Arnaut seems to have introduced a new poetical _genre_ into Provençal literature, the love-letter. He says that the difficulty of finding a trustworthy messenger induced him to send a letter sealed with his own ring; the letter is interesting for the description of feminine beauty which it contains: "my heart, that is your constant companion, comes to me as your messenger and portrays for me your noble, graceful form, your fair light-brown hair, your brow whiter than the lily, your gay laughing eyes, your straight well-formed nose, your fresh complexion, whiter and redder than any flower, your little mouth, your fair teeth, whiter than pure silver,... your fair white hands with the smooth and slender fingers"; in short, a picture which shows that troubadour ideas of beauty were much the same as those of any other age. Arnaut was eventually obliged to leave Béziers, owing, it is said, to the rivalry of Alfonso II. of Aragon, who may have come forward as a suitor for Adelaide after Roger's death in 1194. The troubadour betook himself to the court of William VIII., Count of Montpelier, where he probably spent the rest of his life. The various allusions in his poems cannot always [52] be identified, and his career is only known to us in vague outline. Apart from the love-letter, he was, if not the initiator, one of the earliest writers of the type of didactic poem known as _ensenhamen_, an "instruction" containing observations upon the manners and customs of his age, with precepts for the observance of morality and right conduct such as should be practised by the ideal character. Arnaut, after a lengthy and would-be learned introduction, explains that each of the three estates, the knights, the clergy and the citizens, have their special and appropriate virtues. The emphasis with which he describes the good qualities of the citizen class, a compliment unusual in the aristocratic poetry of the troubadours, may be taken as confirmation of the statement concerning his own parentage which we find in his biography. [53] CHAPTER V THE CLASSICAL PERIOD