From one of Folquet’s songs it has been concluded that, tired of his purposeless endeavours, he at last broke off his relation with Azalais. The poem is one of Folquet’s finest and most characteristic efforts, containing a violent impeachment of Love himself. ‘Too late,’ the poet says, ‘I have discovered Love’s falsehood. I am like one who swears never to gamble again after he has lost his whole fortune.’ He further complains that for more than ten years Love has been his bad debtor, promising payment and never keeping the promise, and at last he solemnly renounces his allegiance to the faithless god. The protest is forcible and well expressed; but it is by no means proved that the poet acted upon his wise resolution. On several previous occasions he had expressed similar resolutions, but always with little or no effect either on himself or on his cruel lady; and we find, indeed, not without a smile at the incongruity of the poetic mind, that the identical song in question is dedicated to Azalais. At last the lady’s death relieved him from his thraldom, but only to deliver him over to another still more fateful passion. The manuscript relates how this event, together with the loss of some of his dearest friends, preyed on the poet’s mind, and how in a fit of melancholy he renounced the world, together with his wife and two sons, who are mentioned for the first time on this occasion. Folquet joined the order of Citeaux, and soon became abbot of a rich monastery, from which position he not long afterwards was raised to the still more important one of Bishop of Toulouse. To his new vocation he brought the same zeal, the same perseverance, which marked his wooing of Azalais. It was the same flood of passion turned into a different channel. So far there is nothing to reproach in Folquet’s conduct, and we even can sympathise with a man in whom all worldly desire dies with the one object of his passion. But his zeal against the heretics, carried to the pitch of cruel persecution, forms an unjustifiable complement to his asceticism. Neither can we excuse Folquet’s violent hatred against Raimon VI. of Toulouse, at whose father’s hands the troubadour had received much kindness. Considered in this light, the scene at the Council of the Lateran, where the glib-tongued poet is employed to compass the Count’s ruin, gains a new and sinister meaning. Poetry itself Folquet seems to have abandoned on his entering the monastery. We possess of him only one religious song, a passionate expression of remorse and of terror at an impending eternal punishment, which most likely belongs to the time of his conversion. It is pleasant to think that his art at least remained undefiled by fanaticism. CHAPTER XXIV. GUILLEM FIGUEIRA AND PEIRE CARDINAL.