A man of a very different stamp from the well-meaning but somewhat inconsiderate and irresponsible Guillem Figueira, was the great Peire Cardinal, who may represent the second and much higher type of the anti-clerical troubadour. A biographical notice of about twenty lines, signed by one Michael de la Tor, is all the information we possess of the poet’s life. According to this sketch, Peire Cardinal was born at Puy Notre Dame, in the province of Velay, or Veillac, as the old manuscript calls it. He was of good parentage, ‘the son of a knight and a lady,’ and was in his childhood destined for the Church. ‘And when he came to man’s estate he was attracted by the vanity of the world, for he found himself gay and handsome and young. And he made many beautiful poems and songs; few _canzos_, but many _sirventeses_ fine and excellent. And in these _sirventeses_ he gave many good reasons and examples for those who rightly understand them; and he greatly reproached the false clergy, as is shown by his _sirventeses_. And he went to the courts of kings and gentle barons with his joglar, who sang his _sirventeses_.’ According to the same account, Peire Cardinal lived up to nearly a hundred years. Another remarkable circumstance told of him is his knowledge of reading and writing—an accomplishment by no means common amongst troubadours—which he owed to his early training for the Church. Peire Cardinal is the unrivalled master of the _sirventes_, in its most important forms—the personal, the political, the moral, and the religious. The last two only concern us here more immediately. But a few remarks are necessary to indicate the poet’s manner and his general conception of the world. This conception is melancholy to a degree. Like most great masters of satire and humour, Peire Cardinal is a confirmed pessimist. The world appears to him as one vast conglomeration of selfishness and vice—a madhouse, inhabited by fools, whose remaining sense is just sufficient for them to recognise and hate a man of genius. This moody philosophy he has embodied in the original and striking treatment of a well-known story, which deserves our particular attention as one of the very few instances of narrative illustration in the poems of the troubadours.