At this juncture a compromise is proposed by the bench, to the effect that ladies on the right side of twenty-five shall be allowed to retain the bloom of youth by what means they please for a further term of twenty years. But the vicious monks refuse to grant more than ten years; and it is only by the intercession of those accomplished diplomats, SS. Peter and Lawrence, that a medium time of fifteen years is at last agreed upon by the contending parties. Forty years, then, is the limit up to which, to judge from this decision, a Provençal lady might, without incurring ridicule, play youthful parts in life’s comedy. ‘But,’ the monk adds, ‘I see that the ladies have broken their promise, which is unfair and wicked; few only have been faithful to their vow.’ He further enters upon a detailed enumeration of the various ingredients of paint which, by the way, seems to throw some new light on that interesting question in the history of mediæval art, the composition of colours previous to the introduction of the oil-medium. ‘The old monks,’ we hear, ‘are deprived of their beans, the only thing which they can eat; and they are therefore left without any food. The price of saffron also, which ought to be used for the sauces of _ragoûts_, has been driven up by the ladies to such a degree, that people over the sea begin to complain, as pilgrims tell us. Let the ladies take the cross, and go themselves to Palestine, to fetch the saffron of which they stand in such need.’ In the second poem the ladies have been charged with the breach of the former treaty, and it seems that the monk has been summoned to heaven for a preparatory consultation. The Supreme Judge is indignant at such audacity. ‘Monk,’ he says, ‘I hear the ladies have broken their promise; go down, for the love of me, to tell them that if they again use colour, I shall take dire revenge.’ But the poet has evidently been under gentle pressure since the last trial. He now takes the part of the ladies in the warmest terms. ‘Gently, gently, my lord!’ he interposes; ‘you must have patience with the ladies, for it is their nature to sweetly adorn their countenance.’ To this opinion he adheres with obstinacy. In vain it is alleged against him that the ladies, by trying to perpetuate their youth, infringe the unalterable laws of Nature. The monk is not to be shaken. There is only one alternative, he thinks—either to grant unfading beauty to the ladies, or else to deprive the whole human race of the art of painting.