[5] Thibault fût Roi galant et valoureux, Ses hâuts faits et son rang n'ont rien fait pour sa gloire; Mais il fût chansonnier--et ses couplets heureux, Nous ont conservé sa mémoire. ANTHOLOGIE DE MONET. [6] If lusty Love should go in quest of beauty, Where should he find it fairer than in Blanche? If zealous Love should go in search of virtue, Where should he find it purer than in Blanche? If Love, ambitious, sought a match of birth, Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche? [7] La plus honorable recompence qu'on pouvait faire aux dits poëtes, était qu'on leur fournissait de draps, chevaux, armure, et argent. [8] Millot, vol. ii. p. 148. [9] Richard de Barbesieu. [10] Millot, vol. iii. p. 86.--Ginguené, vol. i. p. 280. [11] "Depuis ne fut jamais veue faire bonne chère," says the old chronicle.--I am tempted to add the description of the first and last interview of the Countess and her lover in the exquisite old French, of which the antique simplicity and naïveté are untranslateable. "En cet estat fut conduit au port de Trypolly, et là arrivé, son compagnon feist (_fit_) entendre à la Comtesse la venue du Pelerin malade. La Comtesse estant venue en la nef, prit le poête par la main; et lui, sachant que c'éstait la Comtesse, incontinent après le doult et gracieux accueil, recouvra ses esprits, la remercia de ce qu'elle lui avait recouvré la vie, et lui dict: 'Très illustre et vertueuse princesse, je ne plaindrai point la mort oresque'--et ne pouvant achever son propos, sa maladie s'aigrissant et augmentant, rendit l'esprit entre les mains de la Comtesse."--_Vies des plus célèbres Poëtes Provençaux_, p. 24. CHAPTER IV. THE LOVES OF THE TROUBADOURS CONTINUED. In striking contrast to the tender and gentle Rudel, we have the ferocious Bertrand de Born: he, too, was one of the most celebrated Troubadours of his time. As a petty feudal sovereign, he was, partly by the events of the age, more by his own fierce and headlong passions, plunged in continual wars. Nature however had made him a poet of the first order. In these days he would have been another Lord Byron; but he lived in a terrible and convulsed state of society, and it was only in the intervals snatched from his usual pursuits,--that is, from burning the castles, and ravaging the lands of his neighbours, and stirring up rebellion, discord, and bloodshed all around him,--that he composed a vast number of _lays_, _sirventes_, and _chansons_; some breathing the most martial, and even merciless spirit; others devoted to the praise and honour of his love, or rather loves, as full of submissive tenderness and chivalrous gallantry.