CHAPTER VII

THE GAY SCIENCE

The more we see of cities and castles the more our ignorance chafes us, gets in our way. Our few books were insufficient. There was but one thing to do: call at the famous little bookshop in the Rue d'Agricole at Avignon—which alluring city we made our axis of movement—and lay in a store of enlightening literature.

The shop is now the property of the widow of the poet Roumanille, who with Mistral and ThÉodore Aubanel founded at Avignon the celebrated FÉlibres, that wonderful band of poets—Troubadours of the twentieth century—who have produced a literature in the once despised ProvenÇal tongue, breathing forth all the spirit of their native land. Intense love of that land, of its ancient language, its architecture, costume, history, creeds, has been the inspiration of this brilliant group, and perhaps no other outburst of song has ever been fuller than this is of warmth, colour, joy, sorrow, and that indefinable quality we call poetry.

The little shop in the quiet Rue d'Agricole was classic ground, associated with many an enthusiastic meeting, many a happy hour of talk and friendship among this warm-hearted fraternity. It was easy to find books, but not easy to select them. There were piles and piles of the works of the FÉlibres, and this title is claimed by a goodly number of writers not now limited to natives of Provence, but including Englishmen and Americans; and women too, for this genial brotherhood welcomes the sex worshipped by their minstrel forefathers, and every seven years a woman receives the honour of being crowned Queen of the FÉlibres.

With the kind help of Madame Roumanille, a selection was finally made, the hard task being to choose that which was likely to be really useful to travellers passing through a hitherto unknown country. There were books on every conceivable subject: the ethnology of the Midi, with all its mystery of race and language; the Phoenicians, the Greek colonies, the Celtic, Ligurian, and Gallic inhabitants, endless histories of the Roman occupation from the time when that astounding people settled in the south-east corner of France and called it Provincia, "the Province." ArchÆology of course has a gala time of it in this thoroughfare of the nations, and the treasures of art are innumerable. The list begins with implements of the Stone Age. Provence in the Middle Ages and the days of the troubadours of course is profusely treated. Architecture also fares brilliantly. Besides the splendid classic remains at Arles, Nimes, St. Remy, Orange, there are churches of a style such as can be found in no other part of the world; a version of the Romanesque which is peculiar to the South of France.

A literature of controversy swells in volume daily: the vexed question as to the spot where Hannibal crossed the Rhone on his way through Spain to Italy having set almost as many professors by the ears as the problem of the exact position of the great Aurelian road, parts of which have been destroyed. The geology and physical geography of the littoral has occupied another set of savants, notably the well-known LenthÉric, who treats with remarkable vividness what would seem a somewhat unpopular theme: the changes in configuration of the land and the works of natural engineering accomplished by the Rhone as it reaches the sea by its many mouths. Amongst all these subjects it was necessary to make a choice; and here Barbara came to the rescue. She wanted to know more about the troubadours. The books we had brought with us had already awakened interest in their romantic songs.

It soon became evident that unless we were prepared to make a serious study of their works we must be satisfied with a general notion of the civilisation which they may be said to have created. Our authorities therefore had to be consulted judiciously and the temptation resisted to saunter down all the alluring bye-ways that they offered. There were so many other doors to open and curtains to raise if we desired to have even a faint idea of the brilliant drama of this extraordinary country.

We used to seek some quiet spot in the garden on the Rocher du Dom and read or talk as fancy dictated. Soon we found ourselves in a very labyrinth of story and legend. Veil after veil was lifted and the events of bygone days began to loom out upon the background that was still real and sunlit before our eyes. The lie of the land, the personality of the cities, the part that the castles had played in the romantic story, all rose before us like some bright mirage. The very air seemed full once more of ProvenÇal song and dance: tenso, chanson, rondo, pastorella, descort, ballada; and one could almost hear the twang of lute and ring of voice as the wind swept through the ruined windows, or we caught the hurrying swish and murmur of the Rhone. It was quite an excitement, in turning over the leaves of some old volume to come upon the poems of troubadours whose stories we had smiled or sighed over. For there was almost always something pathetic about these bright figures of wandering minstrels, with their fine dress, courteous manners, ardent temperament, and too often a disillusioned and lonely end, sometimes fighting against the hosts of Saladin, not seldom within the shadows of the cloister.

In thinking of this world of the troubadours, one must give one's thoughts a longish tether and the imagination a touch of the spur, for their journeyings were far and wide over the country, from the mountain regions in the south-eastern districts of France to the farthest west of Languedoc and the Dukedom of Acquitaine. There must stretch before the mind's eye the whole beautiful region, sea-washed along its southern boundaries, watered by splendid rivers, set with cities and ruins whose names ring through the centuries; and away to the north the vision must fade at its edges into sharp peaks, while vaguely beyond, on the verge of the consciousness, must sweep back wave after wave of mountain country, up and up in steeper and wilder masses to the towers and pinnacles of the Alps.

But the real heart and centre of Troubadour-land is Provence, the region east of the Rhone and south of the mountains of Dauphiny. It includes the whole romantic hill-country on the spurs of the Maritime Alps; and all along its shores to the east, the rocks cut clear and red into the blue of that wondrous sea which has sung its soft and ceaseless song through the tumult of all our civilisations and of all our dreams. And beautiful among them has been the dream of Provence!

Much of the romance and beauty is the gift of the troubadours who taught their countrymen—nay, all Europe—to see life with new eyes. For about two hundred years they sang their songs; till they were silenced in the thirteenth century by the Albigensian wars. They were a race of singers and of lovers, for love was the principal theme and the main interest of their lives. Their love-stories were invariably more or less unhappy, for not only were the times disturbed and the dangers many, but the lovers were seldom wise of heart or rich in knowledge of the art of life. And so they were tossed on the sea of this rude age, on the sea of their own wild jealousies and distrusts, and sorrow and disappointment generally marked the end of the romance.

The famous Rudel, hero of Rostand's "Princesse Lointaine" who fell in love with the distant princess whom he had never seen, and journeyed far over the sea to visit her, only to die in her arms almost on the instant that he beheld her, was perhaps one of the least unfortunate of the fraternity, for he never knew the bitterness of disillusion; never frittered away his sentiment in little quarrels and misunderstandings, never suffered the miseries of jealousy.

Soon the famous names began to call up to us a living personality like that of a friend: Raimbaut de Vacqueiras, Bernart de Ventadour, Pierre Vidal, Cadenet, Bertrand de Born, Guilhelm de Cabestaing, Pons de Chapteuil.... And then the charming Countess of Die, the Sappho of Provence whose voice "had the colour of Alban wine" according to her modern biographer already quoted. The leaves of the volume were always sharply arrested when we came upon her name.

In vain, it would appear, had she a beautiful voice and a beautiful face, for she fell in love with that ProvenÇal Don Juan, Count Raimbaut d'Orange, who soon grew tired of her, as her sad songs relate.

We were delighted to come upon the following truly disconsolate canzo, for it seemed to bring us in touch with the poor lady:—

This was translated into French prose as follows:—

The Countess goes on in the same strain at some length. Raimbaut, it appears, was very popular with the ladies of his brilliant world, but the poetess reminds him that he ought to know who "best loves him and is true withal." But no appeal moves him—to Barbara's great annoyance.

The account of this gentleman's hardness of heart called forth many exclamations, as I read verse after plaintive verse. How any lady could have set so much store on so coarse-grained and worthless a person as the Count of Orange was difficult to understand; but as Barbara conclusively pointed out, she had fallen in love with him for some unfathomable reason best known to the Laughing Gods. But it was very annoying, all that waste of emotion and suffering. We found ourselves almost as much troubled over it as if it had happened to some friend whose infatuation one had tried in vain to cure with arguments and pure reason.

It was a strange, emotional world that we were wandering in, and as the books with which we were trying to find a clue to the puzzle took opposite views of the manners and ideals of the age, it was not a little baffling. To find our way was like trying to get out of a labyrinth. Often an author would insist that these ardent canzos were merely conventional exercises in the style of the day and meant nothing personal. But the theory would not stand investigation. Hueffer, in his book on the troubadours, says of these singers:

The fact seems to be that there was perfect social freedom for the forming of romantic friendship between troubadours and ladies on the foundation of artistic sympathy, and this was the relation really aimed at and taken for granted. It was scarcely a friendship as one now understands the term, because the attitude of the troubadour was necessarily (according to the theory) one of extreme homage and devotion, in which the element of romantic love might or might not mingle. But it was modern friendship with that devotional attitude in addition.

One of the most striking characteristics of the age is its "young-heartedness," the quality that every true knight and lady was expected to show. The festivals, the dancing, the prevalence of song and gaiety were all an expression of that youth of the spirit which belongs to certain epochs, races, and individuals, and is by no means incompatible with a profound seriousness of thought and of outlook.

It proceeded, doubtless, from the great vividness of the life, and the immense impetus of thought and emotion that produced and was produced by the new ideals.

"So true it is," says John Addington Symonds, "that nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When the Egyptian priests said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the quality of imperishable youth belonged to the true Hellenic spirit, and has become the heritage of every race which partook of it."

There was a characteristic Charter issued to the "King of Youth" at one of the many festivals or celebrations which set the whole land of Provence dancing and rejoicing. And there was also l'Abbaye de la Jeunesse, a sort of club which every town, big and little, is said to have possessed, the members choosing a chief of the group annually, to lead their gay processions and inspire their songs and festivals.

One other quaint and humane institution which this singular country boasted was the "Hospice des Mal-MariÉs," but except the arresting title nothing seems to have survived in the uncertain records.

The quality of young-heartedness and that other beautiful attribute that the French call "politesse du coeur" belonged essentially to this land and epoch.

Of course among the golden threads some very black ones are interwoven: traits of horrible treachery and barbarity standing out violently amidst the texture of beauty that the finer spirits were weaving for the ennobling of all human life; but these traits were survivals of a former set of traditions and of the instincts which these had created.

These lines might well describe the historical moment of the new birth. Love was then held to be "the ultimate and highest principle of all virtue, of all moral merit, of all glory," and it produced—that is when it was of the genuine kind demanded by chivalry—a state of "happy exaltation of the sentiment and charm of life." This age seems to have invented—or reinvented—the "joie de vivre" and the "joy of love." It is remarkable that the language of the troubadours had two forms of the word joy: joi and joia; joi being used for an expansive and energetic state of happiness, joia for the passive, reposeful form of the sentiment.

While the troubadours were carrying everything before them in Provence and Italy, the minnesingers were plying their romantic trade in Germany; that is late in the twelfth century; but the Gay Science had spread from Provence to the other countries, the troubadours visiting foreign Courts and giving lessons in their art.

This outburst of poetry is described by M. Fauriel as

It is not a little strange and satisfying to realise that the strong wave of sentiment of which one is conscious in all great architecture was in the Middle Ages the same that produced the magnificent flight heavenwards of the human imagination in all that regarded life, its problems and its relationships. M. Fauriel, on the subject of the freedom of chivalrous love, writes:—

"A woman," he continues, "could only feel her ascendancy and dignity, as a moral being, in relations where everything on her part was a gift, a voluntary favour, and not in relations where she had nothing to refuse."

As an example of the darker threads we may take the career of Guilhelm de Cabestaing, the unfortunate author of the famous canzo, a fragment of which is printed at the head of the chapter. He is one of the most prominent figures in troubadour history. He celebrated the charms of Berengaria des Baux, but his real love was for the wife of the Count of Rousillon, a ferocious person who suspected the troubadour's passion and set to work to entrap him by questions as to the state of his heart. Guilhelm, seeing his danger, admitted that he was seriously in love, but with the wife of another seigneur.

"Ah!" said the Count, pretending great sympathy, "I will help you in your suit; we will go at once to the castle of the fair lady."

Guilhelm had reluctantly to go, dreading the worst; but the lady, realising the situation, played up to the part, acknowledging her love for Guilhelm, and the Count's suspicions were thus allayed, but only to be aroused again by the canzo ("lou douz cossire") which Sermonda asked her lover to write to assure her that his faithlessness was only apparent. The gruesome end of the story, the treacherous slaying of the troubadour, the serving up of the heart at table to the wife, and her suicide on hearing the ghastly truth, illustrates too well the darker side of the life of the epoch.

Pons de Chapteuil was a troubadour whose story greatly interested us, partly because of the romantic idea of the two mountain-set castles, one the home of Pons, at Chapteuil, near Le Puy, the other that of Alazais of Mercoeur, about twenty-five miles distant, "as one would measure across the mountains of Auvergne," says Justin Smith in his charming account of the story.

"Really it seems a little strange and eerie," he exclaims, "the romance between these two castles in the sky—a little like a love-affair between the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn."

The story was tender and bright and sad, as love-stories are apt to be, and very characteristic of the time. First the admiration and sympathy and the necessary adoration, then the taking fire of two generous natures; for this time the hero of romance is one to claim our admiration as a noble follower of the laws of chivalry.

Alazais had been married, probably by her father or her feudal over-lord, to Count Ozil de Mercoeur, for whom she made no pretence of any feeling, not even of esteem. It was evidently a mariage de convenance, as most marriages were in those days, and the love of the Countess of Ozil for her neighbour across the mountains at least did not rob the Count of her affections, since he had never possessed or apparently desired them.

"In essential womanliness," says Justin Smith, "and in the graceful arts of social intercourse, we may think of her as the equal of any lady we have met.... Courtliness was her abiding principle, the true courtliness which consisted in ... graceful speech, in avoiding all that could annoy others, and in doing and saying everything that could make one loved." The mutual attraction of these two, the same writer continues, "penetrated by the fire of two ardent natures, came to be love, as the rich flow of the grape, changing its quality insensibly, acquires in time the sparkle, the bouquet, and the passion that make it wine."

Taking into consideration the times in which they lived, one would suppose that fortune favoured these two, and that for once one should have a nice cheerful story to console us for the many sad ones.

But no; Pons must needs harbour doubts of the sincerity of Alazais, and so he determined to test her by the time-honoured device of exciting jealousy. He therefore proceeded to devote himself ostentatiously to another lady, expecting a "burst of passionate anger" from Alazais. But that lady, one is glad to learn, disdained reproaches and kept a dignified silence. After all, she seems to have argued, Pons was not bound to devote himself to her or to continue to do so if he were tired of it.

So Pons, much astonished and chagrined, "became uneasy," as we are told, "quitted the lady of Roussillon, and returned to pray for pardon." But Alazais apparently thought that trying experiments upon a person one professes to love was somewhat inconsequent, and she intimated that she preferred not to receive Pons. He sent her a song, explaining his conduct.

"Ah, if you ask what urged me to depart," it begins (although, in fact, Alazais had never asked anything of the kind, much to the troubadour's annoyance)—

But Alazais replied never a word. His influence over her seemed to have been entirely lost. Pons then "employed three ladies to plead his cause," and they entered so warmly into the undertaking that finally they succeeded. So Pons made another song, very joyous this time, swearing that "henceforth he will keep strictly to the path of love, without deviating a hair's-breadth."

But in the midst of this new-found happiness Alazais falls ill and dies.

Barbara was much aggrieved. I scarcely liked to read her the end: how Pons wrote a piercing lament, saying he would close his heart and rend his strings, and

a resolve which he actually carried out. He became a member of one of the military brotherhoods of the day, and died fighting in the Third Crusade.

This story, however, sad as it is, is among the most attractive of the troubadour romances, because the characters of Pons and Alazais were, on the whole, a near approach to the chivalric standard for men and women.

"When Pons" (to quote Justin Smith once more) "rode out of the lists, bearing his lady's glove in triumph, he felt a joy quite fresh in the experience of mankind."

This is, after all, a big fact, and it disposes once and for ever of the depressing doctrine that there is nothing new under the sun. If the twelfth century produced a new and beautiful fact in human history, so can the twentieth.