1. THE TROUBADOURS.--When, in the tenth century, the nations of the south of Europe attempted to give consistency to the rude dialects which had been produced by the mixture of the Latin with the northern tongues, the Provencal, or _Langue d'oc_, was the first to come to perfection. The study of this language became the favorite recreation of the higher classes during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and poetry the elegant occupation of those whose time was not spent in the ruder pastimes of the field. Thousands of poets, who were called troubadours (from _trobar_, to find or invent), flourished in this new language almost contemporaneously, and spread their reputation from the extremity of Spain to that of Italy. All at once, however, this ephemeral reputation vanished. The voice of the troubadours was silent, the Provençal was abandoned and sank into a mere dialect, and after a brilliant existence of three centuries (950-1250), its productions were ranked among those of the dead languages. The high reputation of the Provençal poets, and the rapid decline of their language, are two phenomena equally striking in the history of human culture. This literature, which gave models to other nations, yet among its crowds of agreeable poems did not produce a single masterpiece destined to immortality, was entirely the offspring of the age, and not of individuals. It reveals to us the sentiments and imagination of modern nations in their infancy; it exhibits what was common to all and pervaded all, and not what genius superior to the age enabled a single individual to accomplish. Southern France, having been the inheritance of several of the successors of Charlemagne, was elevated to the rank of an independent kingdom in 879, by Bozon, and under his sovereignty, and that of his successors for 213 years, it enjoyed a paternal government. The accession of the Count of Barcelona to the crown, in 1092, introduced into Provence the spirit both of liberty and chivalry, and a taste for elegance and the arts, with all the sciences of the Arabians. The union of these noble sentiments added brilliancy to that poetical spirit which shone out at once over Provence and all the south of Europe, like an electric flash in the midst of profound darkness, illuminating all things with the splendor of its flame.