she vaguely feels
that asceticism is in violation of some higher law of life. The great
love in her heart knew no faltering; so much like devotion was it that
one feels that she meant no name but that of Abelard to be associated
with the words of a dirge attributed to her:

"With thee I suffered the rigor of destiny;
With thee shall I, weary, sleep;
With thee shall I enter Sion."

CHAPTER III

WOMEN IN EARLY PROVENCAL AND FRENCH LITERATURE

GUILHELM--or William--X., Duke of Aquitaine, remorseful because of the
ravages committed in Normandy by himself and his allies in 1136, started
on an expiatory pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint-James of Compostella.
Before going he willed to Louis the Fat, King of France, the
guardianship of his daughter, "la tres noble demoiselle Eleonore," sole
heiress of his extensive dominions, including Poitou, Marche, the
Limousin, Auvergne, Gascony, and Guienne. This Eleanor was to be the
brilliant and passionate Queen of England, mother of Richard of the Lion
Heart and of John Lackland. But we will not anticipate her story, for
sixteen years of her life precede the time when she became the queen of
Henry II.

The youthful heiress had been left as the feudal ward of King Louis, who
lost no time in securing her domain for the crown of France. Duke
Guilhelm died in the church of Compostella April 9, 1137-1138. Eleanor,
now Duchess of Aquitaine, was but sixteen years of age, but she was not
long to remain unmarried. Prince Louis of France, accompanied by a
gorgeous company of five hundred knights, under command of the Count
Palatine, Thibaud de Champagne, came as her suitor,--a suitor whom she
could not refuse. She was married, and crowned as future Queen of
France. On their way back from Bordeaux to Paris the young couple met
the news of the death of Louis the Fat. Eleanor was thus Queen of France
indeed, but there was more of the south, of Toulouse and Bordeaux and
the troubadours in her nature than was quite good for one who was the
wife of the correct, devout, narrow-minded, though not stupid or unkind
Louis VII.

She came of a race notorious for reckless love of pleasure, for
sparkling wit, for vehemence of temper and strong passions, for utter
disregard of the merely decorous, the sober commonplace rules of either
morals or society. We have seen some of the pranks of her grandfather,
William of Poitou. Her father was not less high-tempered, though less