adventure, just as it overflowed all conventional bounds of thought and language with its exuberant play of feeling and imagination in speech or song.[966] We may see a type of it in the portrait, drawn by almost contemporary hands, of one who played an important part both in the social and in the political history of Aquitaine throughout the closing years of Henry II. and the reign of his successor. “Bertrand de Born was of the Limousin, lord of a castle in the diocese of Périgueux, by name Hautefort. He had at his command near a thousand men. And all his time he was at war with all his neighbours, with the count of Périgord, and the viscount of Limoges, and with his own brother Constantine--whom he would have liked to disinherit, had it not been for the king of England--and with Richard, while he was count of Poitou. He was a good knight, and a good warrior, and a good servant of ladies, and a good troubadour of _sirventes_; he never made but two songs, and the king of Aragon assigned the songs of Guiraut de Borneil as wives to his _sirventes_; and the man who sang them for him was named Papiol. And he was a pleasant, courteous man, wise and well-spoken, and knew how to deal with good and evil. And whenever he chose, he was master of King Henry and his sons; but he always wanted them to be at war among themselves, the father and the sons and the brothers one with another; and he always wanted the king of France and King Henry to be at war too. And if they made peace or a truce, he immediately set to work to unmake it with his _sirventes_, and to shew how they were all dishonoured in peace. And he gained much good by it, and much harm.”[967] [966] As John of Salisbury says--“auctor ad opus suum”:-- “De Pictavorum dices te gente creatum, Nam licet his linguâ liberiore loqui.” (_Enthet. ad Polycrat._, Giles, vol. iii. p. i.) [967] From the two old Provençal sketches of the life of Bertrand de Born, printed and translated into French by M. Léon Clédat in his monograph _Du rôle historique de Bertrand de Born_, pp. 99–101.