The dialect of Limousin was considered the purest form of Provençal by the troubadours. Here in the west center of France, Coeur-de-Lion's troubadour friend, the malignant breeder of dissensions, Bertran de Born, had his castle of Hautefort south of Limoges. He excited Henry Plantagenet against his sons, and spurred on the sons to rebellion. Unlike the gentle Valérie who carries in her hands her own head with right Christian pride since she lost it to witness to the planting of the Cross, Bertran de Born, sower of discord, is represented swinging his severed head by the hair like a lantern. So Dante saw him in the ninth chasm of hell herded with the malicious ones who had abused the attribute of reason: "I made the father and the son rebels to each other," he wailed. "Because I parted persons thus united, I carry my brain, ah, me! parted from its source. Thus the law of retribution is observed in me."[217] And equally merciless has been the law of retribution for Limoges, than which no other city has suffered more from pillage, pest, and fire. Froissart tells us that during centuries the frontier lands of Limousin and Gascony exercised brigandage as a _métier_. Like the three lower stories of the tower, the crypt belonged to the XI-century Romanesque cathedral of Limoges. On its groin vault was painted a Byzantinesque Christ surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists. The cathedral has recently lost by theft some precious enamels. From father to son in Limoges passed the skill in this beautiful art craft. St. Eloi was apprenticed to a goldsmith in Limoges in the VII century. At Le Mans is the XII-century plaque of Geoffrey Plantagenet, at Mozac an unrivaled Limousin reliquary, and Jean, duc de Berry, prince of amateurs, once possessed the best XIII-century work of Limoges enamel, the gold King's Cup, now in the British Museum. In St. Pierre's at Chartres are the splendid Apostle plaques of the XVI century by Léonard Limosin. The earlier method had been to sink the enamel like a jewel in cells or _cloisons_, hence the name _cloisonné_, but the Renaissance artists used no inclosing ribbon of metal. The only ancient windows remaining in the cathedral's clearstory are the two at the apse end, which a canon, Pierre de la Rodier, presented. When he became bishop of Carcassonne he built the south chapel that opens from St. Nazaire's nave (1323-30). In the cathedral chapels are some XV-and XVI-century lights, and fragments of earlier glass. On the same river, Vienne, which at Limoges is crossed by two noble XIII-century bridges, lies Eymoutiers, some thirty miles to the west, between Clermont and Limoges. Its remarkable collection of windows is entirely of the XV century; each panel contains a single figure in an architectural setting.