Of course there is a Ladye Chapel in this church, as in all others. Jesus and Mary, whose names are ever mingled on Catholic lips, the first they learn and the last they murmur, are never separated in our churches. Devotion to the Virgin has grown up through the church, beautifying and perfuming it like the famous rose-bush in the Cathedral of Hildesheim in Germany--the oldest of all known rose-bushes. It takes root under the choir in the crypt. Its age is unknown, but a document proves that nearly a thousand years ago Bishop Hezilo had it protected by a stone roof still to be seen. So with devotion to our Mystical Rose--_quasi plantatio rosæ in Jericho_--its roots go down deep among the foundations of the church; saints have protected and nourished it, and all nations come to sit under its vine and inhale its perfume. "Blossom for ever, blossoming rod! Thou didst not blossom once to die: That life which, issuing forth from God, Thy life enkindled, runs not dry. "Without a root in sin-stained earth, 'Twas thine to bud salvation's flower, No single soul the church brings forth But blooms from thee, and is thy dower." What a safeguard to man is devotion to Mary Most Pure! It is like the Pridwin--the shield of King Arthur--on which was emblazoned the Holy Virgin, warding off the strokes of the great enemy of souls. There are some poetical associations connected with Bordeaux: among others, the memory of the troubadours who enriched and perfected the Romance tongue, but whose songs at last died away in the sad discord of the Albigensian wars. Here the gay and beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine held her court of love, gathering around her all the famous troubadours of her time, and deciding upon the merits of their songs. Among these was her favorite, Bernard de Ventadour, chiefly known to fame by being mentioned by Petrarch. Eleanor herself was a musician and a lover of poetry--tastes she inherited from her grandfather, William, Duke of Aquitaine, generally called the Count de Poitiers, one of the earliest of the troubadours whose songs have come down to us. Around this charming queen of love and song gathered the admiring votaries of _la gaia sciencia_, like nightingales singing around the rose, all vowing, as in duty bound, that their hearts were bleeding on the horns!