appealed irresistibly to the royal troubadour; he could picture the gay crowds in the games of Love. Dark deeds, too--the clash of weapons and the stealthy poniard; the smothered cries from the _oubliettes_, and the defiant oaths of men in irons: these the imaginative poet-monarch could most easily re-create. A thought-moving memento of a vivid and lurid past was brought to light not so many years ago in a coffin discovered in the crypt of the ruined church of St. Catherine--it was a woman’s long soft golden hair cut off at the roots. To whom did this _cabelladuro d’or_ belong? Some beauty done to death, perhaps, or peacefully fallen upon sleep in the dim, dim past? Or was it, as it may have been, the _chevelure_ of that beautiful young Italian girl in the suite of Queen Jehanne, who married at Les Baux the Queen’s Seneschal, and died ere ever that day’s curfew sounded? The “_Pavillon de la Royne Jehanne_,” with its miniature dome and delicate frieze, supported on Ionic columns, still stands, but hidden away amid cornstalks and verdure, whilst, alas! nothing whatever remains of the Queen’s gardens, where courtier cavaliers flirted and toyed with her Maids of Honour. Jehanne loved Les Baux almost as much as she did her Laval barony of Beaufort, and René loved it, too, for her sake. [Illustration: SAINT MADELEINE PREACHING BEFORE KING RENÉ AND QUEEN JEHANNE AT MARSEILLES From a Painting by King René. Musée de Cluny, Paris] Early in the springtide which followed the settlement of the King and Queen in Provence, they sought the peaceful charms of the country-side, and made their way, accompanied by a very limited suite, to the neighbourhood of Tarascon. The stately castle, so lately René’s favourite abode, had little attraction for ruralizing royalty, so they packed themselves into a modest _bastide_, or farmstead, upon the kingly estate, Pertuis, not far from Cadenet, below Mont Lubéron. Its position was delightful, overlooking the turbulent river Durance, with its strewn verdure-grown rocks and boulders, and its banks lined by sedges, willows, and alders, hiding many a still pool of trout. There the royal couple wandered forth hand in hand, quite unattended, amid the growing vines and chestnut woods, conversing with all the country-folk they met, sharing with them their homely fare, and watching delightedly their rural games and dances. Many a time René, with Jehanne as his happy assessor, sat upon old _saules_, or willow stumps, under a spreading tree, to receive requests and discern disputes, dispensing royal justice with the simple hand of equity.