The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2)

ost celebrated Troubadours of his time. As a petty feudal sovereign, he was, partly by the events of the age, more by

m burning the castles, and ravaging the lands of his neighbours, and stirring up rebellion, discord, and bloodshed all around him,-that he composed a vast number of lays, sirventes, and chans

f Talleyrand de Perigord. The lady accepted his service, and acknowledged him as her Knight; but evil tongues having attempted to sow dissension between the lovers, Bertrand addressed to her a song, in which he defends himself from the imputation of inconstancy, in a style altogether characteristic and original. The warrior poet, borrowing from the objects of his daily cares, ambition and pleasures, phrases to illustrate and enhance the expression of his love, wishes "that he may lose his favourite hawk in her first flight; that a falcon may stoop and bear her off, as she sits upon his wrist, and tear her in his sight, if the sound of his lady's voice be not dearer to him than all the gifts of love from another."-"That

eeding with the wounds inflicted by his ungrateful children, and he saw before him, and in his power, the primary cause of their misdeeds and his own bitter sufferings. Bertrand was on the point of being led out to death, when by a single word he reminded the King of his lost son, and the tender friendship which had existed between them.[12] The chord was struck which never ceased to vibrate in the parental heart of Henry; bursting into tears, he turned aside, and commanded Bertrand and his followers to be immediately set at liberty: he even restored to Bertrand his castle and his lands, "in the name of his dead son." It is such traits as these, occurring at every page, which lend to the chronicles of this stormy period an

s poetic fame, could rescue him from the severe justice of Dante, who has visited his crimes and his violence with so terrible a judgment, that we forget, while we thrill with horror, that the crimes were real, the penance only imaginary. Dante, in on

i la pen

ndo vai vegg

na è grande

u di me no

on Bertram dal

Re giovane i

re e 'l figlio

...*..

tii così giu

o il mio cer

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a in me lo co

be

rment, thou, who

ead: behold,

as this,-and

r tidings of m

e of Born, who

ischievous. F

t mutua

on malicious

ose so closely

! I carry fr

trunk inhabit

n fiercely wo

too far on the encouragement bestowed on him in the former capacity, he was banished: he then followed Richard the First to the crusade. The verses he addressed to the lady from the Island of Cyprus are still preserved. The folly of Vidal, or rather the derangement of his imagination, subjected him to some of those mystifications which remind us of Don Quixote and Sancho, in the court of the laughter-loving Duchess. For instance, Richard and his followers amused themselves at Cyprus, by marrying Vidal to a beautiful Greek girl of no immaculate reputation, whom they introduced to him as the niece of the Greek Emperor. Vidal, in right of his wife, immediately took the title of Emperor, assumed the purple

Peyrols, a famous Proven?al poet, who was distinguished in the court of the Dauphin d'Auvergne, fell passionately in love with the sister of that Prince, (the Baronne de Merc?ur) and the Dauphin, (himself a Troubadour) proud of the genius of his minstrel and of the poetical devotion paid to his sister, desired her to bestow on her lover all the encouragement and favour which was consistent with her dignity. The lady, however, eit

the Second, and the mother of Richard the First:-I have before observed the poetical p

f that modern Phalaris, the tyrant Ezzelino of Padua. There is a very elegant ballad (ballata) by Sordello, translated in Millot's collection; it is properly a kind of rondeau, the first line being repeated at the end of every stanza; "Helas! à quoi me servent mes yeu

mistress, but the lady, who, being an illustrious female Troubadour, "docte en po?sie," celebrated the exploits and magnanimity of her lover. The Chevalier, proud of such a distinction, caused the verses of his mistress to be beautifully copied, and always carried them in his bosom; and whenever he was in the company of knights and ladies, he enchanted them

and a long train of knights and ladies, to visit and comfort him with assurances of her fidelity; but when she appeared at his bed-side, and drew the curtain, it was already too late: Adhèmar expired in her arms. The Countess took the veil in the convent of St. Honoré, and died the same year of grief, says the chronicle;-a

ave to women on these subjects, and the gallantry they introduced into the intercourse between the sexes, had a tendency to soften the manners, to refine the language, and to tinge the sentiments and passions with a kind of philosophical mysticism. But these gay and gallant Courts of Love

catter horror and devastation through the land, and the wars and rapacity of Charles of Anjou, its new possessor, almost depopulated the country. The language which had once celebrated deeds of love and heroism, now sang only of desolation and despair. The Troubadours, in a strain worthy of their gentle and noble calling, generally advocat

to lords and

remedit

eep alive this high strain of poetical gallantry. They were formerly celebrated with great splendour, and a shadow of this institution is, I believe, still kept up, but

s, Jason, and ?neas, instead of being represented as classical heroes and pious favourites of the gods, are denounced as recreant knights and false traitors to love and beauty. In the estimation of these chivalrous bards, a woman's tears outweighed the exploits of demi-gods; all the glory of Theseus is forgotten in sympathy for Ariadne; and ?neas, in the old ballads and romances, is not, after all his perfidy, dismissed to happiness and victory, but is plagued by the fiends, haunted b

el grande

non par lag

tto reale a

i è G

e con par

le in

tal martiro

Medea si f

no, C

fty shade, who

woe-begone t

regal aspect

s J

okens and fair

yle be

ilt condemns h

a's injuries

re

same story, begins with a b

of false lover

devourer, a

omen, genti

on in the same chivalrous feeling: and the old poet co

mede of lovin

received of

truth and for

better than h

r father and

n this is t

ayes was neve

over going o

e to prolong that of her husband, is honoured above all other heroines of classical story. She has even been elevated into a kind of presi

n. Why so lowly a flower should take precedence of the queenly lily and the sumptuous rose, is not very clear; but it seems to have originated with

knights of the flower approach singing a chorus in honour of t

TNO

son?" il lui répond, "Helas, oui! c'est de

erno, c.

arey reads Re Giovanni, instead of Re gi

rgatori

lus célèbres po

the injustice of his suspicions, and to swear that she was still faithful to him. She required, also, of her lover, to write and to publish in verse the history of

rcy's R

. e. example

, the works of Froissart, and