Chapter XXII: Raimbaut De Vacqueiras and Guilhelm Des Baux

"De la solitaire demeure
Une ombre lourde d'heure en heure,
Se détache sur le gazon,
Et cet ombre, couchée et morte
Est la seule chose qui sorte
Tout le jour de cette maison."

ALPHONSE KARR.

There is a particular stately house off the main street that suggested itself as the house of the golden-haired lady of Les Baux. Her burial place pointed to her having belonged to a family of importance. She was probably the wife of some tempestuous seigneur, and her life, cut short so early, had doubtless been one of storm and peril.

We were filled with an immense desire to know more of her, and as we piled conjecture on conjecture, she gradually assumed a definite form and personality, and we felt towards her a sort of baffled sympathy.

We called her Alazais, for that name had pursued us since we began to interest ourselves in the annals of Provençal chivalry.

She was graceful, delicately fashioned, with a certain reserved strength in the courtesy of her manner, and her eyes--Barbara and I were disposed to part company about her eyes, one leaning to blue, the other to brown; so we split the difference, and Alazais received large pathetic eyes of hazel.

* * * * *

We sit down on the parched hill-side by a heap of stones, and let the genius of the place work its spells. And busily it begins to weave as the afternoon light throws its glamour over the grey of rock and ruin, while a little wind comes up from the Crau and plays across the grass.

Raimbaut de Vacqueiras--Guilhelm des Baux--the mere names of these two strong personalities seem almost to summon them to their old haunts. Fancy kindles with this glowing sun and this tremendous scene; the forlorn city begins to stir and breathe, and then suddenly--some distant sounds from below seem strangely like the clatter of horses' hoofs--a twelfth-century cavalcade on its way to the castle!

And there are voices. They come up faintly through the sunshine, the voices of phantom riders who are hastening up the steep incline.

If at this precise moment Guilhelm des Baux and his troubadour friend with their followers are not where they seem to be, that is a mere incident of Time, and what is Time? An unreality, a mode of human thought. And so the insistent sense of the gay procession is not entirely a dream!

Certainly it is insistent! The clatter stops half way at the little _Place_ in front of the church of St. Vincent, and there some of the company appear to go up the hill to the fortress.

One instinctively listens. Are they exchanging parting words or jests with one of their number who stays behind? Perhaps Alazais herself is leaving or entering her prison of a home and the gallant troubadour has knelt to kiss her hand. It would be all in the day's work of those times.

Possibly Raimbaut de Vacqueiras was seriously in love with her. One may be allowed the supposition.

We half shrink from it, however, when it comes to the point, for it would have meant so tragic a story.

If it was not one of the Princes of Les Baux who served up the heart of her troubadour-lover, Guilhelm de Cabestaing,[23] as a dish to his wife, it was quite in their most approved manner.

The luckless wife having, all unconscious, tasted of the dish, her lord informed her what it was and asked her how she liked it.

"I like it so well," she replied, "that henceforth I will taste no other," and she flung herself headlong from the castle window.

The horror of the tale lingers in the thoughts even as they turn to other things: to the figure of the lady herself leaning over the parapet of the little platform that hangs over the valley; to the scene in the castle after the tournament when the gay company has gathered in the hall, and there is singing and playing of the vielle and verse-making and dance; to the love-songs of Raimbaut, thrilling and sweet above those of other troubadours. He was but too fitted to attract: handsome, courtly, quick-witted, warm-hearted, a warrior poet, a knight and a singer.

Our poor heroine had no chance! One can see her in the splendid barbaric hall, among the throng. White was her _bliaut_, or robe, finely embroidered in gold, and her long mantle was fastened to the shoulder with a clasp of sardonyx.

It was not merely the beautiful dress, but the noble manner of wearing it that counted in those strange little courts of the Middle Ages. If the life was wild and terrible, at least it had an exquisite and gracious side.

One can picture Raimbaut, too, as he hastens to greet Alazais; one can see her smile of welcome, grave and gracious, half ceremonious, half encouraging.

And then the scene grows clearer and more realistic, for we come upon a piece of solid history.

Between Raimbaut and his famous patron, Guilhelm des Baux, many little disagreements had disturbed of late the long friendship. Raimbaut, accustomed to ride and fight and make verses by his friend's side, had perhaps presumed upon the intimacy, and once he went so far as to rally the Prince upon a recent incident that had amused the district.

His Highness had been casually ravaging the estates of his neighbour, Count Aimar de Valence, and one day when he was on the Rhone in a small boat, some fishermen caught him and he had to pay a large ransom to Count Aimar, and be ridiculed into the bargain by Gui di Cavaillon, whose tenso on the subject was taken up and sung by all Provence. For notwithstanding the new sentiment obligatory on all noble and knightly persons, the men and women of the twelfth century had by no means escaped from the base clutches of the ancient _régime_ whence they sprang, and to them the misadventure and mortification of a neighbour seemed exquisitely funny.

Even Raimbaut's sense of humour had not advanced beyond that primitive stage.

His jests made the Prince very angry, and a quarrel arose between the two which overthrew once and for all their affectionate relations.

Then Raimbaut knew that the end had come to this era of his life, and that he must go forth to seek his fortunes anew.

And Alazais, in whose honour he had made such innumerable verses? He must leave her too--love and friendship had come to naught at one blow.

How beautiful she had looked in her white robes--perhaps there had been something in her glance that had made him forget consequences--everything--except--what folly it was!

Quick, pen and paper! A _canson_ had darted into his head. Farewell to joy and Alazais! Such a tribute was only expected and fitting whatever might be his real sentiments.

Raimbaut had got well into the third stanza, and the lady's hair had been compared to six different resplendent objects, when he was summoned to take part in the events of the evening.

"Holy Mary!" cries the poet, "can a man not be left in peace while he writes a _canson_ to his lady?"

He goes muttering imprecations on idle folk who cannot even pursue their idling without the help of busy people.

Les Baux is among the places to which is attributed one of the most famous of the Courts of Love, and to this tribunal one may imagine the troubadour wending his way through the crowds who are parading the streets, singing and dancing the mouresca, their ancient Saracenic dance, drifted westward from the mountains of the Moors.

Raimbaut is greeted with reproaches for his tardy arrival. The business of the Court is in full swing: gracious ladies and courtly knights are judging compositions according to the rules of minstrelsy, discussing nice points of honour and conduct, burning questions concerning the purity and preservation of the language, the rights and duties of the love-lorn.

"Is it better to have wisdom or to be irresistible with the ladies?" is one of the recorded subjects.

"Who loves the more, he that is broken by his lady's coldness, or he that is stimulated thereby to distinguish himself the more?"

"Which is harder to bear, debt or love-sickness?"[24]

The jury look in vain to Raimbaut for his usual brilliant judgments. Alazais, we may imagine, had guessed the cause of his silence.

And she knows her own fate as she sits there, beautiful and calm; perhaps accepting it as the will of heaven; perhaps struggling desperately against the thought that the troubadour would go forth into the world and quickly fill the place of love in his heart--perhaps with another love!

"Come, Raimbaut, what is your opinion?" cries one of the young men, "You were not wont to be so moody."

It had to be explained to him that they were discussing the pains and penalties of love, and whether after all it did not offer too much grief and longing and too little reward to make it worth the while of a reasonable being; the proposition of a truly bold spirit in a mediæval Court of Love!

Raimbaut's reply is recorded in the history of his life: "A man forges cold iron who thinks he can make a gain without a loss."

Perhaps he looked back to the scene of his boyhood, the little town of Vacqueiras across the mountains, and recognised how he had enlarged his world by coming here and how he had so lost things dear to him, never to be regained.

And now there was to be another gain--and another loss.

One seems to see him in close debate with himself as to what he should do. From the little house at Vacqueiras he used to gaze on the grey towers of Les Baux on the heights and dream of it as a goal beyond which no sane hopes could wander.

Now, from the farthest point of the windy tableland above the Crau he can see, or almost see, more than one famous city where he would be welcome. Aix, the stately little home of learning with its hot springs dear to the Romans, had still to wait for two centuries for its good genius, King René, and suggested few possibilities to the troubadour.

To the south lay Arles and Marseilles. Count Barral of Marseilles would make a merry and an easy-going patron; but there was an obstacle in that direction.... Just a little this side of Arles, in the extreme corner of the Camargue, he catches sight of a faint outline which he knows to be the church of Our Lady of the Marsh, Ste. Maria de la Mar, "Les Saintes Maries," as it is now called throughout Provence, and down on his knees goes the warrior poet and says a prayer to the Blessed Three, begging that they may be favourable to him in the decisive step he is about to take, and that they will direct his choice.

And now he has to wrench himself from the present scenes and to make his many farewells, one among them hard indeed to face.

Yet perhaps it was best he should go. There had been gruesome tragedies at Les Baux----!

The day of departure could not be long delayed; the Prince was relentless.

Just one glimpse of a beautiful, haunting face as Raimbaut rides past the sombre palace where the lady of his heart lives a life which a woman of to-day would deem that of a condemned prisoner.

She stands at the open door among a lively group who have collected to see him pass, as indeed all the people of Les Baux are waiting to bid their beloved champion and singer God-speed.

He uncovers his head, and Alazais acknowledges his salute with the rest. And suddenly Raimbaut's heart gives a leap, for he knows what he did not know before! But the cavalcade goes on down the street, and he rides on to his fate.

* * * * *

Long, pensive shadows of the ruins are stealthily gaining upon the golden light on the grass when we begin to descend to the lower town. The main street, down which Raimbaut de Vacqueiras seems to have passed but a moment ago, is horribly silent, and the city spreads its desolation upwards to the sinister castle--where no blood-red banner is now flying.

We go on to the platform in front of the church of St. Vincent, and stand looking over the parapet. The gloomy vale below is filled with the mysteries of twilight.

From this point one could watch those who go and come to the city from the side of the mountains, for they must emerge from or pass through the Gate of the Rocks on whose threshold we ourselves had our first sight of Les Baux that afternoon. Even as we look we can discern a small speck against the limestone--exactly so must the figure of Raimbaut have appeared to any eye that watched him from this balcony of rock. Did not Alazais so watch? And did he not turn and take one last long look at the city he was leaving? Presently, as she gazes (as we now gaze), there is no longer a black speck against the white; the valley is empty--and a faint breath of wind comes down it like a sigh.

And presently the sun begins to approach the edge of the cauldron, and the taller buildings take on a tint of vivid rose colour. How that golden hair must have flamed up into glory if its owner watched there on such an evening!

We had visited her place of burial in the church behind us; a sad, silent spot that might have supplied a text for many a solemn sermon.

Mouldering walls and an empty grave. But they breathed forth no solemnities to us, or at least no gloomy ones. Rather they whispered of the mystery and power of life and passion; of things potent, creative, immortal.

Nor could we believe that the vivid consciousness of self and soul in that being to whom we sent our thoughts could be less enduring than the mere echo of her words and deeds in a universe where not a breath in the air or a tremor of the ether can ever be truly lost.

It was impossible not to speculate further regarding the real self of the woman as distinct from the self which reflected the world of the twelfth century. What that world expected of her we know, and so we know a very large part of the reality, for the emotions of most of us are the product of this eternal outside suggestion.

But there is sometimes--perhaps always--deep down in the being, a hidden spot that acknowledges no such dictation; and here would spring up yearnings and criticisms, revolts and despairs, while the wife of the feudal seigneur punctually and uncomplainingly fulfilled the demands of her position.

Did she ever, even for a moment, see the grim reality of that position, or was it hidden from her eyes by tradition, habit, by the little palliatives and privileges which her power as a woman and a beautiful woman, would win for her at this auspicious moment of new-born homage for her sex?

It is not at all unlikely that some inkling of the strange situation would drift across the consciousness now and again, for it is just at the moment when a burden grows a little less overwhelming that the bearer begins to cry out against its oppression. Before then he has no breath with which to cry!

Personal trouble and the sting of unhappy love might have stirred momentary feelings that would link our heroine of the golden hair with her sisters of future generations. It is unthinkable that such feelings were never in the hearts of women, in some form or other, in the days of their darkest captivity.

Perhaps, as she watched the troubadour riding forth into the world, she rebelled against her task of eternal waiting and submitting; against the all-extensive claims made upon her as part and parcel of her husband's estate and dignity: for her position in this respect was made clear enough when he threateningly commended to her vigilance the duty of safeguarding his name and the "honour" of his house on pain of punishment such as only a mediæval seigneur could devise.

Called to account for every act and word, admonished like a child--and often in the tone used to the hounds after a bad day's sport--not the most secret emotion of her heart legitimately her own--body and soul the property of her lord and his all-important family: her life was one long reminder of the humiliating facts. Was she tired of being warder of her own prison? Even the hounds were not that! Was she sick of this strange stewardship of herself as the property of another? Must she remain for ever shut away from ambitions, passions, hopes? Was she never to know what love and loyalty as between free human souls meant? Was she never--fool, fool that she was----?

* * * * *

Some interruption occurred here, and Alazais ceased to soliloquise.

Barbara said that there was really no need to address as "fool, fool" the entirely sensible-looking nun who emerged from the church of St. Vincent, with her Mass-book in her hand.

The apparition of a creature of flesh and blood in this strange place was almost startling, and it brought back considerations of time and place and other delusive modes of human thought. There was dinner to be considered--delusive but necessary as delusions are;--in short, the hour of departure had struck.

We turned slowly, reluctantly from the parapet, thinking of Raimbaut de Vacqueiras as he rode away to his new destiny, his wanderings from court to court, his ardent love-affairs at Montferrat, his joys and great sorrows, till at last wearied with misunderstandings, disappointments, and saddened with the restless trouble of his life, he joined the Crusades and died fighting against the Saracens.

The home of Alazais looked more shadowy and mournful than ever as we passed it on our downward way.

"De la solitaire demeure
Une ombre lourde d'heure en heure,
Se détache sur le gazon,
Et cet ombre, couchée et morte
Est la seule chose qui sorte
Tout le jour de cette maison."