The romantic ballads of Provence are of an importance which demands, properly speaking, a separate study. Provence was, beyond a doubt, one of the main sources of the ballad literature of France, Spain, and Italy. That certain still existing Provencal ballads passed over into Piedmont as early as the thirteenth century is the opinion of Count Nigra, the Italian diplomatist, not the least of whose distinguished services to his country has been the support he was one of the first to give to the cause of popular research. In all these songs the plot goes for everything, the poetry for little or nothing; I shall therefore best economise my space by giving a rough outline of the stories of two or three of them. "Fluranco" is a characteristic specimen. Fluranco, "la flour d'aquest pays," was married when she was a little thing, and her husband at once went away to the wars. Monday they were wed, Tuesday he was gone. At the end of seven years the knight comes back, knocks at the door, and asks for Fluranco. His mother says that she is no longer here; they sent her to fetch water, and the Moors, the Saracen Moors, carried her off. "Where did they take her to?" "They took her a hundred leagues away." The knight makes a ship of gold and silver; he sails and sails without seeing aught but the washer-women washing fine linen. At last he asks of them: "Tell me whose tower is that, and to whom that castle belongs." "It is the castle of the Saracen Moor." "How can I get into it?" "Dress yourself as a poor pilgrim, and ask alms in Christ's name." In this way he gains admittance, and Fluranco (she it is) bids the servant set the table for the "poor pilgrim." When the knight is seated at table, Fluranco begins to laugh. "What are you laughing at, Madamo?" She confesses that she knows who he is. They collect a quantity of fine gold; then they go the stable, and she mounts the russet horse and he mounts the grey. Just as they are crossing the bridge the Moor sees them. "Seven years," he cries, "I have clothed thee in fine damask, seven years I have given thee morocco shoes, seven years I have laid thee in fine linen, seven years I have kept thee--for one of my sons!" The carelessness or cruelty of a stepmother (the head-wife of Asiatic tales) is a prolific central idea in Provencal romance. While the husband was engaged in distant adventures--tournaments, feudal wars, or crusading expeditions--the wife, who was often little more than a child, remained at the mercy of the occasionally unamiable dowager who ruled the masterless _chateau_. The case of cruelty is exemplified in the story of Guilhem de Beauvoire, who has to leave his child-wife five weeks after marriage. "I counsel you, mother," he says as he sets out, "to put her to do no kind of work: neither to fetch water, nor to spin, nor yet to knead bread. Send her to mass, and give her good dinners, and let her go out walking with other ladies." At the end of