finale d'un bel opéra comique? Tout est gaieté, magnificence idéale sur la scène. Nous sommes à mille lieues des vilains côtés de la nature humaine. L'opéra finit, la toile tombe, les spectateurs s'en vont, le lustre s'élève, on éteint les quinquets. L'odeur de lampe maléteinte remplit la salle, le rideau se relève à moitié, l'on aperçoit les polissons sales se démener sur la scène; ils s'y agitent d'une manière hideuse, ils y tiennent la place des jeunes femmes qui la remplissaient de leurs grâces il n'y a qu'un instant. "Tel fut pour la royaume de Provence l'effet de la conquête de Toulouse par l'armée des Croisés. Au lieu d'amour, de grâces et de gaieté, on eut les Barbares du Nord et Saint Dominique. Quant aux barbares, c'étaient nos pères; ils tuaient et saccagaient tout; ils détruisaient pour le plaisir de détruire ce qu'ils ne pouvaient emporter; une rage sauvage les animait contre tout ce qui portait quelque trace de civilisation; surtout ils n'entendaient pas un mot de cette belle langue du midi, et leur fureur en était redoublée. Tout fut fini pour les Provençaux ; plus d'amour, plus de gaieté, plus de poésie; moins de vingt ans après la conquête ils étaient presque aussi barbares et aussi grossiers que les Francais que nos pères." The southern provinces lost their independence, and were one by one annexed to the crown of France. With the princes and princesses, nobles and knights of Provence, its poets also vanished, or carried their C gaiety and gallantry to the rising courts of Naples and Sicily; the romantic tales of chivalry and the gay fabliaux, which appeared in the court dialect of the Norman princes, became the popular favourites; princes and nobles ceased to sing, or adopted, like Thibaut king of Navarre, the more fashionable dialect; and the Provençal muse expired, or lived only in the lingering efforts of some poor minstrel, compelled (to use the words of Albert Marquis de Malespina) Anar a pe a ley de croy joglar, Pauvre d'aver, e malastrucx d'amiex; As vagrant juglar doom'd on foot to rove, till at last it is only left to Nostradamus to lament, that "nostre langue Provensalle s'est tellement avallie et embastardie, que a peine est elle de nous qui sommes du pays entendue." Several vain attempts were however made in Southern France to rally a spirit which had arisen in a peculiar state of society, and vanished with the circumstances to which it owed its existence. Even so late as 1323 an academy was formed at Toulouse for the cultivation of the Gai Saber; and floral games were instituted, which it is said exist at this day, though the language in which the prizes are contended for is the Northern French. It may be acceptable to some readers to have an opportunity of comparing the ancient southern tongue with the following specimen of the modern Languedocien spoken at Nismes, which is said to be more harmonious than the dialect of Provence, Cevennes, or even Montpellier. It is a translation of the 37th ode of Anacreon [from "Odes d' Anacréon, traduites en vers Languedociens par Le Cen Aubanel l'ainé-à Nismes, an. 10."], and has more of the Troubadour spirit than of faithfulness to the original. Tenen la sesoun de l'amour, Eiço n'en senblo uno aoutro vido, L'aiguo es lindo coumo l'arjen; Lou sourel es aou e luzis, Tou cantejo, tou es counten, The selections in this volume are generally confined to the love-pieces, as illustrative of the songs of the Minnesingers. A complete estimate of the varied character of a Troubadour knight can only be formed by tracing its bold lineaments in his various works; one while breathing the fire of martial glory, animating his followers on to heroic enterprise; another time turning his muse into a powerful political engine, that shook the thrones of kings, or made profligate churchmen tremble in their corrupt hypocrisy, and yet soon afterwards melting into the soft and luxuriant harmony of a chanson. Such was Bertrand de Born,―restless, ambitious, and impetuous in his counsels,-a faithless friend and a rebellious subject. From his castle of Hautefort he sent forth lyrics which bade defiance to France, England and Spain, while his biting satires excited distrust and divisions among his enemies. At another time he rushed to arms, and carried havoc among the vassals of Philip Augustus, and of Henry II., in whose family he was perpetually sowing discords, and making il padre e'l figlio in se ribelli : DANTE, INF. c. 28. Among our selections will be found one of the songs with which this extraordinary being stimulated the appetite of his followers for blood and war, in strains almost as sanguinary as the funeral anthem of Regner Lodbrok and yet it will be seen in a subsequent specimen that the same fierce spirit could, when it suited him, "turn to words of love," and sigh out a plaintive ditty-a "dolz pleurai "—at the feet of his mistress. It has been usual to mark a broad line of distinction between the productions of the Northern and Southern schools of early French poetry, between the writers in the Langue d'oeil and the Langue d'oc. The Provençaux are supposed to have confined themselves to their love-lyrics, pastorals, tensons, and sirventes; while the Normans are stated to have devoted themselves as entirely to romances, lais, and fabliaux. Both assumptions are probably equally incorrect; and we shall hereafter see that the Northern school was almost as prolific as the Southern, in what are usually considered as the peculiar characteristics of the latter, though few specimens of this class of Northern poetry have as yet been published: and there is as little doubt that the Provençaux were the authors of very many tales and romances, although hitherto few of such productions have reached us in the Southern language. It is strange indeed that these latter subjects should be supposed never to have been handled by the very class of men who, we are told almost in the same breath, took a prominent part in introducing into Europe (as the spoils of the |
