Thus the marriage law is vindicated, and M. Alexandre Dumas’ sentence of _tue-la_ carried out in a manner with which even that severe moralist could not but be satisfied. But Guillem’s contemporaries had not yet attained to this pitch of virtue. The news of the deed spread rapidly, and was received everywhere with grief and indignation; ‘and all the friends of Guillem and the lady, and all the courteous knights of the neighbourhood, and all those who were lovers, united to make war against Raimon.’ King Alfonso, of Aragon, himself invaded Raimon’s dominions, took from him his castles and lands, and kept him prisoner till death. All his possessions were divided amongst the relations of Guillem and of the lady—a somewhat unusual exercise of feudal jurisdiction, it would seem. The same king had the two lovers buried in one tomb, and erected a monument over them, just outside the door of the Church of Perpignan. ‘And there was a time,’ the biographer adds, ‘when all the knights of Rossilho, and of Serdonha, of Confolen, Riuples, Peiralaide, and Narbones, kept the day of their death every year; and all the fond lovers and all the fond lady-loves prayed for their souls.’ This is the story as rendered in the manuscript of the Laurentiana; and a beautiful story it is, told with exquisite skill, and with an artistic grouping of the psychological and pathetic elements for which many modern novelists might envy the obscure Provençal scribe. Boccaccio’s treatment of the same incidents, with changed names, in the thirty-ninth _novella_ of the ‘Decameron,’ is greatly inferior to the present version. But this very finish of detail excites suspicions as to the historic truth of the extraordinary events so plausibly narrated. Further research into the matter confirms this suspicion. I have traced no less than seven different versions of Guillem’s life in the Provençal language preserved amongst the MS. collections of the libraries of Rome, Florence, and Paris. All these purport to be authentic biographies of the poet, and all agree in the main incidents of the story, differing, however, in details, and even in the names of the localities and persons concerned. The lady, for instance, is in some versions called Sermonda or Sorismonda, instead of Margarida. Other discrepancies and arbitrary additions tend to show that invention has been busy to embellish the tragic fate of a celebrated poet; and it has not been an easy task to divest the kernel of historic truth from later fictitious accumulations. I cannot enter here into tedious details, and must ask the reader to accept in good faith the results of what I may, without presumption, call a careful and patient investigation.