While he was yet the professed admirer of Azalais, the poet had admired more or less fervently several other ladies, from one of whom he now seems to have sought consolation. This was Loba de Peinautier, who lived in Carcassonne. Her name Loba (she-wolf) became the motive of one of Peire Vidal’s most fantastic exploits; he gave himself the designation of a wolf, and adopted the animal as a badge. Once he put on a wolf’s skin, and called upon the shepherds to hunt him with their dogs. They readily accepted the offer, and treated him so badly that he was brought more dead than alive to the house of his beloved. Here, in addition to his wounds, he had to suffer the pitiless jests of the lady; who was not at all pleased by this kind of admiration. But in this case also the husband was more merciful, and regarded the aberrations of the great troubadour with indulgence. He took the greatest possible care of him, and had him tended by the best physicians. It would be difficult to believe a consummate poet had really been guilty of such absurdities, if he did not bear witness against himself. ‘I do not mind,’ he says in one of his poems, ‘if they call me a wolf, and if the peasants hunt me as such I do not consider it a disgrace.’ The foolishness of the man, however, did not impair the genius of the poet, and some of his _canzos_ addressed to Loba are amongst the finest productions of Provençal literature. Whilst he was engaged in these and other love affairs the poet was also married, which of course did not interfere with his attachments of this kind more than the same circumstance did with Dante’s spiritual love for Beatrice Portinari. I mention the circumstance only because it throws fresh light on Peire’s wonderful capacity for illusion. On his voyage to the Holy Land, he became acquainted in Cyprus with a Greek lady, whom he married and brought home with him. Soon afterwards he was made to believe that his wife was the niece of the Greek emperor, and had as such a claim to the imperial crown. This idea was exactly to his taste, and he adapted himself to it without any difficulty. He had on a previous occasion, if we are to believe the satirical Monk of Montaudon, conferred knighthood on himself; now he assumed with equal facility the arms of the Emperor of Greece. He began collecting money, wherever he could find it, for an expedition to realise his claims. Meanwhile, he called himself and his wife by the title of ‘Imperial Majesty,’ and duly provided himself with a throne. It is needless to say that his schemes came to nothing; the only consequence was to expose him to greater ridicule than before. His brethren in poetry were not slow to avail themselves of this opportunity of lowering a renowned troubadour in general estimation, and to do him as much harm as they could. One bitter and contemptuous _sirventes_ will give an example of the amiable feelings with which rivals in art regarded each other.