We can imagine what a flutter there must have been in the breasts of the ladies, always the prime object of the troubadour's songs, when the gay cavalcade approached, heralded by the song of the _jongleurs_: "We come, bringing a precious balsam which cures all sorts of ills, and heals the troubles both of body and mind. It is contained in a vase of gold, adorned with jewels, the most rare. Even to see it is wonderful pleasure, as you will find if you care to try. The balsam is the music of our master, the vase of gold is our courtly company. Would you have the vase open, and disclose its ineffable treasure?" The troubadour himself must go in knightly panoply, and he and his musicians or jongleurs were usually provided with rich clothing. Gifts, of course, might be accepted from a sovereign, but no pecuniary recompense; the knightly minstrel disdained to sing for hire; it was pure love of his art that inspired him, and the idea of making it a lucrative profession never occurred to him. The troubadour, therefore, had to live upon his patrimony--until he squandered it in riotous living--and only a gentleman could afford to do that. Of the scores of troubadours whose names are known to us, the great majority are nobles, though not always belonging to the higher nobility; but the artist, the musician who "found" enchanting melodies, was almost _ex officio_ a knight, a chevalier, the terms troubadour and chevalier being interchangeable, and knighthood was considered so essential that one of the well-known troubadours was accused of having conferred the dignity upon himself, since no one else would knight him. Among the number of the troubadours one can count a score or more of reigning princes, "counts and dukes by the dozen,... many princes of royal blood, and finally four kings." Yet beside the royal troubadour, and associated with him in a perfect freemasonry of art, one finds the troubadour of humble birth. Bertrand de Born, the petty baron, was on terms of perfect equality with the sons of Henry II.: Geoffrey, he called by the nickname of _Rassa_, Henry was _Marinier_, and Richard was _Richard Oc e No_ (Richard Yea and Nay). Pierre Vidal, the most eccentric of all the _genus irritabile_, was the son of a furrier of Toulouse, and yet, being a poet, was the friend of princes, notably of Alphonso, the troubadour king of Arragon. Bernard de Ventadour, who ventured, unrebuked, to send love songs to haughty Queen Eleanor, was the son of the baker of the chateau de Ventadour. There was, therefore, much greater freedom of intercourse in Provence than in the north of France, where feudalism had taken deeper root, where the warrior was merely a hard hitter, not a musician who went about equally prepared to fight or to sing.