The tenderness of feeling and delicacy of expression in some of these old Provençal poets, are the more touching, when we recollect that the writers were sometimes kings and princes, and often knights and warriors, famed for their hardihood and exploits. William, Count of Poitou, our Richard the First, two Kings of Arragon, a King of Sicily, the Dauphin of Auvergne, the Count de Foix, and a Prince of Orange, were professors of the "gaye science." Thibault,[5] Count of Provence and King of Navarre, was another of these royal and chivalrous Troubadours, and his _lais_ and his virelais were generally devoted to the praises of Blanche of Castile, the mother of Louis the Ninth--the same Blanche whom Shakspeare has introduced into King John, and decked out in panegyric far transcending all that her favoured poet and lover could have offered at her feet.[6] Thibault did, however, surpass all his contemporaries in refinement of style: he usually concludes his _chansons_ with an _envoi_, or address, to the Virgin, worded with such equivocal ingenuity, that it is equally applicable to the Queen of Heaven, or the queen of his earthly thoughts,--"La Blanche couronnée." There is much simplicity and elegance in the following little song, in which the French has been modernised. "Las! si j'avais pouvoir d'oublier Sa beauté,--son bien dire, Et son très doux regarder Finirait mon martyre! Mais las! mon coeur je n'en puis ôter; Et grand affolage M'est d'espérer; Mais tel servage Donne courage A tout endurer. Et puis comment oublier Sa beauté, son bien dire, Et son très doux regarder? Mieux aime mon martyre!"