It remains to point out one more feature of Peire’s works, which distinguishes them from those of all his brother poets. The troubadours, it has been said, had a wise and beneficial horror of theology. There is, as far as the present writer is aware, not a trace in their works of the slightest interest taken by any of them in the scholastic controversies of Catholics and heretics. The only exception to this rule is a _sirventes_ by Peire Cardinal, to which short reference has previously been made. Peire, as has been mentioned before, had received a learned education; he could read and write, and was evidently not without considerable claims to scholarship, according to the standard of his age. He was no doubt well versed in the absurd and hideously realistic conceptions of hell and purgatory with which mediæval theologians and preachers loved to fill the imagination of their audiences. His poem reads like a gentle satire, from the poet’s point of view, on their barren discussions. The boldness of his conception and language is at the same time astonishing in a writer of the thirteenth century, ‘I will begin a new _sirventes_,’ he says, ‘which I shall repeat on the day of judgment to Him who made and fashioned me out of nothing. If He reproaches me of anything, and wishes to give me over to damnation, I shall say: ‘Lord, have mercy on me, for I have struggled with the wicked world all my life; now save me by your grace from torment.’ ‘And His whole court shall wonder when they hear my plea. For I say that He is unjust towards His own if He delivers them to eternal punishment. For he who loses what he might gain cannot complain of his loss. Therefore He ought to be gentle and indulgent so as to retain the souls of sinners. ‘His gate ought not to be guarded, and St. Peter has little honour through being the porter. Every soul that wishes ought to be allowed to enter smiling. For that court is little to my liking where one laughs while others cry; and however great the king may be we shall find fault with him if he refuses us entrance. ‘I will not despair, and on you, O Lord, my good hope is founded. Therefore you must save my soul and body, and comfort me in the hour of death. And I will propose to you a good alternative. Either send me back to where I came from on the day of my birth, or forgive me my faults. For I should not have committed them if I had not been born.’ And with this poem, which teaches a deep truth in a half-playful manner, we must take leave of Peire Cardinal. His character is of an elevated type, and his gifts would do honour to any literature. He is undoubtedly the foremost representative of moral poetry amongst the troubadours. CHAPTER XXV. LADIES AND LADY TROUBADOURS.