, and went back to claim her. Alas! this very sensible lady had married another man--we hope not a troubadour--on the very day after she had sent Raymond on his fool's errand.
With all his protestations of undying devotion, it not infrequently happened that the troubadour did not continue to devote himself to one lady. Sometimes the lady found a more acceptable lover, or became tired of the love rhapsodies of her troubadour. But it was dangerous to dismiss one of these violent poets without good excuse, for he might turn from love songs to sirventes, and satirize her whom before he had extolled as a paragon. One of the most amusing of the anecdotes of the troubadours is that telling how Marie de Ventadour got rid of the attentions of Gaucelm Faidit.
The beautiful Countess Marie de Ventadour was, says the old Provençal historian quoted in Mr. Rowbotham's The Troubadours and Courts of Love, to which we are indebted for many of the facts here used, "the most esteemed lady in the province of Limousin; the lady who prided herself most on doing whatever was right and good, and who best preserved and defended herself from all evil; who always shaped her conduct by the rules of reason, and never at any time committed an act of folly." Her charms were celebrated by many a troubadour, but her most devoted admirer was Gaucelm Faidit. Gaucelm, the son of an artisan of Uzerche, had been raised from his low estate by the favor of the troubadour Richard Coeur de Lion, and his talent had assured his position in what one might call the best society. Marie, like other ladies of her time, was rather vain of her troubadour admirers, and did not disdain the brilliant but lowborn Gaucelm Faidit. But she told him that, if he was to win her love, he must show himself worthy of it by prowess in battle, and suggested that he accompany her husband--whom we neglected to mention before--on the third Crusade, just then being organized. The poet, though not very fond of fighting, took the Cross, went to the Holy Land, sent home to his lady-love most ferocious poems telling of the perils he was encountering or escaping, and then made his way back to the Château de Ventadour as soon as he could find a decent excuse for doing so. Marie, however, was not so gracious to him as he had hoped; she did not love him for the dangers he had passed, or for his telling of them. She was, in fact, decidedly cold to him. Gaucelm, in a rage, left the chateau, saying: "I shall never see you again! But perhaps I can find another lady who will treat me with more consideration." Marie was rather glad to be rid of her poet's tempestuous love; but she was afraid of his sharp tongue; he could write most bitter sirventes: what if he should avenge himself on her by turning against her all his satiric powers?
In this dilemma she resorted to a stratagem which her friend, Madame de Malamort helped her to put in practice, Madame de Malamort sent a message to the troubadour asking: "Which do you prefer, a little bird in the hand, or a crane flying high in the air?" Gaucelm's curiosity was piqued; he came to ask her to unravel this riddle. "I am the little bird," said she, "whom you hold in your hand, and Marie de Ventadour is the crane who flies far above your head. Am I not as beautiful as she? Love me who love you, and let this haughty countess find out, as she will, what a treasure she has lost." The vanity of the troubadour, incensed by what he thought unjust treatment, could not withstand this artful attack. He consented to be off with the old love, and the new love required that he take leave of the old love, not in any violent sirvente, but in a poem relentless, stern, yet calm and dignified; after which he might begin to sing as he pleased about the new love. Too proud of his new conquest to suspect the trick being played on him, Gaucelm bade farewell to Marie de Ventadour in a formal and very dignified fashion. When he turned now to sing of joy and spring and the like to Madame de Malamort he found his attentions very coldly received; and the lady soon gave him to understand that, having got her friend out of a difficulty, she cared not a fig for any troubadour. Gaucelm was nicely trapped; he could not indulge in abuse of either lady without danger of having the whole foolish tale told at his expense. He became a heretic toward love, and satirized women in general; but he soon recovered from this, and lived to be consoled by other ladies, and to be fooled by one more. This one, Marguerite d'Aubusson, pretending the most devoted and innocent romantic love for Gaucelm, used to meet her real lover under cover of Gaucelm's roof.
Though not at all essential to the story, it is a fact worth mentioning that Gaucelm Faidit himself was married while the romance with Marie was in progress. The wife of a troubadour, indeed, was not allowed to interfere with any really serious business of his career, such as a love affair with another man's wife. That this was so, in theory at least, can be seen in the story of the lives of many of the troubadours; and that the general attitude of Provençal society, as represented by this particular phase of its literature, was unfavorable to matrimony, can be seen most clearly when we look at those curious institutions called Courts of Love. It is not yet quite certain whether the Courts of Love are altogether or only partly mythical.
This century of ours is a Sancho Panza among the centuries; like that stout and excellent squire, we have unlimited faith in things material, visible, tangible, and especially eatable and no faith in things romantic, such as windmills, and knights-errant, and chivalry. Looked at from the Panzaic point of view, which we are fain to admit is also the common-sense point of view, it seems inherently most improbable that any set of people should waste their time upon anything so fantastic as the Courts of Love. Yet Panza should be asked to remember that there are and have been things in heaven and earth that surpass the limits of his philosophy; that the race among whom such institutions are alleged to have flourished was notoriously sentimental, or poetic, if you like a more respectful term; that, for a parallel, he has only to go to a famous French romance, published less than two centuries ago, which contained a grave description and map of the Country of Love, a Carte du pays de Tendre, with minute directions as to how the amorous traveller might proceed safely on his journey to the city of true love; and that Molière's Précieuses Ridicules, however overdrawn for comic effect, presents a picture of what really existed. Reason is, undoubtedly, opposed to the possibility of the existence of the Courts of Love; but, as we have said, we cannot always refuse to believe what seems to us preposterous. The historical evidence for the existence of the Courts of Love is unquestionably very scanty. Mr. Rowbotham, who believes firmly in their existence, is forced to rely upon the testimony of one contemporary witness, of very uncertain date (Andrew the Chaplain, "who lived probably about the end of the twelfth century"), and two very obscure allusions to courts and trials in the poems of the troubadours. The chief sources for our knowledge of the Courts of Love are writers long subsequent to the events, notably Jean de Nostredame, who, in 1575, published a book entitled Les Vies des plus célèbres et anciens poetes provensaux. But the tradition is so well established, and above all so intimately associated with Queen Eleanor, that we shall give a little sketch of the courts and their doings.
The tensons of the troubadours were poetic disputes on points of love and on lovers' conduct. If, says Jean de Nostredame, the disputants "could not come to an agreement they referred the matter for decision to the illustrious lady presidents who held open and plenary court at the Castle of Signe, and other places, and these gave judgments which were called the judgments of Love." If a lady treated her troubadour lover unfairly, or if a lover were guilty of any dereliction or crime in love, or if, for the guidance of future generations of lovers, a decision on a mere point of gallantry were sought, all such cases came before the Courts of Love, which had a regular code of laws, thirty-one in number, upon which decisions were based. The court, composed of a jury of the most beautiful, accomplished, and celebrated ladies of the neighborhood, and presided over by some lady of special distinction, heard the pleas on both sides, and gave judgment, which depended upon a unanimous vote of the jury. There were several of these courts, the most famous being those of Queen Eleanor of England, of her daughter, Marie de Champagne, of the Viscountess of Narbonne, and of the Countess of Flanders. The code under which these fantastic tribunals are said to have given their judgment is a very curious document. The statutes of love are hardly so rigorous as might be expected; some of them are merely proverbial bits of wisdom, with here and there a hint very far from romantic: