With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted. It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs, that assistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears, where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that God sends forth salvation.
"One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go to church;
"'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet been.'
"'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my bed.'
"'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be forced to go and beg for alms.'
"'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if you will permit me.
"'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.
"'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'
"And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not walk.
"Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not moved on the way to church;