To the Troubadour, the undisputed leader of the poetic profession, we must turn first. It has been at all times, and is still, an all but impossible task to define the social position of a literary man, _quâ_ literary man. So much depends upon his success in his profession, his family, his personal bearing, that a general rule can never comprise all individual cases. The same applies to the Provençal poets of the middle ages. It would be absurd to say that differences of rank did not exist in that primitive republic of letters. The composite nature of a profession, the humbler associates of which were often fain to amuse popular audiences at wakes and fairs with rude songs or tricks of jugglery, entirely precludes the social equality of all its members. But in the art of poetry a common ground was at least established, where men of all classes met on equal terms, and where the chance of success was little if at all furthered by accidental advantages of birth. The maxim of _carrière ouverte au talent_ was fully carried out, and we find that the most celebrated troubadours were frequently men of low origin, who by mere dint of genius conquered fame and gain. Folquet for instance, the gay troubadour, subsequently Bishop of Toulouse, and zealous persecutor of the Albigeois heretics, was the son of a simple merchant, and the great Bernart of Ventadorn seems to have been of still humbler descent—at least, if we may believe the testimony of an amiable brother poet, who delights in informing the public that Bernart’s father was a common serving-man, good at shooting with the bow, and that his mother gathered brushwood to light the fire. Marcabrun, another celebrated and at the same time most eccentric troubadour, was, according to one account, a foundling left at the gate of a rich man, while another biography calls him the (apparently illegitimate) son of a poor woman of the name of Bruna, the latter statement being confirmed by the troubadour’s own boast: Marcabrus lo filhs Na Bruna Fo ergendratz en tal luna Qe anc non amet neguna Ni d’autra non fo amatz. In English: ‘Marcabrun, the son of Madame Bruna, was begotten under such a moon that he never loved a woman, and never was loved by one.’