Frequently, however, the case was different. Not all ladies were inexorable: not all troubadours contented with a purely ideal worship. Ardent wooings led to passionate attachments, and lovers’ bliss was frequently followed by lovers’ quarrels. Such quarrels—or, it might be, differences of opinion on abstract points of love and gallantry—were, as we know, discussed in a poetic form: the ‘_tenso_,’ or ‘song of contention,’ being especially reserved for that purpose. It was mostly on occasions of this kind that ladies took up the lute and mingled their voices with the chorus of Provençal singers. The names of fourteen gifted women have in this manner been transmitted to us—a very modest figure, seeing that the entire number of the troubadours is close upon four hundred. But even of these fourteen lady-troubadours few, if any, seem to have been professional or even amateur poets. The works of most of them are exceedingly few in number, consisting, in several cases, of a single song or part of a _tenso_. This reticence on the part of the ladies cannot be praised too highly; it explains to us at the same time their position in the literary movement of their time. Literature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was a lucrative and honourable calling, followed by many members of the poorer nobility and of the lower classes. Professional singers of this kind naturally depended on their productions for a livelihood. Hence the number, and hence also the occasional coldness and formality, of their songs. But this was different with women. With them poetry was not an employment, but an inward necessity. They poured forth their mirth or their grief, and after that relapsed into silence. Even Clara of Anduse, the brilliant and beautiful lady who conquered the obstinate indifference of Uc de St. Cyr, the celebrated troubadour, and who is described as ambitious of literary fame, does not seem to have sinned by over-production. Only one of her songs remains to us, and there is no reason to believe that time has been more than usually destructive to her works. CHAPTER XXVI. BEATRICE DE DIE. The only lady-troubadour of whose poems we possess a sufficient number to allow of a fair judgment of her capability is the Countess Beatrice de Die. She may also serve to illustrate the essentially subjective conception of the art of poetry which marks the phase in literature alluded to. The unvarying subject of her songs is the story of her love; without this passion she would have remained mute. Her first song is the embodiment of new-awakened happiness; her last a dirge over hopes dead and lost.