See _Guillaume de Palerne_, ed. H. Michelant (Soc. d. anc. textes fr., 1876); _Hist. litt. de la France_, xxii. 829; _William of Palerme_, ed. Sir F. Madden (Roxburghe Club, 1832), and W. W. Skeat (E. E. Text Soc., extra series No. 1, 1867); M. Kaluza, in _Eng. Studien_ (Heilbronn, iv. 196). The prose version of the French romance, printed by N. Bonfons, passed through several editions. GUILLAUME D'ORANGE (d. 812), also known as Guillaume Fierabrace, St Guillaume de Gellone, and the Marquis au court nez, was the central figure of the southern cycle of French romance, called by the _trouveres_ the _geste_ of Garin de Monglane. The cycle of Guillaume has more unity than the other great cycles of Charlemagne or of Doon de Mayence, the various poems which compose it forming branches of the main story rather than independent epic poems. There exist numerous cyclic MSS. in which there is an attempt at presenting a continuous _histoire poetique_ of Guillaume and his family. MS. Royal 20 D xi. in the British Museum contains eighteen _chansons_ of the cycle. Guillaume, son of Thierry or Theodoric and of Alde, daughter of Charles Martel, was born in the north of France about the middle of the 8th century. He became one of the best soldiers and trusted counsellors of Charlemagne, and In 790 was made count of Toulouse, when Charles's son Louis the Pious was put under his charge. He subdued the Gascons, and defended Narbonne against the infidels. In 793 Hescham, the successor of Abd-al-Rahman II., proclaimed a holy war against the Christians, and collected an army of 100,000 men, half of which was directed against the kingdom of the Asturias, while the second invaded France, penetrating as far as Narbonne. Guillaume met the invaders near the river Orbieux, at Villedaigne, where he was defeated, but only after an obstinate resistance which so far exhausted the Saracens that they were compelled to retreat to Spain. He took Barcelona from the Saracens in 803, and in the next year founded the monastery of Gellone (now Saint Guilhem-le Desert), of which he became a member in 806. He died there in the odour of sanctity on the 28th of May 812.