A troubadour who, as we have seen, wholly disregarded the rules of courteous gallantry could not be expected to use much consideration where his own sex and his rivals in art were concerned. Accordingly, we find that one of the most venomous literary satires of that libel-loving age owes its existence to our author. It ought, however, to be mentioned, in justice to him, that another troubadour had set the example of wholesale abuse. The Monk of Montaudon’s _sirventes_ is, indeed, avowedly founded on a similar production by Peire of Alvernhe, in which that distinguished poet gives vent to his affectionate feelings towards no less than twelve contemporary troubadours, some of them celebrated poets, others entirely unknown to us, but evidently men of considerable reputation at the time. One of his victims, the sweet singer of love, Bernart of Ventadorn, has been mentioned before. Of another no less renowned troubadour, Guiraut de Bornelh, it is said that ‘he resembles a dry blanket in the sun, with his thin, miserable voice, which sounds like that of an old woman crying out water in the street. If he saw himself in a mirror [meaning, “as others see him”], he would not think himself worth a roseberry.’ In this manner Peire of Alvernhe goes on through twelve stanzas, battering down reputations in order to erect on their ruins the column of his own glory. ‘Peire of Alvernhe,’ he winds up, ‘has a fine voice, and can sing high and low, filling the air with sweetest sound. His would be the highest praise, but for the obscurity of his words, which hardly any one can understand.’ The candid reader who would see in this last qualification a remnant of modesty would be vastly mistaken; for a dark, involved style was considered by connoisseurs as the sign of highest genius, and it was chiefly to his _motz oscurs_ (dark words) and _rims cars_ (rare rhymes) that Arnaut Daniel owed that place of honour awarded to him in Petrarch’s beautiful lines— Fra tutti il primo Arnaldo Daniello Gran maestro d’amor; ch’ alla sua terra Ancor fa onor col suo dir nuovo e bello.[25] It is satisfactory to notice that in Peire of Alvernhe’s case exceeding pride has met with due castigation. For in some of the manuscripts the opening lines of the self-laudatory stanza have been travestied by a witty copyist into a very differing meaning. ‘Peire of Alvernhe,’ this altered version reads, ‘sings like a frog in a pond, although he praises himself above all the world.’ The remainder of the stanza, however, has been left unaltered, for Peire’s high literary position was an undeniable fact. The manuscripts call him ‘the best troubadour in the world till Guiraut de Bornelh (his “dry blanket”) came,’ and Nostradamus relates that Peire found such favour with the ladies as to enjoy the privilege of kissing the fairest amongst his audience after each _canzo_ he had sung.