Prepared by an education such as I have tried to sketch, the lady generally contracted a marriage at an early age, the choice of a husband being in most cases determined by her parents or her feudal overlord. In the higher classes of society—and these alone concern us here—her own inclination was taken into little account. Her position at the head of a great baron’s family was by no means an easy one. She had to soften the coarse habits and words of the warlike nobles; and, on the other hand, to curb the amorous boldness of the gay troubadours who thronged the courts of the great barons. The difficulties and temptations of such a situation were great, and further increased by the perfect liberty which, in ancient as in modern France, married ladies seem to have enjoyed. Indirect, but none the less conclusive, evidence establishes this point beyond doubt. We hear, for instance, of ladies travelling about the country without attendance; like the pretty wives of Sir Guari and Sir Bernart, whom Count William of Poitiers deceived by acting a deaf-and-dumb pilgrim. Even the dueña, as a regular institution at least, seems to have been unknown in Provence. There certainly were jealous husbands who tried to protect their wives from gallant intrusion by watchfulness and strict confinement. The husband of the lovely Flamenca is an example of such fruitless care. But his fate could not invite imitation; and the universal horror expressed by all gallant knights and ladies at this fictitious and at some real instances of similar cruelty, sufficiently proves the high degree of personal freedom enjoyed by the ladies of Southern France.