(Troubled was your life, and yet your name so clear.) The chronicles of the time abound in allusions to Thibaud's passion. It is said that, on one occasion, after a momentary revolt, he came to make his submission, and was severely reproached by the queen for his ingratitude. "Then the Count looked upon the Queen, who was so good and so beautiful, till her great beauty overcame him, and he stood all abashed. Then he answered her: 'By my faith, Madame, my heart and my body and all my lands are yours; there is naught that could please you that I would not do willingly; and never again, please God, will I go against you or yours.' And he departed all pensive, and often into his thoughts would come the memory of the sweet look, of the lovely countenance, of the queen. Then his heart was filled with sweet and loving thought. But when he remembered that she was so great a lady, and so good and pure that he could never win her love, his sweet thought of love turned into great sadness. And seeing that deep thought engenders melancholy, he was counselled by some wise men to take lessons in _biaus sons de viele et en douz chanz delitables_ (in sweet violin music and in soft and pleasing songs). And so he and Gace Brusle made between them the most beautiful, the most delightful, the most melodious songs ever heard, either in songs or in violin music. And he had them put in writing in the hall of his chateau at Provins and in that of Troyes; and they are called the songs of the King of Navarre." The chronicler who tells us this assigns the incident to the year 1236, when Blanche would have been forty-eight years of age. The date is obviously wrong, or rather the story of many years has been crowded into one. Thibaud's love for Blanche must have begun when she was young and really beautiful; one can hardly imagine a burning passion conceived for a lady of middle age, the mother of twelve children. His devotion, then, dates from an earlier period; indeed, we find definite record of it in the calumnies circulated by the barons before 1230; and one chronicler tells us that, during the war of that year, when the barons were ravaging Champagne, Count Thibaud, dressed as a common stroller and accompanied by one companion as miserably attired as himself, went through the country to find out what his people were saying about him. Everywhere he heard but ill of himself. "Then said the Count to his _ribaud_ (vagabond companion), 'Friend, I see full well that a penn'orth of bread would feed all my friends. I have none, indeed, I verily believe, not a one whom I can trust, save the Queen of France.' She was indeed his loyal friend, and well did she show that she did not hate him. By her the war was brought to an end, and all the land (Champagne) reconquered. Many tales do they tell of them, as of Iseut and Tristan."